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Liberty Ridge


glennm

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white river entrance is the way to go,but please

do not take the bike with you since everything is under the snow.the road will be plowed up to cristal ski place turn off.so it is a long way inn.take skis ang go lite (if you can).wait for a bomber high presure.otherwise see you on the summit,since i,m waiting for a better weather as

well.

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i forgot about the decent:

it would be best to go down gib ledges or ingraham

direct,so you do not have to back track.i hope

you are familiar with all of the routes involved.

if not!,abandon the climb!!it will save rangers

another problem.but it has been done before and

i wish you good luck!

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Why wouldn't you descend the same way you climbed up? I have never understood the "carry over" as a standard game plan for Liberty Ridge. As a general rule, I don't think one should climb up the route if they aren't going to be comfortable climbing down it in the event that they are not successful or something goes wrong, and if they are comfortable with the downclimb I would thikn it safer to do the route with a lighter pack so as to get up and back down off the mountain faster. Sure, there may be some people who can safely climb up the route but do not want to descend that way, but a descent back down Liberty Ridge is worth considering.

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Carbon River Entrance and take a mountain bike for the approach. Plan on a long hoof after the descent if you come down the Emmons or Winthrop. Watch out for snow instability, esp. if you do the variation that traverses on the east side of the ridge above Thumb Rk. Friends have bivvied in the schrund at around 13,500' on their winter ascent.

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quote:

Originally posted by mattp:
Why wouldn't you descend the same way you climbed up? I have never understood the "carry over" as a standard game plan for Liberty Ridge. As a general rule, I don't think one should climb up the route if they aren't going to be comfortable climbing down it in the event that they are not successful or something goes wrong, and if they are comfortable with the downclimb I would thikn it safer to do the route with a lighter pack so as to get up and back down off the mountain faster. Sure, there may be some people who can safely climb up the route but do not want to descend that way, but a descent back down Liberty Ridge is worth considering.

You're cool and all Matt, but I don't know if I agree with you on this one. Speed is safety thats what I say and downclimbing a less technical route is a lot faster. Also its a lot shorter distance to the car decending the Emmons glacier.

L ridge isn't that technical, and yes you should be able to decend it if bad weather hits but if not why? unless your on skis. Now there's a good reason hmm.. gets me thinking.

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I just found it much easier to downclimb the route - even in the middle of the season I simply walked down all but about 300 feet of it - and I climbed to Liberty Cap and was back at Thumb Rock before any of the parties with big packs made it to the top of the route. I agree that there are other ways to approach it, but in my climbs of Mount Rainier, getting up and back down the mountain with energy and time to spare has generally been my paramount goal and, I think, a significant safety factor. There may be routes or reasons to carry over, I am just saying that the total disregard of downclimbing Liberty Ridge as a reasonable alternative is what I find misguided.

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Yes, Marek, but I believe the approach to and from Ipsut Creek is shorter than hiking in from the Crystal Mountain cutoff. I haven't measured it on the map, but even if you were to climb the route and descend the Winthrop, the total distance would still probably be less than hiking in from the Crystal Mountain cutoff and then descending to Paradise. This, of course, depends on being able to drive reasonably close to Ipsut Creek.

[ 01-17-2002: Message edited by: mattp ]

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I don't believe that particular descent has been repeated. The ridge has been skied several times, however, and while Lowell Skoog lists a 1980 descent as the first, it was an early 1980's descent by Jimmy Katz (I think that was his name), who I believe skied the route on telemark gear, that really caught my attention at the time. I don't know what kind of gear he had, but at about that time I was using Karhu XCD's (double camber) and leather boots that feel like moccasins compared to today's telemark boots. If he used gear anything like that to ski Liberty Ridge, he was one talented guy!

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Are you sure? Both Skoog and Andalkar, who have put some effort into researching this point, indicate 198o was the first ski descent. Perhaps there is some disctinction between a ski descent and a complete (uninteruppted) ski descent or something -- do you knkow the details of Robinson et al's descent? Does anybody know more about Jimmy Katz's descent?

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