fear Posted May 31, 2004 Share Posted May 31, 2004 Climb: Rainier-Liberty Ridge Date of Climb: 5/23/2004 Trip Report: I'll fill in the details and post pics in a few days once I scan them in. Climbers: Bob Blake from CT and Matthew Coutture from VT 5/23 Basically we headed up from Ipsut on 5/23 in windy pouring rain with what looked like an iffy three day weather window. Past Dick Creek Campground we had about 50 yards visibility(no gps). No snow till well past Dick Creek. We got pretty lost and ended up on the lower Carbon. Finally regained the Curtis ridge around 6500. Note: Don't do this. Regained the Lower Carbon and camped on the glacier around 7300. Big perfect spot with a huge broken off serac to play on nearby. Lower Carbon was easy. Blue skies settled in that night and we got great views of the route. Huge shrund up top and about 900' of ice to the left of the Black Pyramid. Eeek. No other signs of anyone being here since the rescue. Deep snow/slush. Note: Bring good light rain gear. 5/24 Headed up to Thumb early. Post-holing hell all the way. Weird crust and holes up to my knees (with 36" legs). Upper Carbon is getting pretty scary. Lots of jumping but the route is still not too bad if you don't mind 4-5' jumps. Gained the ridge pretty high under threat of severe rockfall. Lower ridge almost totally melted out. Note: Gain the ridge before sunrise if you don't like rolling the dice. Mom would not approve. We gained the standard eastern side. Head sized rocks rolling by on all sides. Once across, the western side of the ridge was more technical than we expected. We had two sections of hard 45 degree or so hard water ice sections to traverse beneath rock bands. One tooling for sure but a fall here would be a very bad thing. We are charging a $10.00 fee for every party later this season that uses our postholes that go pretty much the whole way. Enjoy the trail. Thumb Rock was pretty much what we expected. We were beat from breaking trail the whole way. Note: BEWARE THE RODENTS at Thumb rock that destroyed my summit socks, clothes and wrecked our food. I've got the pics to prove it. Called for weather report via cell. Bad weather predicted certain for late tomorrow night/Wednesday. They kept moving the weather up which concerned us. We figured 10-12 hours in these deep snow/ice conditions to Liberty Cap. Plus we had to get down. We didn't want to leave Thumb until 4am to get a little light since we'd never done the route. Cutting it too close for out liking. Very hard decision but we decided to bail before the storms hit. 5/25 Absolutely gorgeous morning at Thumb. Hardest thing I've ever done leaving in these bluebird conditions. That sucked. Cleaned the mouse droppings and piss out of what remained of our chewed gear. What the FUCK are rodents doing at Thumb Rock? How the hell did they get there? Down we went. Depressed for sure. The upper Carbon was missing a few snow bridges that we had crossed 24 hours before. Rockfall from the ridge was extreme once the sun came up. Spent the morning down on the 7,300' Carbon lounging in the sun and ice climbing seracs. By 10AM the first hints of high winds were showing up at the summit. Mare's tails streamed off the summit. By 11AM the entire top was totally socked in with a huge lenticular. By 11:30AM you could hear the wind screaming up there and the lenticular cap and awesome cloud formations around the summit had descended to Thumb Rock. Damn... That went to hell fast. We were almost giddy with our girlish decision to bail but pretty damn humbled too at what was a close call.... We kept flip-flopping our decision at Thumb the night before. Bad weather would persist and get worse for 3 more days. Very fast winds up high were doing bizarre things and sending waves of ring-like clouds down the Willis wall that looked like open mouths.... Time to go.... down down down to the truck by 6PM just in time for the pouring rain to start again. I'll post pics this week and fill in some blanks. This is the first time I haven't managed to grab a summit on Rainier. But after seeing what can happen on this route I'm very glad we made the decision we did.... Be careful out there..... -Fear Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lazyboy Posted May 31, 2004 Share Posted May 31, 2004 Great trip report. Sounds like you made the right decision. I am looking forward to seeing your pictures Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cluck Posted May 31, 2004 Share Posted May 31, 2004 Ouch. It always sucks making the decision to turn back, but at least the weather proved you made the right call. The worst is when the weather doesn't turn bad and you spend the next few weeks/months second-guessing your decision. to smart climbing Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fuggedaboudit Posted May 31, 2004 Share Posted May 31, 2004 Fear- I just replied to you e-mail you sent before you left NE. I responded to that and then found this trip report. We headed in on 5/25 when you guys were on the way down from Thumb. I think we passed you two guys now that I think about it. Did you two stop for food at around the coleman terminus at about 1pm to eat? We were the party of three headed up. If so I REALLY WISH I HAD STOPPED TO TALK TO YOU THEN. Spent the next three days and three nights waiting at 6200' for weather window that never came. Poor vis, wind and constant rain/sleet for almost 72 hours until we headed out. Returning Labor Day weekend for attempt out of White River (looks like a MUCH easier approach). I really wish I had brought my Gore Tex shell and pants. For those of you who haven't already found out the hard way soft shell water resitance DOES NOT mean water proof. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fear Posted May 31, 2004 Author Share Posted May 31, 2004 It wasn't us you saw.... we only saw two guys sitting at the first bridge on the far side rocks. Actually those were the only two people we saw in 3 days on the entire mountain. We did stop to chow at the Carbon terminus on the way down but probably around 4-5PM maybe. Couldn't even see the mountain at all by then. Nice hike up eh? Took us 6 hours up to 7300 and about 5 up to Thumb. Nicer when it's not pissing rain though.... Two groups were going up with us for LR the same day according to the ranger when we got our pass but they never made it even to the Carbon as we had the only footprints in weeks. Did you see the helicopter 5/25? They were looking for somebody just at the weather went to Hell. They flew over the Carbon where we were watching the show 3-4 times. First pass the pilot got real close to the summit and looked like he got some major schooling in wind turbulence. Wonder if someone got hurt that day? -Fear Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fuggedaboudit Posted May 31, 2004 Share Posted May 31, 2004 Didn't see the helicopter, that would have been ominous on the hike in. We were setting up our tent between Old Desolate and Mystic Lake when you were at the Carbon terminus. No need for you to feel bad about descending from Thumb Rock, since 5/26, 5/27 & 5/28 were sleet/rain, low vis and windy. Only view of the mountain were during the first few hours of our approach on 5/25. Haven't heard any news about an injured climber when we were on the mountain, so no news is good news. We followed one set of tracks pretty much until about 6500 and then dropped down a bit to set up camp out of the wind we knew was comming in. So far I only think one solo climber has done the Ridge this year (early May). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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