Been a rough few days. Mount Rainier was a character building experience for me this time around. Didn't actually summit - two person rope team for me with a set of friends on a three person rope team. Going up my partner got acute mountain sickness. Nausea, vomiting, confusion & dizziness at about 13,000ft. Not an amazing situation to be in when it's you and one other person on a rope. I went into guide mode, short-roped my partner, and forced us back down the mountain. By about 10,000ft my partner was feeling better but that was probably the longest feeling and most stressful few hours of mountaineering I've had so far. The aftereffect though is good, knowing that I am capable in practice of handling a situation like that in a safe and efficient manner. One bad step though and things could have been different.

Then, later on, this story broke...turns out a person I know was on a different route with much, much greater objective hazard and didn't make it off the mountain alive. Couple of deaths around my life in the past few weeks. Lot of processing and wondering what to do.