Accuracy in reporting

sometimes it matters, sometimes it doesn't.  to cookie's and ac's point, it probably depends on your objective and your audience..

Mt. Rainier is a bad example since it's been climbed and guided by 1 trillion people and its summit is a mile wide crater, not a dramatic spire.


If you're trying to make money and a reputation from your climbs then, yes, 'accuracy' matters.  But this is a skiing site and most here are interested in good ski lines, not peak bagging.  If you asked this question on a climbing or mountaineering site I'm sure the answers would be different...

Who cares? Have you been to the summit of Rainier? Seriously, there's not much to miss there.

Now Liberty Cap, that feels more like a summit. And it still gets monotonous hitting the top of that baby from the Mowich Face, Ptarmigan Ridge, Liberty Ridge, whatever.

Just to twist Lowell's analogy and have some fun, skiing Mt Rainier from somewhere short of the summit, for many routes, would be like NOT putting ketchup on a top quality ribeye cooked rare.

The snow conditions are horrendous off the top more than 90% of the time.

Mt. Rainier is a bad example since it's been climbed and guided by 1 trillion people and its summit is a mile wide crater, not a dramatic spire.

Agreed.

Liberty Cap has become the usual high point for ski descents of the NW side of Rainier, just as the North Shoulder has become the usual high point for descents on the north side of Mt Shuksan. If I was climbing and skiing those peaks every other weekend, I would probably do the same. But I'm not. My trips these days are few and far between, so I want to savor them. And if I manage to do a "first descent" I want it to be as complete as possible. When my brother and I skied the north ridge of Forbidden Peak we climbed to the summit and back. I thought climbing the upper ridge in ski boots added to the challenge. If we had skipped it I would have felt that the ascent and descent was not complete.

Who cares?  Have you been to the summit of Rainier?  Seriously, there's not much to miss there.  

...

The snow conditions are horrendous off the top more than 90% of the time.

Oh, Sky, I miss you!

I guess I've lucked out for getting good ski conditions atop Rainier a lot more than Sky has -- snow conditions have been horrendous off the top much less than 50% of the time for me (and even many of those times, only the first 100 vert or so were horrendous). I've skied beautiful powder or smooth corn in the crater right below Columbia Crest several times now.

That sounds pretty simple to me. While reaching the crater rim of Mt. Rainier is no easy task and I fully understand saying “screw it, close enough,” it’s not the top! Unless you’ve slogged across the crater, past the register and up to the tippy-top, you haven’t truly climbed Mt. Rainier.

Are there any other mountains out there where it’s acceptable to lie about reaching the top or is Mt. Rainier unique? (I might have to rethink the list of mountains I’ve climbed.)

I've read about many guides with impressive numbers of summits of Mt Rainier, but I’ve never seen an asterisks after those numbers.

As far as I know, the standard practice on Mount Rainier (used by guide services, climbing rangers, and most climbers) is to count any ascent which reaches one of the three 14000+ ft peaks (Columbia Crest 14411 ft, Point Success 14158 ft, Liberty Cap 14112 ft), or any part of the two craters' rims, as a "Rainier summit". The lowest point on the crater rims is at about 14180 ft on the SE side of the east crater (which is also the point at which the DC route reaches the rim), and is higher than either of the two satellite summits, so it "makes sense" to count that if the satellites count. But merely exceeding 14000 ft while failing to reach the crater rim is not counted under the accepted standard.

I'm not sure how or when this standard practice arose -- it would be an interesting question to ask Dee Molenaar (who just completed an updated 4th edition of The Challenge of Rainier at the age of 93). Of course, I know a few people who are purists, and only count the times that they have summited Columbia Crest. Good for them, but that is not the standard practice. I choose to follow the standard practice in counting my own Rainier ascents, but if I write a TR, I've always clearly stated what high point was reached. The 3 times (out of 23 ascents) where I have decided not to continue on to Columbia Crest after reaching some part of the crater rim all happen to be documented in TRs on this site. But I always prefer to visit Columbia Crest unless strong winds, incoming weather, or unusual circumstances intervene. I don't think it's "lying" to follow the standard accepted practice, as long you state how high you really went if you choose to publicize your climb online or in print.

However, there is another issue in Rainier summit counting too: guides and climbing rangers often count multiple Rainier summits even when they only descend to Camp Muir or Camp Schurman (or even Ingraham Flats at 11200 ft) between the ascents. That sounds a lot more suspect than merely missing the last 200-300 ft, because saving 4700-5800 ft of vertical by not descending back to the trailhead (while having a relatively cushy building to stay in) makes it much easier to rack up large numbers of Rainier summits. I personally think that any ascent of Rainier should have to start from a trailhead in order to be counted, but standard practice is to count multiple ascents from high camp as separate Rainier summits.


There are many other mountains where standard practice is to count summits without having reached the actual true summit, including several prominent Washington volcanoes: Saint Helens, Adams, and Baker.

Mount Saint Helens post-1980 is the classic example -- I doubt that more than a few % of the skiers or climbers who reach the crater rim on Saint Helens actually reach the true 8365 ft summit. The standard Monitor Ridge route does not go directly to this point, and the Worm Flows winter route reaches the rim even farther east. The true summit is a long way away via an unpleasant often-icy traverse. However, the finest route I've skied on Saint Helens is the SW side via Dryer Glacier , which does lead to the true summit -- but it's a long way from Cougar Sno-Park when the road FR 81 is gated. The route is best skied when the road is deeply snow covered though, since you have to cross a large lava flow at Redrock Pass.

Mount Adams: when snowcovered, almost everyone who summits heads directly to what looks like the highest point -- but is not. It's the snow-covered top of the lookout cabin located at about 12250 ft at the SW end of the summit ridge, about 1/4 mile SW of the true 12276 ft summit (a USGS marker on a small boulder on a flat pumice field). The fire lookout was built in 1918, abandoned a few years later, used by sulfur miners in the 1930s, and then abandoned again, to be filled with solid snow and ice. The outside of the cabin melts out regularly now in late-summer of most years, but the interior does not. When deeply snowcovered, the snow atop the cabin may nearly equal the elevation of the true summit (not sure if it ever exceeds it), but nevertheless it is not the summit. Only a few % of those who "summit" Mount Adams when snowcovered actually go over to the true summit.

Mount Baker: many parties ascending via Coleman-Deming and Easton-Squak arrive atop the summit dome and forgo the long traverse east to the true summit, Grant Peak 10781 ft, but still count it as a Baker summit. The summit dome is a thick plug of glacial ice filling the summit crater of Mount Baker (geologists call this Carmelo Crater), which has a highest map contour of 10760 ft and the top of which is usually about the same elevation as Grant Peak, roughly 10780 ft. It may be higher or lower depending on snowpack.


So the standard practice on Rainier is not so unusual, even just among its Washington siblings.

Unless you’ve slogged across the crater, past the register and up to the tippy-top, you haven’t truly climbed Mt. Rainier.

I disagree. I climbed Rainier and I stopped short of the highest point at the crater rim.... I still climbed the mountain and to me I summited. But in defense of your point I do not lie about the altitude I reached. it also depends on your definition of "summit" but to me the summit does not have to be the highest physical point at the top. Even more so on mountains shaped with a rim at the summit like Rainier.