



The trip started this spring, I was at the climbing wall at St. Lawrence, trying to survive my first North Country winter, when I casually mentioned to Paxton that we should do Rainier. Half seriously, I added, that we should do it up Liberty Ridge–one of the 50 Classic Climbs in North America as well as being one of the more technically challenging routes on the mountain.

Paxton told Will about our plan and he seemed into it as well. We would just all need to learn Glacier Mountaineering skills that none of us had. I also had to learn how to Ice Climb.

We spent the majority of the Spring months climbing Adirondack Ice, breaking into the climbing wall when it was closed so we had a space to practice crevasse rescue skills, pouring over gear lists, and training for the mountain. We also were able to apply, and receive an Expedition Grant from the St. Lawrence Outing Club for $1000. With that added capitol there was no way the trip wasn’t happening.

On May 19th we all convened in Seattle, and as I was the last to arrive, most of the food shopping had already been done. It also looked as though we would have a perfect weather window, but we couldn’t wait around for long. Because of that, within hours of landing in Seattle, we had already been to REI to pick up some last minute things, exploded gear all over Paxton’s roommate Evan’s house, repacked everything for the climb and started driving.

We arrived to a locked gate along highway 410 at White River road which meant the 6 mile roadwalk in that we had planned to do that night was going to become a reality. We quickly dispatched it, and fell asleep around 7:30 (well I did, as I had been up since 3:30 that morning traveling) for an early start so as not to cross the Winthrop too late in the day.

After coffee and clif bars, what would become our standard early morning routine, we set off. We met a group of guys who were glissading down St. Elmo’s pass and learned that while they had planned on doing Liberty Ridge following the same schedule as us, a fox had eaten their food so they were bailing. I was both relieved that we would have the route all to ourselves but also a little concerned that we would be totally alone–a bunch of glacier neophytes crossing some scary glaciers alone.

As we got to the Winthrop, we silently geared up for the glacier: something we had all practiced but had never done for real before. I was struck by how silent we all were as we prepared the rope, clipped far to many things to ourselves, and began to set out across our first ever glacier. We all knew that one misstep could be costly.

Other than my punching through into one small crevasse–it felt more like I postholed really–we were able to travel effectively and safely as a team. We arrived at Curtis Ridge around 3:30, slower than we wanted but we were happy with our time given the snow conditions, set up camp, dried some stuff out, and went to bed early as we wanted to cross the Carbon Glacier and get on Liberty Ridge before it warmed up dangerously.

4:00am seemed cold, and early to me as I wrapped myself up in my sleeping bag in order to melt water for the team. By 5:00 we were roped up, walking down to the carbon. We followed steps all the way over to the nose of the Ridge where we decided, due to rockfall and snow conditions that our safest option would be to stick with the ridge as much as possible, and deviate off into the shade if there was anything we had to avoid.

We were able to post hole up the ridge for the most part, though there were two very chossy, kitty-litter rock sections that we ended up belaying which slowed us down. Despite that, we were at Thumb Rock by around 12:30 and were able to spend the afternoon relaxing, watching avalanches off the Willis and Liberty Walls, and eating.

11:00pm we woke up, shivering in the cold to get ready for our summit day. I packed, unpacked, and repacked my backpack getting everything ordered perfectly. Food and water in my pack lid? Check. Food in my pocket so I can eat when I need it? Check. Puffy layer on top in case I need to stop? Check.

With all ready, we turned our headlamps towards the summit and began postholing uphill yet again. We soon reached some more consolidated snow up until the black pyramid where we traversed out left on some very steep, very loose snow as the sun came up and our exposure became real.

It amazes me how, when isolated by the 10-foot wide circle of light from my headlamp I really felt as though there was nothing but the climb ahead of me and myself. No team, no exposure, no summit. The one time that I was taken out of my world was when it sounded as if a Boeing 747 was flying directly overhead–It was just icefall from the Willis Wall only a few hundred yards to our left. We were safe but for a minute, I certainly didn’t feel it. The other thing that amazes me is how the mountain can go from total silence, save for the crunching of my steps and my heavy breathing, to the total chaos of the ice falling entropically, back to complete stillness in just a few seconds.

By the time the sun was fully up, we were a few hundred feet below the Serac. After a quick food and water break we set off, me breaking trail for this section, in order to reach the massive serac that would prove to be the crux of our climb. In between us and the Serac was, however, a few hundred feet of WI2 that we ended up soloing before returning back to postholing.

It was here that Paxton let me know of some symptoms that he was having, it seemed like minor AMS but we were worried because we still had almost 1000 feet left of climbing before we could even think about going down. It would also put the summit out of reach. I gave Paxton some Diamox in order to help as we continued to ascend.

After we racked up, exchanging screws and pickets, Will led off to the first pitch of the serac, up what looked like an obvious weakness that would take us right up onto Liberty Cap Glacier.

It turned out that after about 70m of WI3, we were on the other side of a massive crevasse from Liberty Cap. Will crossed what looked like a terrifying snowbridge (we later decided that it must have been more solid than it looked) to a few more moves of WI3.

We decided that the best way to navigate down to the car would be to climb up to Liberty Cap. The benefit would also be that we would reach a summit, and the technical completion of Liberty Ridge.

Summit pictures were taken, and from the summit I felt that it was only appropriate to declare my humility to the mountain. “LIBERTY RIDGE KICKED MY ASS!”, I screamed after taking in the deepest breath I could and we turned to traverse down to the Emmons Glacier.

Even with plunge stepping and glissading the descent to Camp Sherman seemed like it took forever. We reaching Camp Sherman to melt some water and make up our last dinners. The climbing rangers walked up to us, asked us how the climb went (they had been watching us from a helicopter the day before as they did training on the Carbon), and offered us water. Perfect! We quickly made dinner, as we had our first real rest of the day–after moving for 17 hours–and headed back up to the Inter Glacier and over to posthole down to Glacier Basin where Will and I made coffee and continued on to White River, talking the entire time after a day of mostly silence. We could feel the tension relax as we got closer and closer to the car.

We stopped at White River at about 10:30 to pick up the snowshoes we had dropped off, thinking that we might need them on the way up. The added load was not appreciated, and my boots felt even heavier because snow had completely drenched them on the descent. I could feel the water sloshing around in them but with 6 miles of roadwalking left to go, I didn’t care too much.

The road walk was painful, but I set a good pace and got us to the car by 2:00 where we exchanged congratulatory fistbumps that we had purposefully held off on at the summit in deference to the fact that we were only half done then–we still had to come back safely.

Finishing my first major alpine route feels amazing. There were many times along the route that what we were doing lined up with a memory of a magazine photo that I had oggled years before and I realized, yet again, I had fulfilled a dream of mine. Sitting in a Cabin not far from the PCT I feel a sense of completeness as I search for my next hairbrained idea that I can turn into reality. I can’t wait to find another dream to create.