Liberty Ridge - Spring '99

Since the weekend before was a bust, when I got to the Ranger Station, I asked about the Carbon Glacier; it was OK to cross. Hmmmm, how about a permit for Liberty Ridge?? OK, that means I have exactly from 9am Saturday morning to climb, traverse and make it back and out to work Monday morning. Long weekend..

Right on! It's sunny, so whatever. I took skis in, 'cause they're faster than walking. After wanting to have them for the traverse back to the Emmons route, I left them at the foot of St. Elmo's Pass. Nice day, snow wasn't too slushy. When I finally got near the Carbon much later, tried to find the upper ramp down, but decided to go the lower way (elevation ~7,100ft.) which turned out to be very safe, no scary bridges at all. The air isn't too warm, about 50°F., sunblock on.

That's kinda' the way it went. I made it to below the last step up the Carbon before you leave it for Liberty Ridge. Stopped where there was still sun, good idea, at almost 7,900ft. and cooked up mass food for large hunger and snuggled into my new super-wonder bivy sac without a sleeping bag and figured it better stay warm. This is a little over eight miles in, so it was nice to hang out in the sun and enjoy a nice sunset.

Not wanting to really freeze I had my huge down jacket, and enough other stuff to sleep straight through till about four o'clock. Somehow I got it together to be climbing by five. Didn't need a light and things were nice and crispy, cold and solid; with dawn's changing colors of sky. Happy camper.

I wasn't in a hurry to warm up to the hill, but you gain a quick 600feet from where I was to the next step. The snow was fast to move on, the tracks were way far apart for me (made by giants), but I found a rhythm after a while and was glad for two axes to help up to the next step. The upper glacier step is really big pieces and a lot of chaos, but the walkarounds weren't too far and before I knew it, I was on the last traverse to the ridge and hadn't needed to picket a crossing. Didn't need to jump across anything the whole way.

This is fun.

The ridge starts with a traverse on rock piles to the west facing side. This is the view looking up at #1, the toe of the ridge. Then you basically climb snow for at least 6,000ft. at an average of over 47°, so most climbers really like this route. It's fun, long, steep, and right in the middle of the north face of Mt. Rainier, on a sunny day (however, it's a twenty-two mile round trip, not counting the climbing up and down). Soon I was daggering my way up the ridge; finding a good pace, it seemed no time and I was at the Thumb for a break. Leading out from here my first time up, we traversed under the cliff on steep snow to the left and got a line of 60° for quite a while. But soloing it felt better to stay on the trail, and would be faster than breaking tracks. The ice at the bottom of the gully was only two moves high before getting back to snow just past the Thumb.

The Thumb, #2 on the route photo, is a little above 10,200ft., nice views, I could see the team I met yesterday of two, seemed they started about 8am and would probably camp here at the Thumb. When I was just starting the ridge a team of three had left the Thumb above me. So, although I was soloing, I wasn't alone. The talk you could hear was happy, it was a "good" day. Not much wind, not too hot. The snow above about 9,500ft. was packed powder under the surface, more like late winter snow than spring or summer snow. It was that way all the way to the top (but this route is colder than the other parts of the mountain).

I was pacing my climb well, and trying not to go too fast too long. This means I have a repeat beeper set at a minute and a half to remind myself to slow the pace and recover. This helps later in the day, it helps up high (Mt. Rainier is a mid-altitude peak at 14,410ft., but has no surrounding peaks so is very impressive). Above the middle part of the ridge is an endless, steep, 55° face where you begin to get the scale of the route. The views are worth mentioning as you gain a lot fast and look up to sky.

On the left is the view from #3 in the route photo; moving alone with two shorter axes (60cm) is fairly fast, I climbed my way up to the team above me to meet at 13,000ft., #4 on the route. There, under the last pitch, the sunblock came out after the cheese and crackers. I had a gallon of water to start and was done with over half of it. Above us was the headwall, but with the amount of snow this spring, the route had no ice on it, and went straight up where you normally stay on the east side to finish on solid ice and ramps around the bergscrund.

It was blowing clouds over the top in three to fifteen minute cycles now. Late in the afternoon, thunderclouds had formed on the mountain flanks, but hadn't covered the summit all day, this is the view from #4, a nice platform after the long steep face. The clouds were moving in fast. Since I was kinda' in a hurry anyway, I passed the three by, and continued the pace to top out after the several false summits of Liberty Cap just after three o'clock, ten hours bottom to top from 7,900ft to 14,100ft. I was racing for the traverse but basically very stoked from a great day of climbing.

 
It's a long way. There were some people up ahead of me, you could hear thunder now and then, now and then I couldn't see very far. I was aiming for the correct traverse to connect to the Emmons route, which to be safe is made at about 13,900ft. To do that you go in a big semi-circle over to the saddle above the Winthrop Glacier. Since this is fairly high, you don't sprint around. The other teams turned suddenly to the right, obviously worried about the thunder and heading for rocks. There were no signs of lightning on this saddle, the air had no static, and you can bet there will be lots of wind, so I turned left around 13,800ft. and found tracks. It was starting to snow and blow. It was quickly into the 40 knot range and was plastering my pile clothing with a thick layer pretty good; but it wasn't very cold, so I didn't stop to put on my outer storm gear, I just kept moving fast.

Soon I was across the traverse and was starting to descend (this traverse is over a half mile long). I started to relax a little, the way was pretty easy to follow and it looked like I would get under the storm in a while. I slowed down a little, it wasn't long and I could see the route below through holes now and then. The wind wasn't so bad, then it didn't matter. If there was a problem it was that the storm had frozen the surface enough to catch your foot, but not enough to walk on top of the crust. So it took a long time to make the hut. It was after eight when I got there (still light out). I normally descend this route in less than two hours, it took over three.

The ranger was good enough to allow me to make coffee and lemonade and soak up the warmth of the hut. Now the struggle was to make it to the parking lot. I needed a full recovery of course, but took off with only a half hour break; it wasn't too bad getting to Camp Curtis. Descending Inter Glacier is 2,500ft all at once. I was beat by the bottom, and when I got my skis and tried to ski back to the pack, it was pretty hard to control (icy). I tried with the pack on, but I was wasting more energy trying to stay upright so I took them off and began walking downhill. By Glacier Basin I was cooked. With some will, I made the moonlit flats near the creek and crashed instantly once done with shoveling a small platform.

The next thing I remember is waking at 4:30am and being on the move again by 5am, made the car almost without a stop. Found a nice note on my car that helped get me through work (got there at 10am). Definitely nodded out at the monitor, it was a great climb. Twenty-two miles and Liberty Ridge in less than 48 hours, what a weekend...

Copyright by
T.Mallard ©1999