![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Mt.-Rainier-Tuesday-July-23-Tye-Chapman.jpg\" "\\"Mt.")
<\/a>Mt. Rainier. (Photo by Tye Chapman)<\/p><\/div>\n
I had a chance to catch up with Greg Vernovage after his last Rainier climb. \u00c2\u00a0Yes, Greg managed to get a Mount Rainier climb in between his Denali and Bolivia climbs. \u00c2\u00a0It was a busy weekend on the mountain so I thought I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d pick his brain a little.<\/p>\n
Tye:<\/strong> Sounded pretty busy up high on your climb over the weekend \u00e2\u20ac\u201c how busy was it?<\/p>\n Greg:<\/strong> \u00c2\u00a0There were definitely a lot more people on the mountain than I typically see, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not like we didn’t see it coming \u00e2\u20ac\u201c we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re right in the thick of the season and a July weekend with nice weather is always a popular time on the hill.<\/em><\/p>\n Tye: \u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>You guys managed to get through that tough section and make it to the top and back down in a reasonable time.<\/p>\n Greg:<\/strong> \u00c2\u00a0Yeah, about 5 hours from the flats to the summit, respectable on a busy day.<\/em><\/p>\n Tye:<\/strong> \u00c2\u00a0How did you get by everyone?<\/p>\n Greg: \u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>When I got out of the tent, there were already people on the Cleaver, but the guides and I had chatted the night before about the crowds and I think we had a good plan going into the day.<\/em><\/p>\n Tye:<\/strong> \u00c2\u00a0What was the plan?<\/p>\n Greg:<\/strong> \u00c2\u00a0Beautiful, busy July weekend on Mount Rainier means we gotta think about the route and the team you’re climbing with. \u00c2\u00a0With those variables in mind we figured out what we thought was a good departure time and what we needed to do to have success.<\/em><\/p>\n Tye:<\/strong> \u00c2\u00a0That tough section has been a bit of a bottleneck this season \u00e2\u20ac\u201c how did it go for you guys?<\/p>\n Greg:<\/strong> \u00c2\u00a0It is a fun section on the route this year, but can jam things up. We just stuck with our plan and worked as efficiently as we could. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a good section for guiding, but I can see how it could get a little backed up on a busy weekend.<\/em><\/p>\n Tye:<\/strong> \u00c2\u00a0Why are some groups slower than other groups in that section?<\/p>\n Greg:<\/strong> \u00c2\u00a0Million dollar question. \u00c2\u00a0There are a few obstacles to work through and there are a number of ways to get through them, but knowing that the ladder and fixed line were up there really helped with formulating our plan, credit the good communication amongst all the guides on the mountain and the three guide services as a whole. From there, CJ, Dallas and Heidi and I had a couple of good chats about ways to work efficiently though that section and at the end of the day it all worked out.<\/em><\/p>\n Tye:<\/strong> \u00c2\u00a0I bet the Cleaver was pretty packed for the bulk of the day then eh?<\/p>\n Greg:<\/strong> \u00c2\u00a0Oh yeah, we were around people all morning.<\/em><\/p>\n Tye:<\/strong> \u00c2\u00a0How did you you handle the other teams?<\/p>\n Greg:<\/strong> \u00c2\u00a0The Cleaver is a pretty good time to assess the teams who will be around you during the climb. \u00c2\u00a0I watch how teams handle the rocks that are loose and the spacing of their rope and how efficient they are while traveling. \u00c2\u00a0I talk to most of the groups and find out how they are moving and if they are aware of the route. The bottomline is that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in everybody\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s best interest to communicate and work together.<\/em><\/p>\n Tye:<\/strong> Good climb all in all?<\/p>\n Greg:<\/strong> \u00c2\u00a0Hell yeah! \u00c2\u00a0We got the summit and had a great day!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" July 29, 2013 I had a chance to catch up with Greg Vernovage after his last Rainier climb. \u00c2\u00a0Yes, Greg managed to get a Mount Rainier climb in between his Denali and Bolivia climbs. \u00c2\u00a0It was a busy weekend on the mountain so I thought I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d pick his brain a little. Tye: Sounded pretty busy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mt-rainier"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10126"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10135,"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10126\/revisions\/10135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}