Been lurking this thread for a bit. First Disclaimer: I am NOT an expert on this mountain...

... but I have co-led a large climb up the Eammons-Winthrop route (7 or 8 rope teams - don't recall exact number). And did a lot of pre-climb training for the noobs on the face under discussion because it is SO easy to get there. Drive to Paradise, walk away from the parking lot, and you're on a big mountain.

Second disclaimer: The outcome was tragic and perhaps involved some selfless sacrifice; I am NOT being post-event critical of the folks involved.

It looks easy from the parking lot at Paradise - and comparatively speaking, it is. Heck, Rainier is not a difficult mountain, relatively speaking. The Muir route starts you out with only a mile vertical left to go (from the parking lot). On a nice day with cooperative snow conditions it's possible to summit without a stop if you're very fit and not afflicted by AMS from the rapid ascent from near-sea-level.

I was always bemused by the huge numbers of folks tramping that route. We joked that if you were to stop to adjust your boot lace, 3 "beautiful people" in neon-colored nylon gear would crampon over the top of your prostrate body. Ah, the picture I'm trying to paint is that the parking lot at Paradise is like a lot of other cool places around the world - things look doable; non-threatening (on a good day), intriguing, "c'mon, we can do this and be back in time for a nice bottle of wine this evening..."

Won't rhapsodize about the weather-making potential of a big coastal mountain (true) and so forth. My point is that one simply should not leave sight of safety (the parking lot / lodge in this case) without everything you need to survive the potential conditions for as long as you potentially could need to. And it must be a conscious habit: What I carry walking away from the parking lot at a MidWest state forest in the summertime is different than what I walk away from a base camp in Colorado in the late fall.

The first principle of Leave No Trace (LNT) is: "Plan Ahead and Prepare." The BSA motto is "Be Prepared". I'm preachy on this (ask my scouts). I've also almost died spectacularly 3 times (very slow learner when I was much younger) because "it" DID happen to me and I was NOT prepared.

I wouldn't focus so much on this or that pet piece of minimalist gear they did or did not have with them. In total, they did not have what they should have had with them. That's what killed the guy who made the ultimate sacrifice for his wife and friend - not the mountain. (Heck, that route is not particularly dangerous as these things go).

Be Prepared.

Regards,

Tom