Training For Mt. Rainier's Emmons Glacier Route: Jackie's Story

​In this episode, I interview Summit Strength client Jackie about her recent climb of Mt. Rainier, following the Emmons Glacier Route. Inside, she shares some insights about her training and mental preparation, and also her experiences on the mountain.

How To Train To Climb Mt Rainer 

Twelve thousand feet up, fresh snow, thirty miles an hour winds and suddenly, a total whiteout. Just one of the challenges Jackie faced on her recent adventure.

It was awesome to have Jackie on the Training For Mountaineering Podcast to chat about her second attempt at the Emmons Glacier route on Mount Rainier, and the mental game that got her through it.

Inside, we chat about:
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• The training shift that changed everything between attempt one and attempt two
  
• Climbing through 25- 30 mph winds and reduced visibility at 11,500- 12,000 ft
  
• How she talked herself back from the edge of panic mid-climb

Episode Transcript:

Q: Do you just want to give us a bit of background for us? Just let us know where you're from, what do you do, and what is your background in mountaineering?

All right. So I'm from Minnesota. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, a clinical research consultant and statistician, which is too many things already. And my background in mountaineering: I would still consider myself relatively newer to mountaineering. I rock climbed for years. I've done a lot of multi-day backpacking, in the San Juan Mountains and Yosemite. A friend introduced me to mountaineering through ice climbing, and I fell in love with it, and when I found out about mountaineering, having all the things that I loved, I was like, sign me up. So previously I did the Fisher Chimneys route at Mount Shuksan, this is all in the Cascade Mountain area in Washington. And then the Emmons Glacier route last year on Mount Rainier. Neither of those, unfortunately, was I able to summit. Mount Shuksan we got sleeted out, 40 mile an hour winds, and then last year I chose not to summit with my team, which we'll talk about later.

Q: And then what was your most recent adventure, the one you've just come back from?
Yeah, so my second time on the Emmons Glacier route on Mount Rainier. That was in June.

Q: And then in the past, and I guess we can even use the example of the previous attempt, in the past, what was your typical approach to training and physical preparation for this?

Totally. So I usually approach my training with pack walks, stair intervals, strength training, and random spurts of running with weighted running. I don't really understand why I chose a sport where I needed to become an endurance athlete, so that is my cross to bear. One of the reasons I had reached out was because I was listening to your podcast and you had a few episodes where you were like, oh, you don't have to run all the time to be in great shape for mountaineering, and I was like, this man is an angel, and I'm gonna reach out to him because I need him for my training. So that's how, in the past, I typically approached training. I've been kind of a lifelong athlete. And in another life I did CrossFit and Olympic weightlifting. So the strength training piece of it, I felt really confident with. But I had some holes.
And the reason why I was looking for a trainer was, so last year I had done the Emmons route on Mount Rainier. To give a little context, walking into it, two years ago now, I actually was slated to do Mount Shasta with REI, but they had unexpectedly closed their adventure arm. That was in January, and my trip was supposed to be in May of 2025. So in January, when I got that email, I was like, well, I want another 14,000er, I want to continue to develop my skills. So I chose Mount Rainier, and I chose a different route than the typical one. The Emmons route is on the east side. It's not a packed trail. It's not well marked. Your lead guide has to do route finding. It's a longer trip. I chose that because the spots available were farther into the summer. So I was like, okay, I had six to seven months to get my training together. And my training was pretty spotty because I just had a laughable amount of stressful events going on. Even so far as coming up to the trip, of my first time going on Rainier, a week out, I found myself in the emergency room getting stitches in two of my fingers and having licensed professional medical providers be like, all right, you got to take these stitches out before you get on the mountain and dermabond your skin back together. And I was just like, all right.
So I had not realized how much the small, unexpected stuff, and not having a really good structured training, had started to impact my confidence in myself. And then it was like day one, sorry in advance, but I got my period and I had really severe cramps, and that was the straw that broke the camel's back, and I just found myself grinding to a halt on the first trip and just thinking, oh my gosh, what am I doing? And then I got into this kind of thought quicksand, which is, you start believing your fear and you get stuck in it, and then another fear comes in and pulls you down even more. And that just kept happening.
What was beautiful about the rest of that trip was that I had guides there who were really supportive, because physically, I knew I could do it, but my mental game was honestly pretty trash. I think part of it was that I'm a pretty good athlete in the sports I've been in, and I'm used to picking things up pretty quickly. And this just so badly exposed so many of the foundational pieces that I needed. It felt pretty embarrassing at the time to get to that point, because I had a lot of people back at home cheering me on and I'd told people about this. So it was kind of an ego check for myself. For the rest of the trip I really focused on just being a beginner and throwing my ego off to the side, and regaining more confidence in my body because I felt so discombobulated. When we got to around 11,000 feet on summit day, I was like, I'm good, because you're roped up, and you also don't want to be the person who impacts the rest of the team. So I made that decision and I went down at that point. That was my previous trip.
Coming off of the mountain, I made a commitment to myself: hey, I want to do this differently. So when I got my confirmation in September of 2025, yep, you're going back to Emmons Glacier, let's go, I was like, I need help. And then found you, called you up, and then we started working together.

