soloing liberty Ridge

Allen Sandersonwrote:

FWIW Thumb rock is no different than it has been for the past 100+ years.

I don't think so.  Global warming has made many such mountains more dangerous.  They don't freeze up at night like they used to - even 20 years ago.

Kyle Tarry wrote:

With average global temperatures being up a couple degrees, wouldn't one just climb Liberty Ridge a couple weeks earlier than they did in 1960 and get about the same conditions and freezing?  I mean, it's not like global warming has made it 60 degrees up at Thumb Rock in January (yet).

Might depend on if you are just climbing it, or if you plan a ski descent, right?

Things change.  Some classics in the Alps are way more dangerous than in the past. Same goes elsewhere.

Perfect timings can be shorter, or nonexistent, or it seems..

Kyle Tarry wrote:

a couple weeks earlier than they did in 1960 and get about the same conditions and freezing? 

What I've seen is the period between April-ish to June-ish used to have many weeks of warm sunny days and overnight lows below freezing - so winter snow would consolidate into a beautiful blue and highly enjoyable to climb alpine ice through many gradual freeze thaw cycles over several weeks or months - which would also lock down most of the garbage on the mountain until late July/Aug - at which point you'd be kind of dumb to go up there.  

I don't see that happening anymore.  The snow goes straight from winter powder to posthole slush to sublimation and wet slides, disappearing ever so rapidly - also releasing all the garbage - all in a few weeks in May-ish - exposing the ancient glacier layers much earlier - which are receding.  

It's way different now than when I started, just in my 30-ish active yrs.  Notch Col, Black Ice - the mega classics - are all shit now compared to 30 yrs ago.  I don't really dig alpine climbing anymore - it's generally become insecure and miserable postholing shit, and much more dangerous.

^ Bill’s got this assessment right 

Bill Schickwrote:

I don't think so.  Global warming has made many such mountains more dangerous.  They don't freeze up at night like they used to - even 20 years ago.

In general that is true. But Thumb Rock is largely snow free, as such the freezing, or lack there of is not as critical to keeping it together as opposed to other parts of the hill which I agree are shedding more. Regardless there are more people on the route. As such there are going to be more encounters. A few years back over Memorial Day weekend on Liberty Cap we ran into something like 6 parties coming up LR. I bet more people came up that weekend than the whole year 30 years before when we did LR mid June when we were the first party of the year up the route along with two other parties.

I'm surprised nobody has recommended probing. Slow, but seems like skis + extensive probing would be a sensible way to pick your way across a glacier? Curious because I've often been tempted to solo easy and accessible on glaciers I'm otherwise familiar with before. Could never figure out a way to do it I was comfortable with. 

Being solo on the Carbon and Emmons though strikes me as a very stressful and scary experience.

Bogdan Petrewrote:

I'm surprised nobody has recommended probing. Slow, but seems like skis + extensive probing would be a sensible way to pick your way across a glacier? 

Inefficient and ineffective. You'd never get anywhere if you actually did it frequently enough to find every hole in the ground, and even if you did, by the time you found a crevasse you're already on top of it. Skis are definitely a good recommendation at the minimum!

There's always the double bamboo pole method that I've heard of some folks using on Denali, but that's a gamble too. If you're solo on a large glacier, unless it's late season and everything is bare and wide open, I think you just have to accept rolling the dice to some degree.

Not recommended to camp at Thumb Rock without a permit since the tiny bivy spot is the top factor limiting capacity.

Regarding crossing the Carbon. Years ago we bailed from a winter attempt on the Willis and came down the east side of the Carbon. I can not remember who punched through first, me or my partner. It did not matter as soon as one of us got out and went 50 meters the other punched through a crack. Crawl out and repeat 3-4 times including once where we both punched through different cracks. The coup de grâce - as soon as we got off the Carbon the whole of the right side of the Willis, where one crosses under for LR, came crashing down. 

The way you explained your tick list almost seems like a troll post, noting that you climbed the Petit with no chalk? As being relevant to soloing liberty ridge? Good news is that you shouldn't need chalk to climb liberty ridge. Also you're opposed to roping up with a random from mountain project for the route but then asking the same random people on mountain project if they can assess your ability to solo a route like liberty ridge??? One last piece of advice that seems to always hold true is that if you need to ask if you can solo something....the answer is no. 

Zach Turner wrote:

A helpful resource here.

Hot damn. NPS putting out a super topo. Definitely didn't have that when I was on it.

Greetings solo troller. Liberty Ridge...yes, it’s grand, yes it’s a big jump from Kautz, and yeah, people get killed from all kinds of unforeseen objectives, like lack of preparation, skill, fitness level, bad weather, and the worst of all, rockfall. A guided group of six were avalanched off of the route a couple of weeks before we climbed it (July of 2012). We found some of their gear and a pair of green Lowa climbing boots perched nicely on top of the tiny little bivy just atop of the black pyramid. Kind of disturbing. I’d obsessed about climbing this route for a few years before finally committing to it, with a good, solid partner. We climbed it, car-to-car, in something like 35 hours. The rockfall missiles came from everywhere. It sucked. Fuck that route. Depending on the snow and temps, Lib ridge is usually “out” by the end of June. You definitely don’t want to be on it when it’s bare bones with those missiles wizzing by. Central Mowich Face! Now THAT route looks sexy!!! Climb safe and strong and bring your skills.

Zach Turner wrote:

Be sure to get a solo permit from the NPS ahead of time. 

