Liberty Ridge Mt. Rainier

Monday was about as normal as most Mondays get, working at the Ranger Station helping people plan trips all over Washington when unexpectedly my own plans for the three days I had free needed some planning of their own. I jumped on Cascade Climbers and saw that Michael Rowley was looking for somebody to climb Liberty Ridge with so I called him up and we made it happen. 

I arrived at the Rowley residence around 11am Tuesday (July24th) where we munched on some cinnamon rolls and I watched Michael madly cram his gear, including an over-kill drop 20 degree sleeping bag into his pack. From there we headed off to the mountain drooling in anticipation. 

Our first day climbing to St. Elmo's pass and traversing the Winthrop Glacier to Camp on Curtis ridge was uneventful. Some minor route finding challenges and a bit of on-off-on-off with the crampons. That night we settled in and soaked in the madness of the famously treacherous Willis Wall adjacent to our objective. 

Winthrop Glacier

Total Gnar fest

Looking back across the Winthrop Glacier

Michael doing his thing in the soft light of the sunset

From left to right-Curtis Ridge, Willis Wall, Liberty Ridge Liberty Wall and Ptarmigan Ridge

Is the water boiling yet?!

Carbon Glacier is a mess! We have to go through that! 

Our second day we dropped down from Curtis ridge onto the Carbon Glacier and weaved our way through the huge cracks until we gained access onto the ridge and continued up to our high camp

Dropping down to the Carbon

Route finding

Huge Cracks!

Oh yea....we had fun!

Willis Wall growing ever closer

Finally onto the ridge

Back on snow!

Cruising to Thumb Rock

A very lofty high camp. 

We woke up the next morning around 1am and left camp around 2am. We cruised up through rock steps successfully staying on snow all the way through to the base of black pyramid. Before we knew it we were at the base of the ice step! It wasn't really a big deal so we just soloed up it and found ourselves on top of Liberty Cap without a problem. 

Soloing up onto the cap

Liberty Cap

Michael

From the cap we made the easy rising traverse to the summit of Mt. Rainier! 

Looking across to the Summit from the Cap

Summit! 6am

We hung out near the top for about 20 minutes signed the register and headed off down Emmons glacier to Camp Shurman. Reaching Shurman around 9am we realized we could easily complete the trip in 48 hours. 

Emmons in all its late July glory

Cool Seracs

Finally at Camp Shurman! 

Liberty Ridge was quite an awesome trip! For both of us this was our 8th summit and definitely one of the best climbs of our summers!

5 ice screws

2 pickets

60m 8.2mm rope

Ice tools 

Stubbornness 

North Ridge of Mt. Baker

With our Liberty Ridge climb dashed by unstable weather and those pesky jobs, Nick Strait and myself got stoked for the North Ridge of Baker.  A couple text messages later we had plans to leave Seattle around 3pm Tuesday afternoon, catch some ZZZZ's at the Heliotrope TH and then charge up the trail early Wednesday morning.

First view of the magnificent volcano

"The Turtle" Nick's awesome Volkswagon van rode out the bumps up forest road 39 with no problem.  Completing the long drive we settled in with some magazines and books, setting the alarm for 2am the next morning. 

We reluctantly dragged ourselves out of our warm sleeping bags around 3am.  After gnawing on some cold snickers bars and a couple swigs of water, we called it good and hit the trail with the headlamps in action. Instantly we came to the first of three river crossings.  Which turned out to be a moderately terrifying crossing in the dark, on wet slippery logs and boulders, while knowing that a dip in the frigid waters would could potentially end the climb. 

Views North from trail

Snow started to be consistent around 4700 feet and soon we were on the Coleman Glacier traversing east to the toe of the North Ridge

Run out of the Coleman. Some of those Seracs look ready for some ice craggin! 

Cruising! Running water everywhere!

Navigating some big gnarly crevasses luckily we avoided all dead-ends! Woo!

Approaching the North Ridge Schrund. Looks like a go on the right!

Up on the ridge looking up at the ice step!

Nick working his way up around to meet me on the rock ledge

We reached the ice step which Nick had originally intended to lead but feeling a little pooped he handed the reigns to me. I had never lead any ice before but figured it was time to step up to the plate! It looked pretty intense and I was legit scared! 

Now for the steep part!

Probably cursing at an ice screw here

Topped out! woo!

Nick followed me up in fine style, a high five and we headed up the last 1,500 feet to the summit plateau. We climbed straight up and skirted around a huge serac then made an easy traverse to meet up with the last bit of the Coleman-Deming route where Nick, a 10+ summiteer of Baker opted to chill out and take a nap, while I trudged up to the little summit bump for a picture. 

Summit!

Views of Shuksan!

We made an easy descent of the Coleman-Deming glacier route and found ourselves back on the Heliotrope trail back to the trailhead

Ending views to the North again