Payments:

A deposit of $275 per person secures your reservation. Payments may be made via MasterCard, Visa, American Express, or check. Final payment is due 90 days prior to the start of your program, and we will send a payment reminder approximately three weeks before your payment is due. If your final payment is not received within 90 days of the program your reservation will be cancelled and all fees forfeited. Trips departing within 90 days from the reservation date must be paid in full at the time of reservation.

Cancellation:

Once we receive written notification (mail, e-mail, or fax) that you are canceling an individual participant or your entire reservation the following fees will apply. A fee of $275 per person will be charged for cancellations made more than 60 days before departure. There will be no refunds for cancellations made less than 60 days before your program. Unfortunately, due to the time-sensitive nature of our business, and the difficulty in re-booking a trip close to departure, we cannot make exceptions to this policy.

We also reserve the right to cancel any program due to inadequate signups, weather or route conditions. In such a case, a full refund is given; however, RMI is not responsible for any additional expenses incurred in preparing for the program (i.e., airline tickets, equipment purchase or rental, hotel reservations).

Change of Date:

Date changes are subject to availability and apply only to the current climbing season. Date changes may be requested at anytime up to 30 days prior to your departure date for a $100 fee per person. There are no date changes allowed less than 30 days before departure.

Risk Management:

RMI guides draw from their reserves of experience and training to make sound decisions that improve your program without compromising the necessary margin of safety. Managing risk is RMI’s number one priority. Our guides manage significant hazards inherent in mountaineering such as avalanches, ice fall, rock fall, inclement weather, and high winds, but they cannot eliminate them.

Please clearly understand that mountaineering is inherently a hazardous sport. You are choosing to engage in an activity in which participants have been injured and worse. While those accidents are indeed infrequent, they may occur at any time and be out of our control. We ask that participants acknowledge that risk, and make their own choices about whether or not to engage in this activity. We ask that each participant is physically and mentally fit, is properly attired and equipped, and continues to self-assess throughout the adventure to ensure as safe a program as possible. We ask that participants honestly and accurately describe themselves, in terms of fitness, health and skills, and their equipment to their guides, and that they adhere to the advice of their professional mountain guide.

Climber Responsibilities:

RMI has a goal of achieving the highest possible success rate while maintaining a significant margin of safety on each program. We recognize that mountaineering is an individual challenge as well as a team endeavor. This puts responsibility on individual climbers. If a climber’s own physical fitness limits his or her ability to safely continue upward, that can negatively impact the summit experience or opportunity of other climb participants. For this reason, when signing up for a program, we strongly encourage you to honestly evaluate your fitness. This will allow RMI to suggest the best program for you, and will allow the greatest opportunity of a safe, successful adventure for all participants.

Summit Attempt:

Rainier Mountaineering, Inc. (RMI) cannot guarantee that you will reach the summit of Mt. Adams.  Weather, route conditions, or your own abilities may create circumstances that make an ascent unsafe, and you or your entire party will have to turn around without reaching the summit.  Failure to reach the summit due to a person’s own lack of fitness or to any of the events associated with mountaineering (such as weather, route, avalanche hazard, team dynamics, etc.), are not Rainier Mountaineering, Inc.’s responsibility and will not result in a refund or reschedule.

Special Circumstances:

Rainier Mountaineering, Inc. under Northwest Mountain School operates under contract as a concession within Gifford Pinchot National Forest. Occasionally our teams encounter other climbers, whether guided or non-guided, who need assistance in the form of rescue or evacuation. We are both contractually and morally obligated to assist these climbers when practical and safe to do so. This rendering of assistance may compromise your program and the possibility exists that your climb may be aborted. While rescues and evacuations occur very infrequently, such situations are beyond our control, and a refund will not be offered.