13 November: Mount Rainier

On this date in 1843 Mount Rainier in Washington State erupted. 10 things you might not know about Mount Rainier.

1. Where is it? It is located in Mount Rainier National Park about 59 miles (95 km) south-southeast of Seattle. On a clear day, you can see it from as far away as Corvallis, Oregon and Victoria, British Columbia, up to 300 miles away.
2. It is the highest mountain in the U.S. state of Washington and the Cascade Range. It has three summits, actually. The highest is called the Columbia Crest and has an elevation of 14,411 ft (4,392 m). The second highest summit is Point Success, 14,158 ft (4,315 m) and the lowest of the three is Liberty Cap, 14,112 ft (4,301 m).
3. Mount Rainier is the most heavily glaciated peak in the lower 48 states. It has 26 glaciers and 36 sq mi (93 km2) of permanent snowfields. The glaciers are important sources of streamflow for several rivers, including some that provide water for hydroelectric power and irrigation. There are ice worms living in the glaciers. These worms spend their entire lives in ice, wriggling to the surface to feed on snow algae. The ice worms found in Mount Rainier are also found in the glaciers of Alaska, Oregon, Washington, and British Colombia, but have not been found on other glaciers in the world. They can grow to around an inch long.
4. There are two volcanic craters on the summit, each more than 1,000 ft (300 m) in diameter, which overlap each other. Within the craters are 2 miles (3.2 km) of caves. The cave network is of great interest to scientists because of the tiny organisms which live there, feeding off the noxious gases in the cave. Scientists are interested in them because if there was life on Mars, it would probably be similar.
5. While on the subject of alien life, on 24 June 1947, Kenneth Arnold reported seeing a formation of nine unidentified flying objects over Mount Rainier. His description led to the term "flying saucers".
6. Mount Rainier has been known by several names. Native American tribes in the area called it Talol, Tacoma, Tacobeh, Pooskaus or Tahoma. Those names meant things like 'mother of waters', 'snow-covered mountain' or 'place where the water begins'. There's a theory that Tacoma might mean 'larger than Mount Baker', another volcano in the same mountain range, which was known as 'Coma'. The first European to see the volcano was Captain George Vancouver when he reached Puget Sound in early May 1792. It was he who gave it the name Mount Rainier after his friend Rear Admiral Peter Rainier. In February 2014 it was briefly re-named Mount Seattle Seahawks by Washington State Senate in honour of the fact said team were playing in Superbowl XLVIII. The day after the match it went back to being Mount Rainier again. This may not be the last name change, as there are discussions going on about whether it should revert to its original Native American name.
7. It's not an easy mountain to climb. 8,000 to 13,000 people attempt the climb each year and about half of them fail, usually because of the weather or not being fit enough. Those that do make it usually take a couple of days to get to the top. One notable exception was a woman named Bronka Sundstrom who did it in 4 hours and 40 minutes in 2002. Even more incredible – she was 77 years old at the time.
8. In 1951, John W. Hodgkin, an Air Force Lieutenant equipped his plane with skis and landed it on the summit of Mount Rainier at 14,410 feet, setting a world record for high altitude landings. When he wanted to take off again, however, his plane wouldn't start, so he had to spend the night in it and then slide it on its skis down one of the glaciers and glide the rest of the way to land on Mowich Lake. Once he got there, an Air Force rescue plane was able to drop 20 gallons of fuel so Hodgkin could refuel and fly back to where he'd started from.
9. Mount Rainier is considered one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world, and it is on the Decade Volcano list. This list consists of 16 volcanoes around the world which are dangerous because of the likelihood they could erupt again and their proximity to human habitation. They are named Decade Volcanoes because the project was initiated in the 1990s as part of the United Nations–sponsored International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction.
10. What kind of damage could it do if it did erupt? It's a stratovolcano which means it could erupt explosively resulting in lava flows which could destroy everything in the immediate vicinity. The ash it would belch out could cause problems from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada to San Francisco, California. All the glaciers make for even bigger problems as the ice deposits dislodged by an eruption would cause something called lahars where rocks and mud would be carried along the valleys. There are lahar deposits in the area from ancient eruptions which are currently home to about 150,000 people. A repeat of those ancient lahars could destroy parts of downtown Seattle and cause tsunamis in Puget Sound and Lake Washington.

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