AOC-1
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From July 4 – 7 John MacInnes and I climbed Mt. Rainier via Ptarmigan Ridge, a grade IV north side route that thwarted our efforts in 2008. We saw no others for 3 days on the mountain, except for a momentary glimpse of another party’s headlamps high on an adjacent ridgeline. Enroute, we camped at Curtis Ridge (7200 ft), where we enjoyed the distant fireworks from Seattle and the Puget Sound communities late into the night on the 4th. The next day we crossed the Carbon Glacier and climbed Ptarmigan Ridge’s lower slopes to 10,300 feet, pitching our small tent beneath a giant, teetering ice cliff. Improbably safe on the narrow ridge, we listened for repeated cannon booms signaling ice avalanches that regularly calved onto the slopes below us in the afternoon heat.
Awake at midnight and climbing by 2 a.m., we cramponed up the steep snow face by headlamp, trending left toward the ice gullies that lead to the final, broad summit slopes. We dispatched these technical couloirs in 3 long running belays, moving continuously together while clipping our rope to pickets and ice screws. Surmounting a short rock band high above the North Mowich Glacier, we emerged on easier ground at 12, 500 feet, where we rested and brewed up in the morning sun.
Blue skies and high pressure were forecasted for the next morning. So to prolong the alpine fun (and rest our middle-aged bones) we pitched the tent on the flat lip of a crevasse just beneath the summit. At 8 a.m. on the 7th, we stood in glorious sunshine and calm winds on Liberty Cap (14,112 ft), one of Rainier’s 3 summits. What took us days to ascend, we descended in a few hours, racing down the Emmons route to Camp Schurman and Glacier Basin. Beneath Camp Schurman, we glissaded 2000 feet in about 5 minutes. Without a hint of hyperbole, John remarked, “That was the most fun I’ve had since I was 8.”
I’ve climbed several routes on Rainier in the past decade. Ptarmigan Ridge was the finest, especially gratifying to climb with a great friend and climbing partner like John.
Photos (some from the Alpine Lakes Wilderness area northeast of Rainier):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/14146650@N07/sets/72157627204548580/
Awake at midnight and climbing by 2 a.m., we cramponed up the steep snow face by headlamp, trending left toward the ice gullies that lead to the final, broad summit slopes. We dispatched these technical couloirs in 3 long running belays, moving continuously together while clipping our rope to pickets and ice screws. Surmounting a short rock band high above the North Mowich Glacier, we emerged on easier ground at 12, 500 feet, where we rested and brewed up in the morning sun.
Blue skies and high pressure were forecasted for the next morning. So to prolong the alpine fun (and rest our middle-aged bones) we pitched the tent on the flat lip of a crevasse just beneath the summit. At 8 a.m. on the 7th, we stood in glorious sunshine and calm winds on Liberty Cap (14,112 ft), one of Rainier’s 3 summits. What took us days to ascend, we descended in a few hours, racing down the Emmons route to Camp Schurman and Glacier Basin. Beneath Camp Schurman, we glissaded 2000 feet in about 5 minutes. Without a hint of hyperbole, John remarked, “That was the most fun I’ve had since I was 8.”
I’ve climbed several routes on Rainier in the past decade. Ptarmigan Ridge was the finest, especially gratifying to climb with a great friend and climbing partner like John.
Photos (some from the Alpine Lakes Wilderness area northeast of Rainier):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/14146650@N07/sets/72157627204548580/
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