\n\t\t\t\tAn earned summit photo. (Austin Shannon)\n\t\t\t\t<\/dd><\/dl>
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\nAs most climbers know, Liberty Ridge is one of North America\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 50 classic climbs. It receives this honor because of its iconic location, alpine style of climbing, and over all commitment level.\u00c2\u00a0 Liberty Ridge is a spectacular 5,300\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 ridge that summits on Liberty Cap, the northern most summit of Mt. Rainier.<\/p>\nMy most recent guided summit of Liberty Ridge was nothing short of classic.\u00c2\u00a0 As one of the climbers stated, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153this was the most difficult and rewarding thing I have ever done.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 Liberty Ridge demands everything a climber possesses.\u00c2\u00a0 Due to the challenging conditions on this particular trip, each of the climbers was tested in their own way. Here is a more detailed breakdown of the trip:<\/p>\n
Day 1: (5hrs)\u00c2\u00a0 Approach from White River to St. Elmo\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pass.\u00c2\u00a0 We had great travel through the forest below.\u00c2\u00a0 Great dry trail led to compact snow travel near Glacier Basin.\u00c2\u00a0 A seamless transition to snow on the Inter Glacier made for efficient travel without snowshoes or skis.\u00c2\u00a0 Easy step kicking up the steep slope to St. Elmo\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Pass made for a great day.\u00c2\u00a0 Tent platforms on snow made for a great camp that night.\u00c2\u00a0 No running water was found.<\/p>\n
Day 2: (4hrs) We traversed across the Winthrop glacier to camp at the bottom of Curtis Ridge.\u00c2\u00a0 Due to low visibility and moderate winds we decided to pull up short and camp at Curtis Ridge near the edge of the Carbon Glacier.\u00c2\u00a0 No running water was found at this camp either.<\/p>\n
Day 3: (5.5hrs) Big move up to thumb rock.\u00c2\u00a0 Crossing the Carbon Glacier was relatively straight forward.\u00c2\u00a0 We made our way up climber\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s right of the main ice fall to access good compression zones that led to easy travel.\u00c2\u00a0 Once near the bottom of Liberty Ridge proper some tricky rout finding was required to find access to the ridge.\u00c2\u00a0 Steep snow climbing led to the ridge crest.\u00c2\u00a0 Once on the ridge crest it was good boot packing in styrofoam style snow all the way to Thumb Rock camp. Once at Thumb Rock camp we found generous amount of snow in which to dig a large tent platform.<\/p>\n
Day 4: (17hrs)\u00c2\u00a0 The great push up and over the mountain is the single most committing part of the climb.\u00c2\u00a0 Leaving Thumb Rock camp we encountered boot-top to knee deep trail breaking for the first thousand feet.\u00c2\u00a0 Once near the Black Pyramid the trial breaking became more consolidated snow and ice.\u00c2\u00a0 No ice pitches were encountered on the route.\u00c2\u00a0 However, we were required to do two steep snow pitches to get above the Black Pyramid.\u00c2\u00a0 From there it was easy glacier travel up to the bergschrund.\u00c2\u00a0 One 12\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 vertical snow and ice pitch was needed to ascend up and over the bergschrund.\u00c2\u00a0 Once above the bergschrund, steep snow climbing led us up to Liberty Cap! There was moderate winds and light snowfall during the entirety of our climb.\u00c2\u00a0 Once on top of Liberty Cap we found ourselves in a complete and total whiteout.\u00c2\u00a0 Advanced whiteout navigation skills were required to find our way to Columbia Crest.\u00c2\u00a0 Once on Columbia crest we followed the Disappointment Cleaver route all the way to Camp Muir where our DC team was waiting for us with some hot drinks and soup!<\/p>\n
Day 5: (2.5 hours) We hustled down to Paradise and were in Ashford for lunch!<\/p>\n
A great climb with some great climbers. A special thanks to fellow guide Nickel Wood, who was there with me every step of the way!<\/p>\n
Austin Shannon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
June 16, 2017 Liberty Ridge June 10 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c 15, 2017 As most climbers know, Liberty Ridge is one of North America\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 50 classic climbs. It receives this honor because of its iconic location, alpine style of climbing, and over all commitment level.\u00c2\u00a0 Liberty Ridge is a spectacular 5,300\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 ridge that summits on Liberty Cap, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":17176,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17172","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\/17172","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=17172"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17180,"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17172\/revisions\/17180"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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