[TR] Mt. Rainier - Liberty Ridge 6/27/2010

[BillA]

Trip: Mt. Rainier - Liberty Ridge

 

Date: 6/27/2010

 

Trip Report:

Matt M and I climbed Liberty Ridge this weekend. It's in great shape. Firm snow all the way on the approach, on route it was perfect for step kicking. Get after it! No pics, sorry.

 

I'm posting this as we camped on the Winthrop right over St. Elmos Pass and some jackass(es) left a whole bunch of trash and literal shit all over the place. You're seriously going to take a dump, bother to put it in a blue bag and then leave the bag sitting there? Bad form. Otherwise it was a fantastic weekend to be out.

Edited June 29, 2010 by BillA

[Winter]

Nice Bill. Getting a little stir crazy weren't ya?

[Skatan]

Sweet! Fun climb. To bad careless assholes climb mountains too.

[John Frieh]

Sweet Bill. Did you guys break it up? If so where did you camp?

[BillA]

Chris- Yes, I was definitely going a little crazy, glad I finally got to get out, looks like you did too!

 

John- Friday afternoon we leisurely headed up glacier basin and over St. Elmos and camped on the Winthrop. Saturday we made our way to thumb rock, which is deceptively far. Sunday morning at 11:00am we topped out the ridge with the intention of going all the way back to the car, but the weather had other plans. Twenty foot visibility, no depth perception and blowing winds, I almost walked off Russel Cliffs. After that we decided to hunker down and spent a miserable fourteen hours in a mega mid until things cleared up Monday morning, then we headed down.

 

I think it's entirely reasonable with the condition the approach and route are in right now, if things don't change much, to make it to thumb rock on the first day and then climb the route and descend the second day. Perhaps it's even reasonable to do it in a push right now for those fit enough?

[John Frieh]

Sweet dude. How did Curtis and Ptarmigan look?

[ScaredSilly]

The hill is pretty plastered with snow. About the same time as Bill we walked up Furher Finger (most others were skiing). The Finger is in amazing shape for this late in June. Even 25+ years ago we saw more cracks on the glacier than this trip.

 

We did not bother with a rope until descending down the DC. While mostly clear the winds have been strong. Made for a bit of a white out coming down. I think they have settled out a bit now though we found some up high on Adams yesterday.