7/9/08, Mt. Rainier, Carbon Glacier to 9k + Emmons to 13.5k

After registering at the ranger station I met Dave Brown at White River campground-(4.2k) around 5:30 on Tuesday the 8th. Our plan was to climb and ski Liberty Ridge in a single push. We quickly ascended the trail, and took Elmo's Pass at ~7600' off the Intergalcier in our traverse to the Winthrop, by this time the sun was a glowing red discus hovering slightly above the western horizon. Some equipment complications slowed us a little, but were quickly resolved with Mgiver type ingenuity. The Winthrop was fairly crevssed at out traverse elevation, and there were many alternating patches of snow and ice. We were surprised by the width, and complicated extent of Curtis Ridge. By the time we reached the 7200' window which descends to the Carbon Glacier, it was dark, and maybe around 11.
We descended onto the Carbon, fairly confident that we would breeze over the glacier to the route with minimal route finding difficulties, even though neither of us had looked at a guide book, or knew where we were going, and it was dark, this lack of preparation proved to work to our disadvantage... We immediately got our selves into complex crevasses (which could have been avoided with daylight)(Dave was strong and smart enough to bring a rope --- thanks Dave!), we had some interesting negotiations, climbing down into the cracks a little, a leg through here and there, hops here and there, exiting that mess, we were faced with a large crevassed roll, several possible entrances, none looked too appealing, so we took the one which looked the best, finding faint footprints, which were soon lost, or perhaps doubled back in retreat. We worked very hard to find a way over to the start of the route. We deadended over huge gapping crevasses maybe 10 times, I belayed Dave once while he checked out a series of super sketchy bridges. Nothing, disheartend but smart enough to know when to retreat, we did. Sunrise broke beautifully into alpenglow in the indescribable dangerous beauty of Willis Wall, with all its choss and menacing ice cliffs. We could clearly see that Liberty Ridge was definitely not in anywhere close condition to ski. The only bit which looked good was next to the Black Pyramid, which has been described as the ice section in recent TRs.

I led us too far up in our traverse back to the Interglacer, we found ourselves at 8k - once we could see past all the choss hills of Curtis Ridge - which was a little annoying, but we did get some descent fall line skiing in down to the Winthrop. By the time we gained Elmo's Pass, overlooking Inter Glacier, it was about 8:30 am. Dave returned to the W.R. campground, I decided to continue up and ski the Emmons Glacier as a consolation in the face of defeat from Liberty.

I melted some water and ate, then got on my way. There were many groups doing there thang in the upper Interglacier, Camp Shurman area. I was stoked to ski the Emmons, it's so cool looking, such a big glacier. Route finding was definitely not an issue, I just followed the ridiculous boot pack. All bridges seemed to be in good condition, and crevasses were not a worry. At around 13500' I stopped because of brutal winds, which had changed the snow to frozen suncrusted windboard, I was in no mood to tackle such crap, and I am no purist, so it was not a problem to ski down from there. The upper part was breakable crust, then corn, then slosh. Not a very good ski route in my opinion, since the route twists and turns so much there is relatively little fall line, the climber traffic and the tracks and s#it they leave behind, the crevasse shenanigans, etc...

Good, and less sloshy skiing down the Interglacier. I met some cool people at the campground not far below, hung out with them for a couple hours and made it back to the White River campground about 26 hours after I started. I haven't made it 35 hours without sleep in a long time, kind of cool actually, changes perspective a little.