Q: And I guess when you were going through that, obviously there was a lot of challenges you faced in the first time around. But when you had decided to get on the call, have a bit of a chat, was there any specific things you were like, you know what, these are kind of things I need to hone in on to kind of make this second time a little bit better?

Yeah, I really wanted to continue to increase my strength, especially since on the mountain you're going 4,000 vertical feet, having much more confidence in my lower body. I also wanted really well-rounded training. I've mentioned this before, I am not an endurance athlete at all. Don't like running. Nobody knows me by that. I played hockey as a kid, which is just, you get out on the ice and sprint for two minutes and come back and sit down. And very similarly, Olympic weightlifting, you lift heavy for two seconds and sit back down and eat gummy bears, it's beautiful. So now having to keep going was aggressive for me. And I really needed some good support, and being able to build that foundation without having to do running all the time, but with somebody much more skilled supporting that structure for me.

Q: So let's talk about the training that you did do through Summit Strength and how we kind of approached this journey. Let's start with when we first kicked things off. How did the training start initially, way back when?

Well, to be pretty concrete about it, how it typically rolled out is we had four or five days of training a week. That looked like some strength, some intervals, and some hiking. I'd love to say we got into the training and it was super smooth and nothing came up, but that is not life at all. Pretty early on, I had dealt with some pretty stressful, unexpected changes in my workplace. And then within three months of that I opened up my own business. So there was a ton of stress, and my body reacted pretty significantly to it. I had radiating pain, almost what felt like TMJ, everything in knots, and I'm sitting there thinking, I just hired this guy to help me, I'm so grateful, but this is not the way I want to start training.
Communicating that was such a big deal, telling you that, and you adapting the training significantly for several weeks to help me progress without further inflaming my body. That took probably four or five weeks, maybe up to six weeks. Then we came into the holiday season, and towards the end of that I got influenza A, so I was out for a week. And then it was the sheer stress of standing up a business, and I'm a single income earner, so I'm doing all of that, I've got deliverables for things. I was really struggling with work-life balance and prioritization. Around February 2026, I was still completing workouts, but struggling to complete all of them, and I was sick a few more times, which did not help my morale. I felt like I couldn't catch a break to save my life.
What was interesting was that during a conversation with my boyfriend, who, for context, is an athlete and also a personal trainer, he's been a coach for a really long time, we were having this conversation that had nothing to do with my training but was really about his approach to coaching. He said, I can't say it verbatim, but he said something like, I'm never going to judge somebody for life happening, or their body not responding in a way they didn't think was going to happen. Stuff happens. And he really emphasized being in the know, because he can't help if he doesn't know. At that moment I was like, oh man, I got to communicate more, because I was getting in my own way. I was letting my frustration with the unexpected life events, which just happens, it happens to everybody, it's not personal, and then the shame of, oh man, another thing comes up, or I'm not able to do this, get in my own way.
I remember messaging you with a really honest reflection of my situation and a recommitment to my original goal, asking for your help and support. And what was so helpful to me was that you responded with such respect and grace, and made it clear you didn't judge me, it was the same approach: stuff happens, I just got to be in the know, otherwise I can't help you, but we can adapt. You appreciated my honesty, and we could make a plan moving forward, which we did. I made a big concerted shift in my effort and prioritization because I had this come to Jesus moment, as we might call it, of, when the rubber meets the road, okay, why do I want to do this, why is this important to me? After that, it was, I mean, relatively smooth sailing. I really focused on pushing myself in those workouts, prioritizing, and then working on my mental game.
One of the things I loved is that you've got this whole library of, I was going to say TED Talks, but these little mini TED Talks or series that cover all things hiking, mountaineering, endurance athlete stuff, anything from dealing with an injury to mindset. I went through that series for the mindset, and I took a lot of that to heart. One of the things you talked about was switching up the cues from your brain: instead of focusing on, oh my gosh, my legs are burning, I'm going to die, or I've got to do this for another hour, using that as a cue to remind yourself or speak positively to yourself. So, I am strong, my legs are strong, even using the cadence of your step to do so. That was so helpful to me that I actually made bracelets for my trip so I could be reminded of that. During that training I really focused on both of those coming up to the trip, which was super helpful.