Also, don't let the mountain fall on you ;)

Photo by the talented, sexy, Mr. Kyle Tarry.

A helpful resource here.

awesome photo of the Willis Wall letting go!

Have you read this?

This is what Thumb Rock bivy looked like May 29, 2019 before rock fall took out all 3 tents. In hindsight, yes this was a very dangerous place to stop, let alone bivy. You could barely fit three 2 person tents here.

 The rock fall that released around 6:30pm that night came from the buttress above Thumb rock.
Death is nothing you want to experience in the mountains.

This single tragic experience has made me question continuing my long Alpine climbing career and realizing it all comes down to the numbers. You put yourself in dangerous situations often enough your going to see some bad stuff.

With Rainier, it’s the objective hazard that gets you.

There is no such thing as “trying to be safe” up there in my opinion. 

Jason Maurerwrote:

This is what Thumb Rock bivy looked like May 29, 2019 before rock fall took out all 3 tents. In hindsight, yes this was a very dangerous place to stop, let alone bivy. You could barely fit three 2 person tents here.

 The rock fall that released around 6:30pm that night came from the buttress above Thumb rock.
Death is nothing you want to experience in the mountains.

This single tragic experience has made me question continuing my long Alpine climbing career and realizing it all comes down to the numbers. You put yourself in dangerous situations often enough your going to see some bad stuff.

With Rainier, it’s the objective hazard that gets you.

There is no such thing as “trying to be safe” up there in my opinion. 

How sure are you that they came from the rock buttress above and not thumb rock? The buttress is a long ways away up a low angle slope with breaks to both sides. Meanwhile thumb rock is overhanging the campsite and drops rocks at the slightest breeze.

Anyway, shouldn't make you question your "long alpine climbing career". Should make you question climbing needlessly dangerous routes. Lib Ridge gets way more attention than it deserves simply by virtue of being one of the 50 classics, a highly questionable distinction IMO. The risk to quality ratio is terrible. It's nothing but a choss scramble cum snow slog under continuous objective hazard! WTF kind of classic is that? That combination doesn't typically win you many stars, we've all just been bamboozled by the 50-classics listing. Its only quality would be the views. You could easily have a better alpine climbing career climbing nothing but safer routes. In fact, almost every other route at this grade I've done has been both safer and better, and I mostly just climb the obvious stuff everyone else is climbing.

Bogdan Petrewrote:

How sure are you that they came from the rock buttress above Seems like anything that fell off there would go off to the sides. Even if a stray rock or two rolled down the spine of that ridge it seems like it would be more pinwheeling down rather than falling at terminal velocity. That's like a 25 degree slope. Meanwhile, thumb rock is right above you and is a crumbling pile of overhanging choss.  You could blow on it and dislodge rocks.

I know right! It appears impossible for rockfall to roll down that ridge from above us. But that's exactly what happened. The other party of 2 had a good view of the release, screamed rock- but you could most definitely hear it first. I was laying down in our tent next to my partner, already gripped from the constant rockfall off the Willis wall and Ptarmigan + the overhanging choss right above you! Ya not a comfortable place to try and get some rest. 

My partner sat up quickly and was hit in the back with a large rock, simultaneously destroying our tent. I sprang up only moments after my partner, before the tent with 2 climbers next to us landed onto ours. 

I had a hard time getting back into a tent after this experience BTW, especially in the alpine, and I guide in the alpine, so this effected my job.  

This accident resulted in a fatality and 2 injured climbers, 1 critically that we kept alive for 12+ hours waiting a rescue. We had cell service on the ridge. Myself and the 2 uninjured climbers descended ( 8 double rope rap's off buried pickets ) back down to the Carbon Glacier to a waiting helicopter on Curtis ridge.  

Jason Maurerwrote:

I know right! It appears impossible for rockfall to roll down that ridge from above us. But that's exactly what happened. The other party of 2 had a good view of the release, screamed rock- but you could most definitely hear it first. I was laying down in our tent next to my partner, already gripped from the constant rockfall off the Willis wall and Ptarmigan + the overhanging choss right above you! Ya not a comfortable place to try and get some rest. 

My partner sat up quickly and was hit in the back with a large rock, simultaneously destroying our tent. I sprang up only moments after my partner, before the tent with 2 climbers next to us landed onto ours. 

I had a hard time getting back into a tent after this experience BTW, especially in the alpine, and I guide in the alpine, so this effected my job.  

This accident resulted in a fatality and 2 injured climbers, 1 critically that we kept alive for 12+ hours waiting a rescue. We had cell service on the ridge. Myself and the 2 uninjured climbers descended ( 8 double rope rap's off buried pickets ) back down to the Carbon Glacier to a waiting helicopter on Curtis ridge.  

Holy moley! Glad you made it out. Thanks for sharing this. This story confirmed what I have been hearing from other cascade climbers first hand about the worsening conditions on the north side.

Liberty Ridge is now off my list. If I were single with no kids, heck I would probably keep it on the list if I had nothing to live for. I wish I had climbed LR back in the early 2000’s when I was climbing a bunch up there.

Agreed with the other commenter, there are so many other great alpine climbs out there without the objective hazards of Rainier’s north side. 

J1…. Thanks for sharing your story. Hopefully your love of the mountains will return.

Thanks for sharing. That mountain is the master of its domain. It nearly claimed my life when I was nine years old in a storm & got separated from my brother Hans while skiing on the Nisqually Glacier. The search party found me. If you want Lib Ridge beta, I’ve soloed that route.