On day 1, we arrived at 4:30pm at White River Campground and hiked maybe five miles and 2700 ft to St. Elmo's Pass, where we made camp. There were so many stars, I didn't want to go to sleep for fear of missing any. Well, that, plus we had to fight off the mice that were trying to get into everything. The little jerks.
The next day we traversed the Winthrop Glacier at a little over 7000 ft, and found ourselves on Curtis Ridge, looking down at the Carbon Glacier. We had to drop a few hundred feet to find a way down to it. But hey, we got our first views of our route from there.
Ascending the Carbon Glacier, left, and the ridge, right, center. We camped behind Thumb Rock, 10,800 ft. Three other parties were there or showed up shortly after us. We spent a little while tinkering with gear and filling water bottles, then turned in.
Since we were going to be skiing down, we actually wanted to snow to soften up for once, so we allowed ourselves to sleep in in the morning and didn't start climbing until this sunrise came to demand tribute. We started up at 5:30 am. Surprisingly, only one party left before us.
Willis Wall at sunrise.
The thing that struck me most about Liberty Ridge, I think, was that it's not dull drudgery. On the Emmons, for example, you see the whole route laid out before you at the outset, and it holds no surprises for you until you reach the crater rim. But on Liberty Ridge, you can seldom see more than half an hour ahead. You wind around rock towers and occasional seracs, and everything is new. The position is wonderful, with drops of thousands of feet to the Carbon Glacier on the east and the Russell on the west. Willis Wall stands to your left, with its 300 foot ice cliff at the top, and huge hanging glaciers and icefalls go by on your right. Ya just never get bored.
The guys who left before us.
We made it to Liberty Cap, 14,122 ft, at about 11:30. It's a nicer summit than Columbia Crest, but as this was my first ascent of Rainier, I wanted to bag the real summit. So we trudged a mile across the summit plateau, losing a couple hundred feet, and then regained them to reach the summit. Although Liberty Ridge has an average slope of 45 degrees, the climbing didn't get difficult for me until we were crossing the summit plateau, which is about as level as you can get. I guess there's just something about going from sea level to 14,000 that hits you right in the cardiovascular system.
Unfortunately, our real summit photo, with all three of us, is out of focus with our heads cut off, and overexposed. So I offer you this picture of us on Liberty Cap instead. Columbia Crest is in the background to the left. That's Doug on the left, and me on the right.
We hung around in the crater, melted some snow for drinking, and had a little snack. It was quite warm and protected from the wind in the crater, and the snow was still too hard for skiing anyway. So we stayed until nearly 2:00.
Unfortunately, me trying to ski the Emmons may not have been the brainstorm of the century. I could have done it with ease on my downhill skis, and figured randonee gear wouldn't be too different. Wrong. First off, I hadn't adjusted my bindings and really had no idea how much I should tighten them. I didn't want to waste a lot of time on it up there, so I just skied with them loose. Second, I never realized just how much I depend on having a rigid upper boot that prevents my ankle from bending much. I found that I had to stay in very good balance or I'd end up leaning back against my boot. Only my boot didn't support me. So the upshot is that I carried my skis for nearly three days up the damned mountain and only skied down 800 feet of it. It was a rock hard washboard up there, and I didn't think it was any place to mess around. Especially since we were skiing unroped. So I took my skis off and carried them all the way back down. Doug and Nick got in some good turns, though. I'm impressed. They were on pins, by the way, not randonee. I guess a pinhead will tell you you can to anything on pins you could do fixed heel, but hey, I don't believe a word of it.
Doug skiing past some seracs.
All in all, it was a great trip with a great couple of guys. Maybe they will read this and get the bug to go do something in a few weeks.
-Tom
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