Q: I want to take a little step back and talk about, okay, you've obviously gone through this period, you had all these challenges, and you had that moment where you're like, okay, now's the time, rubber hits the road, reassess. So obviously we had that conversation. Talk us through there, like in that type of timeline, when we had that conversation, that readjustment, how far away were you from this upcoming trip? And then, what did the actual new approach look like for you in that moment?

Yeah, I think we're like 90 days out. Does that sound about right? I think so, about right. So we're about 90 days out, enough to make it matter. And the biggest thing we shifted was the hiking. I live in Minnesota, so it's not like, I mean, we could hike in the winter and that would be helpful too, and also sometimes we get negative 45, which is not ideal. So we shifted to, you really asked me to be realistic about what I could do from week to week, how many hours I could do, whether a short hike or a long hike. So rather than having a hike every week, it was within three weeks, one short hike and one long hike. At that time I could say two to three hours for a shorter hike and four to five hours for a longer hike. Ideally I would have loved to do an eight hour, because that's summit day, but we worked with that.
And then you did incremental progress on the stair steppers, even doing carrying heavy loads on the stair stepper and those kinds of intervals, and just regular pack walking, not even on a trail, which was really helpful. You integrated a lot of those pieces and made it so every few weeks, even though it was a higher jump, you'd tell me, hey, we're gonna go for it, but you also gave me options in case my body responded a certain way. So it was, hey, if you're not able to do this, just focus on these and do this instead. For example, if I wasn't able to do all of the intervals on the stair stepper at say 60 pounds, it was, try to do the first one and then go lower on the rest of them, so we're still doing that movement. And you gave me really specific cues on what to look for in my body: if you have a twinge or if you have this. And what was helpful is I know my body well enough to know the difference between a muscle strain and just my legs burning, but even having those cues, and having permission that if that happens, that's how you know to move down in weight or intensity, was super helpful for me, especially as a newer athlete coming into the endurance world. Because otherwise I probably would have done too hard or too intense, too fast.

Q: So let's talk about the trip now. We've had that reassessment. We've had about 90 days, kind of had a pretty quick ramp up leading up to the trip. Let's talk about the actual adventure. So give us the rundown. Give us the journey. Tell us how it all played out.

