RAINIER DREAMS: Skiing the Classic Liberty Ridge
Busch cans get passed around at Shotgun Freddy’s, the favorite watering hole—if not exactly a ski joint—in the small town of Morton, Washington. We’re here to enjoy some beers and wait out the weather. Cold beer in a can tastes good right now. For the last few days Andrew Eisenstark and I had been dreaming of just such a refreshment after our plans to ski Liberty Ridge on Mount Rainier. Steve Roper and Allen Steck included the route in their 1979 guidebook "Fifty Classic Climbs in North America," which has been a factor in its popularity in the climbing world. Then Chris Landry skied it in 1980. Since then a few other skiers have left tracks down the classic climbing route.
David Gottlieb, the climbing ranger at White River, warned us about the trail to Glacier Basin. "It is pretty washed out and gone in some areas,” he said, “but you can make it".
Actually the trail was gone in most areas and made slogging to the snow that much more fun. We wanted to get to Thumb Rock, about a third of the way up Liberty Ridge. This meant 6,300 feet of vertical gain, 10 miles of distance and crossing two major glaciers—the second, the Carbon Glacier, being the deepest in the Lower 48. When we reached the Thumb at 7 p.m. we were feeling the long day and surprised to see that seven others were already sleeping at the high camp. The fact that everyone was sleeping was good because it gave us full reign over the cooking area, but the packed camp left us with no place to sleep.
During the night rockfall woke us up a few times. This was a constant theme on the trip. I had never seen so much rockfall and definitely never had to dive for my survival so many times on one trip. With the sun’s first light, we rose and made our way up the ridge; from Thumb Rock at 10,700 feet we had 3,412 feet to the Liberty Cap summit. The intermittent clouds and a breeze kept things cool but rocks still managed to come down on top of us. If it wasn’t for Andrew yelling “Rock!” I would have been tagged twice for sure. The top open face that joins the Willis Wall provided great climbing. The warm temps were giving us confidence in being able to make turns on this section. When we reached Liberty Cap Glacier at 13,300 feet we realized that the weather was turning against us. There was no visability on the summit, so skiing from the top was not an option. We tried to find a route that would allow for it but couldn't make it happen, and decided that it was time to start skiing down.