Lib. Ridge - Worth the Read

[Blake]

Great Pictures and narrative.

 

http://www.summitpost.org/mountains/trip_report.pl/mountain_id/117/trip_report_id/2030

[kurthicks]

wow.

[sweatinoutliquor]

Jeez, sounds like a pretty serious adventure. Glad those guys made it off okay. Good story and pictures.

[olyclimber]

nice technique. yes, definitely worth the read.

[Couloir]

We pulled down the tents, roped two by two, and set off left and up in snowshoes. The route quickly became a steep traverse in the predawn darkness, and wishing for the improved stability of crampons I placed my first picket several hundred feet up.

Wow! I can't imagine wearing snowshoes in the dark and presumably solid snow on that route.

[Winter]

Pretty grim. I made the same mistake heading down the Winthrop but was able to reverse it before getting too low. Navigating to the Emmons can be tricky in a whiteout.

[Stefan]

very good read.

[edlins]

Hello all, I am the author of that trip report. Thank you all for your compliments! It's good to be alive..

 

-s

Edited May 17, 2005 by edlins

[thelawgoddess]

adventure indeed!

[Kraken]

Ironically enough now, this makes me want to do the Lib Ridge even more.

 

Very good read.

[Phil K]

I'd call it a bit scary; bad weather, bad snow, bad navigation, mondo packs, thrutching on the crux.... lucky to have made it?

[Couloir]

Hello all, I am the author of that trip report. Thank you all for your compliments! It's good to be alive...

Glad you guys made it in one piece. But I'm really curious about your choice for snowshoes out of TR. Given that you felt the slope was a little sketchy and was only going to get worse, what was your motivation for choosing snowshoes? Was everyone wearing them?

[edlins]

Hello all, I am the author of that trip report. Thank you all for your compliments! It's good to be alive...

Glad you guys made it in one piece. But I'm really curious about your choice for snowshoes out of TR. Given that you felt the slope was a little sketchy and was only going to get worse, what was your motivation for choosing snowshoes? Was everyone wearing them?

 

Yes, we all wore them. Let me start by saying that the snow conditions were the worst I have ever climbed in anywhere - unconsolidated deep sugar, layered crusties, and slush depending where you were. Every day we switched between crampons, snowshoes, and boots, and nothing worked great. Snowballing was horrible, postholeing was horrible, and snowshoe skiing was horrible. I feel like about 30% of the time I didn't want to be wearing snowshoes, but about 15% of the time I didn't want to be wearing crampons. Also, we had worn snowshoes up to TR and they worked out okay. In retrospect, I would have started with crampons after TR, but that wasn't the worst decision of the trip and in the end didn't slow us down all that much. It was a tough call, but ended up not making a whole lot of difference. My final thought on the issue is that we shouldn't have taken the snowshoes at all. This would have reduced the weight by nearly 4 lbs and eliminated the choices, but not necessarily have made the trip easier - just simpler.

 

One more thought - it seemed like what gauthier refers to as the hard parts were relatively easy (above TR, near BP), and our difficulties were either not documented or briefly dismissed (snowfield up to BS, no end-run around BS, route-finding down E-W).

 

-s

[edlins]

and here's another pic of the high camp, just for cc.com.

[Lazyboy]

Here is another Liberty Ridge adventure worth the read

 

web page

[IceIceBaby]

the snow conditions were the worst I have ever climbed in anywhere - unconsolidated deep sugar, layered crusties, and slush depending where you were... Snowballing was horrible, postholeing was horrible,... -s

 

yep that sound like Rainier that I know in a good day.

BTW in the winter it is a little bette. nice TR

[Chad_A]

and here's another pic of the high camp, just for cc.com.

Glad you made it back okay...and welcome to the site