\n\t\t\t\tNot Liberty Ridge, but smiles all around. (Austin Shannon)\n\t\t\t\t<\/dd><\/dl>
\n\t\t<\/div>\n\nMt. Rainier is the iconic peak of the Pacific Northwest with Liberty Ridge being the most classic alpine route on the mountain. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a route that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s on the bucket list of any true alpine climber. To climb this route requires all the stars to align.\u00c2\u00a0 The weather must be stable and the snow conditions must be just right.\u00c2\u00a0 If just one of these pieces is out of place the route may not go\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just what happened on our most recent attempt at Liberty Ridge.<\/p>\n
On our climb earlier this week we were put to a decision pretty early on in the program. We camped at St. Elmo\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pass on day one and read that the forecast called for 70 mph winds out of the SW during our scheduled summit day.\u00c2\u00a0 Fellow guide Luke Reilly and I discussed our options, came up with a plan, talked it over with the office who confirmed it with the National Park. We opted to completely change our trip objective and focus on climbing Little Tahoma.<\/p>\n
Off to Little Tahoma we went.\u00c2\u00a0 From St. Elmo\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s we went up the Winthrop Glacier to Camp Schurman, had some coffee, then headed across the massive Emmons Glacier.\u00c2\u00a0 Gaining the north shoulder of Little Tahoma consisted of 1000 feet of 45 degree snow climbing to our camp on the Whitman Glacier.\u00c2\u00a0 The next morning the weather was holding strong which gave us a nice window to climb Little Tahoma, Washington\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 3rd highest peak.\u00c2\u00a0 Little T, as we call it, has a beautiful summit ridge.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a classic alpine ridge, offering the best view possible of Mt. Rainier\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s East side.\u00c2\u00a0 The summit pinnacle is large enough for only three people to stand shoulder to shoulder.<\/p>\n
Once back at high camp we decided to continue our adventure with an east side traverse.\u00c2\u00a0 Up and over the Whitman col to the lower Ingraham glacier was a sporty (but fun) section of our program.\u00c2\u00a0 The winter snow pack had melted so much that simply walking over the col was not possible.\u00c2\u00a0 A 50 meter repel was required to get the team down to the glacier.\u00c2\u00a0 Across the Ingraham and over to the Cowlitz glacier we climbed.\u00c2\u00a0 The team was strong and the weather was still holding at lower elevations.<\/p>\n
Wandering down the Cowlitz glacier was exciting.\u00c2\u00a0 One of our climbers looked right at me and said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It looks like an impossible puzzle!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Luke and I simply continued connecting the dots and finding a route.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes it involved down climbing a rushing waterfall, climbing thru massive icefall debris, and a few intense crevasse crossings.\u00c2\u00a0 But we put the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153impossible puzzle\u00e2\u20ac\u009d together and arrived at our intended camp at 7600 feet on the Paradise glacier.\u00c2\u00a0 Our last day put us at the trailhead at about 11am. It was off to the Copper Creek for lunch then we waited for our shoes. Yes our shoes. We had left a trailhead vehicle at White River with our shoes inside. Our back-up plan was put in play. The descending Emmons Team brought our van back and with it our shoes.<\/p>\n
Four days, seven glaciers (Winthrop, Emmons, Frying Pan, Whitman, Ingraham, Cowlitz, Paradise), and a Little Tahoma summit! The Mt. Rainier Lib Ridge East Side Variation Traverse may never be repeated, on purpose.\u00c2\u00a0 I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t thank Luke Reilly and the rest of the team enough for an unforgettable experience.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 From a guide\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s perspective this was an absolute blast!<\/p>\n
Austin Shannon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
June 10, 2016 Mt. Rainier is the iconic peak of the Pacific Northwest with Liberty Ridge being the most classic alpine route on the mountain. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a route that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s on the bucket list of any true alpine climber. To climb this route requires all the stars to align.\u00c2\u00a0 The weather must be stable and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":15245,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mt-rainier"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15243"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15249,"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15243\/revisions\/15249"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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