Bivouac -- an extremely lightweight alternative to traditional tent systems. Very popular among climbers and minimalist campers, a bivy sack at its barest is a thin waterproof fabric shell designed to slip over a sleeping bag, forming an effective barrier against wind and rain.

To really be sure you have to bivy for the night in the cold, shivering and cursing, you should do any of these things:

• go on any trip with Christian or Don
• decide that you will follow the "fast and light" philosophy, when you really belong to the "light and slow" group
• only bring 1 liter of water because "you'll only be out for a couple hours"
• leave the bivy sack and down jacket in camp to save weight
• overhear your rope mate ask "what route are we doing again?"

by Christian Mason

This last trip out west made it harder than ever to come back. I didn't get what I wanted, but I did get something very fulfilling.

Whitney

I'll spare you the technical details, but Whitney got about two feet of snow a few days before we arrived. The descent gully was iced up and we hadn't come prepared for full on winter climbing. Mikey Brown and I thought maybe we could still make a go at it, and either rappel the route, or rappel around the iced section. We ran a recon up to the base of the route at 12,500 feet. I'd just flown into LA and drive to low camp (8K) yesterday. I popped an extra diamox and prepared to suffer.

Our plan was to go out and scout things out, then return to 8K, get our partners and get up at 12am the next day, do the approach again, climb and descend all in one day. It would hurt...so much that I wasn't sure I could do it..but I also knew that I would do it when I had no other choice. That's what I had come looking for - to suffer, to "bite off more than I can chew, so I get more than I need, or want" and strip away the unessential and leave me facing things bare. Rainier left me alternating between shaking sobs and elation for days.. but a peace settled over me from it, that's what I came to find.

by Christian Mason

This was some of the scariest climbing I've ever done. The imperative was to move fast, but absolutely not to make any mistakes.

In May 2005, Sid Wiesner, Don W. Ryan H and I went to Mt. Rainier intending to climb the Kautz glacier route. This was the first "real mountain" for all of us. We intended it to be a major learning experience, we nearly got more than we intended. Bad snow conditions forced us to abandon our route of choice and we instead went up Gibraltar Ledges. This trip saw the formation of Team Bivy with our first unplanned bivy. I was later told that Bivy is a french word for "mistake". This trip report began as an email I typed to myself in a public library.

I'm back from Rainier, and in one piece, below is a trip report that I typed in a public library outside Portland about a day after we got down.

Rainier was insane... I'm typing this from the Public Library in Portland, OR. I'm still an emotional jumble of highs and lows from my experience on the mountain, and I'm trying to hold onto some of that. We were the first party to summit in two weeks, but also had an unplanned night out and spent close to 26 hours on the move, the last 15 or so with no food or water. I'd been getting nervous for awhile leading up to this. This was the first mountain for all of us, not counting the little pimples we've climbed on the east coast. Sid has taken the mountaineering school twice, making him the most experienced member of our party in this theater. I'm the strongest rock climber, but was fresh out of the school and overly ambitious. Don and Ryan are both strong reliable guys, but have a cavalier attitude that scares the hell out of me. I didn't know how any of us would handle it if things took a turn for the worse.