Yeah. So let me see. I went with a guiding company, about six of us climbers, three guides, which is like a two to one ratio. Mount Rainier is 14,400 and change, almost 14,500 feet. The first day with Emmons, you start at the trailhead, which is around 4,400 feet in elevation, and that first day you're hiking a solid 4,000 vertical feet. So you're going from the gravelly trailhead and trail up to the snow, putting on your double boots, not your crampons yet because we haven't hit the glacier, and then hiking again for another few thousand feet until we hit what's called Interglacier camp, around 8,500 feet. The first day is the hardest day: your pack is heaviest, it's the first day of a long four days, your body's getting used to everything, and you're also getting used to the cadence and pace the guides set, which I thought was pretty standard. You're getting to know everybody, because I'm one of those people who signs up for trips not knowing anybody, I just figure I'll get to know them, which is great. It was me and one other woman, two females, and the rest men, so we got to tent together, which was really exciting.
The second day we start with snow school, which is basically the guides assessing and reviewing some foundational mountaineering skills: doing a self-arrest, different types of mountaineering steps like the rest step, descending. Then, because we're not getting onto a glacier yet but we're on crampons, we got roped up, three rope teams, and climbed to Camp Sherman, around 9,600 feet, just a few hours, nothing too big. The cadence is you're usually hiking for about an hour to 90 minutes and then stopping for, I mean, on summit day it's 10 minutes, but usually around 10 to 15, maybe 20. We got to Camp Sherman relatively fast, but what was crazy is that Rainier had had historic snowfall, so there's a permanent snow shaft there and a bathroom, and for anybody who hikes, having a bathroom is great because then you don't have to pack out your waste. But it had been covered with 15 feet of snow, so somebody had come in and actually shoveled it all out, and I was like, that man is also an angel, we were very blessed by that.
We camped there, and that day is supposed to be short because you want to get to sleep. We didn't do an actual alpine start at midnight, we got up at 3am, left around 5am. Again, the cadence is about 90 minutes for about a thousand vertical feet, then stopping for about 10 minutes. You're not bringing your whole pack, just your snacks and a bunch of layers, because as you get higher up on the mountain it gets a little dicier, you just want to be prepared for whatever. We got to around 11,000 feet, and one of our climbers and a guide decided to turn around, so we moved from a three rope team to a two rope team, two climbers on mine and three on the other. We kept going up. Like I said, Emmons is not marked, so it's really important that you're watching where your guide steps, because they're marking the trail as they go with little flags and yelling back, go to the right, and you're like, all right, because there's usually a huge crevasse that goes down thousands of feet. So you're head on a swivel the whole time. The slope is anywhere from a 50 to 60 degree slope to 30 to 40 degrees, so it can get pretty steep.
When we got to around 11,500 or 12,000 feet, the wind picked up, and it had just freshly snowed, so it was a whiteout with 25, 30 mile an hour winds. It got really cold and really hard to see at some point. This is where my training really came in, because on the mountain there are times where it's really important where and how you step, especially on Emmons where you've got crevasses and snow bridges. If a guide tells you you need to step here, you need to be paying attention and do that. With the visibility, I found myself thinking, I don't know how much I like this, I can't see anything, and I really need to see where she's going, and there's 30 feet between you and the next person, so by the time I'd walk through where they'd walked, their tracks would already be barely visible. I remember getting a little, oh, are we going to be okay, almost dipping into the quicksand again. But my mantras came back, and I was like, nope, I'm strong, my legs are strong, I'm strong, I know what I'm doing, I'm confident, I'm going to be okay. That was super helpful.
Then we got to about 13,000 feet, and right before that, probably 200 feet before, speaking of snow bridges, there was one of those, and it was really particular where you stepped. Unfortunately, the climber on my anchor of my rope had punched through it, so we had to do a self-arrest. He got out totally fine, he'd gone up to his armpits, and he was having a pretty hard time. At about 13,000 feet, with the number of guides and climbers we had, it's kind of you're all for one, one for all, so if somebody needs to go down, we all go down. The decision was made to descend as a team. By that point it had been about four and a half hours of climbing and then about two and a half hours of descending, and after that much up and down your legs get very jelly like. It's just a long day of climbing, and even with all the snacks and everything, your pack is still about 20 pounds. We got back around eight hours later, later that night, debriefed, and the next day we packed up camp and headed home.
One of the things you do on this kind of trip, once you're off the glacier where there's no crevasses or potential crevasses, is glissading, which is beautiful, and for anybody over the age of 20 it's amazing for your knees because it makes me sad that I'm old and my joints hurt, Rowan. Glissading is you sit on your butt and slide down the mountain, using your pack to help you go faster or slower, like a brake. We were able to glissade down about a thousand feet, which was awesome, then hiked back down to meet the actual gravel trail, another couple hours or so, and got to the trailhead. We all had a go bag, which was great, so we all put on actual clean clothes with deodorant, which was beautiful, and then made our way back. So that was the overview of my trip.

Q: Yeah, so obviously, big journey there, a lot of challenges, a lot of things that you went through. And so I guess once you got back, you were off the mountain, you were down there, you had clean clothes on, how did you feel? How did you feel mentally, how did you feel physically, obviously been through a lot? Talk us through that.

