Liberty Ridge on Rainier Car to Car

May 27, 2017

My first climb up Liberty Ridge on June 1, 2013 was in tough conditions. We wallowed in waist-deep snow to above Thumb Rock, had no signs of prior climbers or boot packs, climbed a ton of low-angle ice on the upper slopes, had two pitches of technical ice climbing to gain Liberty Cap, were hit by 100mph winds on the summit and on our way down the Emmons, did an unplanned night at Camp Shurman, and were generally shellacked.

This trip was way different. The snow was nice and firm and there was a boot pack up most of the route. We used 1 screw and 1 picket to protect the only technical step and otherwise cruised up the route with little fanfare.

Dale talked me into the idea on Friday evening over dinner. By 9:30pm, we'd left the house for White River Campground. We left the car at 12:30am.

3h - On the top of St. Elmo's Pass
4h 45m - Dropped down onto the Carbon Glacier from Curtis Ridge
6h 45m - Started up the ridge
8h 20m - Thumb Rock
14h 20m - On the top of Liberty Cap and beginning a nap
15h 20m - Started down
15h 40m - Met the Emmons Route
15h 45m - Ran into and assisted a party of 3 with a skier who had fallen into a crevasse unroped at 12,900ft
16h 20m - Arrived at Camp Shurman and called SAR for the party
17h - Started down the Interglacier
19h - Made it to the car

Kelsey on her way to The Castle with Unicorn Peak in the distance

Tatoosh Traverse

April 16, 2017

I've been recovering from wrist reconstructive surgery since last November and am not yet ready for more technical ice and mixed routes, so this spring has been a good opportunity to stick to the skis and check out some areas I might not have explored otherwise. With one day this weekend to get outside, Kelsey and I agreed that traversing through the Tatoosh Range just south of Rainier would be a good choice. Temperatures were supposed to stay low, the wind was supposed to be up, and high cloud cover was in the forecast—a perfect combination to avoid dangerous wet slides on the low-elevation southern aspects.

We drove down to Longmire early in the morning and waited a bit for the gate to open. Just shy of 9am, we cruised up to Narada Falls and hopped on our skis. The road was nicely snow-covered and went quickly. We dug a pit on the steeper slopes below Unicorn and found a hard rain crust about a foot down, but the snow on top was reluctant to move, so we continued on, skinning up to the top of Unicorn at about 12:30pm. The wind was howling and sending snow and ice at us like a sandstorm, so we didn't linger on the top.

Some fun turns brought us to the saddle separating Unicorn and the rest of the range. We did a long, downward traverse towards The Castle and battled some old avalanche debris along the way, eventually scrambling to the summit of The Castle at 3pm. The wind had calmed a bit and the Southern aspects were getting a bit warmer in the afternoon sun, but the cloud cover saved us from scarier conditions.

We skied down, around the rock band separating The Castle and Pinnacle Peak, and then headed up toward Pinnacle's West Ridge. A couple hundred feet from the top, it got too steep and crusty to skin, so we dropped the skis and boot packed the rest of the way up. It got decently steep in a few spots and was enough to make me be careful, but not so bad as to need a rope. I scrambled to the top of the summit blocks on Pinnacle at 3:45pm.

We could have kept going on to Plummer, Denman, and Lane at this point, knowing the downhill gate would close by 9pm, but we felt pretty happy with the day so far and knew we'd be back to finish up the full traverse another time, so we called it good at the Plummer-Pinnacle saddle and enjoyed some fun skiing down to the Tatoosh Creek and back to our car by 5:30pm. Great day!

South Ridge on Black Peak

May 14, 2016

Peter and I departed Seattle at 5am and left the car at 8am for a quick ski tour up Black Peak. Since Peter had been up Black Peak before, we made an error in only snapping photos of the guidebook beta and not looking at the map carefully off the bat. We followed the summer trail for the first half mile and quickly realized the error of our ways as we 'shwhacked our way through the forest. Thankfully, we got back on track at the plateau below Lake Ann. Whoops!

From there, we made fast progress up and over Heather Pass. It was pretty warm and the snow was relatively soft, but the side-hill ski over to Lewis Lake went fine. We put the skins back on here and recommenced huffing and puffing our way up, passing Wing Lake at about 11am.

We only had to boot a small section up to the South ridge col and were on top of it with a great view to the West of Glacier, Goode, Logan, and Forbidden at noon. Recent warm weather had baked much of the ridge, so we booted up rock for a ways before finding a boot pack in the snow-filled gully to just below the summit.

The scramble up the ridge in ski boots was engaging and fun and the view was phenomenal. We had been worried about the snow on the way down, but cloud cover and a light breeze kept things from getting too wet and heavy. The couloir ski was great and the rest of the way out went quickly with continuous snow to the car. We were back at the car by 2:30pm or so, which seemed pretty quick despite our first mile or so being off the beaten path.