I was so proud of myself. Physically I had felt so confident the whole time, I really got to enjoy being on the mountain. It was such a 180 degree difference between my last time going and this year. I just felt very confident and secure, and that was really great because then I could have fun. Obviously bummed about the summit, mountaineering, the summit can't be your be all end all goal, it's really kind of the journey, but it is a milestone. So I was bummed that I felt so strong, but that's just how it goes, that stuff happens on the mountain, and it gives me an opportunity to be able to go back.

Q: Yeah, absolutely. And I guess on that front, then, what is the plan of attack for your adventures moving forward? Are you going to make it a third time or are you going to look somewhere else?

Yeah, I'm going back for a third time. Third time's a charm. It's type two fun. So I needed some time to be like, I got to forget about this trip a little bit, because there are times on the mountain where you're like, why did I pay for this, this is aggressive, but then afterwards it's just such a beautiful thing. So yes, I plan on going back to Emmons route for a third time. I also plan to add in Mount Baker as kind of a precursor, another one of the mountains in the Cascade range, around 10,000 feet. For that, I want to continue to work on honing my mountaineering skills and down climbing and descending. Just having something that gets me on a mountain before actually going on Rainier would be super helpful. So Rowan gets to have me for a client yet again.

Q: And then, yeah, I think, like for listeners, taking out of this, I know a lot of people, a lot of the nuggets you kind of shared today are going to be super, super useful. But I also know there's probably going to be quite a few people listening who are considering this specific climb and this specific route. If someone was considering this climb or even something like similar, what advice would you give them?

Yeah. So this probably sounds like common sense, but I would work on foundational mountaineering skills. Do a 101. Do other climbs, get used to being on a glacier, being on a rope team, because there's a lot of technical finesse to being on a rope team and what that looks like. If you go on a rope and don't know what you're doing, you could hurt yourself or other people. So just having that gives you a lot more confidence. The other piece I'd say is really physically train, especially for Emmons, you're looking at a pack of 65 pounds, it's a four day extravaganza. So if you've done a few climbs, you could do it, but I'd also suggest going with a guide or somebody who really knows that mountain, because Rainier, she's a beauty, but she's her own mother nature, right, she can get really dangerous pretty quickly. Having people who are skilled to help you find a route, especially because it's not a packed trail, there's no fixed lines or anything, is super important.
I cannot stress enough the physical training and mental training. Because even if you've been on the mountain, been on other things, a case in point, the climber that decided to turn back had a wealth of background in mountaineering and hiking, had done a 20,000 footer, and for a lot of different reasons, some more personal to her, she really struggled on the trip. So it's not to say that just because you've done other mountains that are higher or harder, you should take that for granted. I think coming into each trip with a fresh mind and openness, checking your ego at the door, or at the trailhead, and saying, this is a mountain, it's just as challenging, and I have to give it my all, that should go into your training.
And then I think the last thing I'd say is, it's really important that you're able to assess and articulate what you need, even if it upsets other people. Because if you hold back, I think, as much as mountaineering can seem like a solo sport, it is a team effort, because it's everyone's individual trip, but you're all impacted by each other. If you're so busy worrying about whether asking for this is going to be a burden, or how other people are going to think, you're putting your own trip, your own health and well-being, at cost just for someone's perceived opinion of you, whether they think you're cool or that big of a burden. But the fact of the matter is, everybody's focused on their own stuff, and if you're not focused on you, then nobody is. You need somebody in your corner. So I think having that ability to say something, see something, say something, is going to be really imperative to your success on the mountain, and your continued longevity.
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Q: So I guess before we finish things up today, was there anything else that we didn't get a chance to cover that you wanted to add in before we wrap up?
I don't think so. I just really appreciate the opportunity to talk about my trip. I hope that it is helpful for other folks, I know it would have been for me. And just know, if you want to do mountaineering, do it. Take classes, ask for help. Just do the thing that you want to do. I think the beauty about the culture of hiking and climbing and mountaineering and endurance athletes is that it's super welcoming and inclusive. It's just kind of scary to start anything new, but if you want to do it, do it.

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