Liberty Ridge Ski attempt and Plan C in the Sunset Ampitheatre

With a few different ski descent off the summit of Mount Rainier, I was ready to go big! Following the South Tahoma Headwall, Sam Hoffman and I skied the Fuhrer Finger in two days and Calvin Jiricko and I skied the Nisqually Chute in a complete whiteout. I was ready to head to the northwest side of the mountain. One that see's even less visitors than the true western aspect I had been visiting with frequency.

Charlie Harrison and I planned to team up and attempt a top down, onsite style descent of Liberty Ridge. It was audacious, exciting and a bit nerve-racking. We rolled up the snowfield late in the afternoon in early May. We had a full kit with us. Two 30m RAD Lines, a few ice screws, crampons and our personal glacier racks. With some other guides in the Butler shelter, we opted to sleep in the empty client shelter and use the provided moldy sleeping bags and pads that are left up there each season. 

We awoke to clear skies and made coffee in the butler shelter, psyched for the day ahead. Cranking up through Cathedral Gap and through the Ingraham Direct route, we felt strong. We tagged the top of Columbia Crest at 11:30am, having left just three and a half hours earlier. My feet were feeling jacked up and I rested with my bare feet in the windless, sunny weather before putting my skis back on and over to Liberty Cap. The skiing was phenominal. Almost too good? At the saddle we put skins back on and skinned as far as we could up Liberty Cap. A quick bootpack following our skin put us on top of Liberty Cap right around 12 o'clock midday. 

Looking down into the amphitheater of rime mushrooms

The terrain off of Liberty Cap rolled slowly into the abyss and Charlie and I leap frogged our way down the ever steepening terrain. The skiing was magical. Boot top powder with good, firm edgable snow below. "Wow" I thought to myself. This is going to be incredible!

Just two days ago we had stashed a car in Sunrise for our exit and we got great views of the ridge from Enumclaw. We had been able to get some recon photos and see what conditions were like. Now we were up here and the terrain below was rugged and committing. We continued our descent until we hit the obvious bergschrund. 

"What do you think dude?" I said to Charlie. We could hardly see 20ft below us and we were about to rappel into the void. "I think we could get a thread there," Charlie pointed to a panel of ice. "Yeah, sounds great. But do you think our ropes will reach?" We had about 200ft total of rope, that tied together allowed for 100ft rappels. The only thing we could see was the Carbon Glacier 7000ft below us. "Shit," I thought. I begun to get a weird gut feeling about this...

After some continued discussion, I expressed my concern to Charlie. "We could go for it, but we're fucked if we have a bunch of hanging rappel stations." It would be doable, but we'd be fully committing to the descent. "Yeah, I hear ya dude" Charlie replied. "I'm okay with anything." The universal, non committing way of agreeing to bail. Alright then. Back up.

We transition to bootpack back up to Liberty Cap and we began to breath hard, having now been at 14,000ft for over four hours now. We finally made it back up and discussed our options. We could either reverse our track back up and over the southside, or we could check out our options on the western side of the mountain. We went for the latter.

We transitioned our skis and headed downhill. Our two options were the Mowich Headwall/Sunset Ridge or the Sunset Amphitheater Couloir. Both of which got skied very little. That being said, we both knew some friends had skied the Sunset Ridge a week prior. We skied to the roll which signified the start of the Mowich Headwall. To ski either Sunset Ridge or the Mowich we were going to have to commit to this steep, convex roll. 

I began to commit and made a few turns as Charlie watched. Two feet of powder on top of textured blue ice. As I made a few initial turns, the unconsolidated, new snow fractured under my feet and shed down the steep face below. "Shit dude, this is a no go too." 

I side stepped up and surveyed our options. "Well I guess there's one last option," Charlie sighed. "Yep, let's go check it out I guess." We put our skins back on our skis and skinned up the wind swept ridge to the top of the Sunset Amphitheater.

Sunset Amphitheater from the bottom of the couloir

It was now almost 2pm and we were pretty smoked. Turns out the last six hours above 14,00ft was pretty tiring. After about 30 minutes of skinning we reached a steep couloir that looked like it fed into the Sunset Amphitheater. We both agreed this was our best option and began to transition. I let Charlie drop first and watched from the ridge as he descended into the gut of the chute. Linking turns, side stepping down patches of blue ice and downhill kick turning, he made it to a protected spot on top of a rib of snow. I followed the 30m pitch of skiing and we regrouped above a skinnier, icy section where the terrain narrowed. 

We both agreed to pull the rope out and placed a deadman picket in the newly turned slushy, isothermic snow. The anchor was "good enough" and I began to lower Charlie down the icy runnel. We had tied both of our ropes together since we didn't know how long the rappel was and after Charlie was lowered 30m, I did a quick and dirty knot pass and continued to lower him. Soon he was back on the snow and I set up to rappel. Knowing we needed more than 30m of rope to rappel, I set up a reepshnur and rappeled on a single strand. Gingerly weighting the anchor and down climbing when it was possible I made my way down the 34m rappel. When I was close to the bottom, I took some cord and quad length sling and extended my pull line. The rope was still a bit short, and I went off rappel with the pull strand in my hand and jumped into the soft snow 3ft below. 

Skiing after the 35m rappel

We pulled the rope and stashed it away in our packs. Hopefully it would be the last time we would need it today. I skied first and traversed out skiers right. The lower couloir was steep! The snow was streaked and stained from the volcanic rock dust from the large cliffs above. I committed to the slope and began to find a rhythm as I linked hop turns. Charlie followed and leap frogged me as I watched from an adjacent safe spot on the shoulder. We yipped and hollered, excited to be through the major difficulties and headed downhill. Rocks intermittently rolled past and we hollered to each other when they got close. Often times we would be skiing in parallel to falling rock in the couloir. We moved quick and efficiently, knowing extended time in this loaded gun barrel could be quite dangerous. 

We regrouped at the bottom of the couloir and blindly aired over the bergschrund and arced GS turns down the apron. We were PSYCHED. As we skied towards Saint Andrews Rock we passed some of the largest boulders I have ever seen. One had a skid runnel that had to have been five feet deep. We traversed around the skiers right side of Saint Andrews and continued skiing adjacent to the Lower Tahoma Glacier. The skiing was steep, varied and the snow was perfect corn. 

Shwacking out to the West Side Road

The low angle glacier exit

By the time we hit the treeline, we had skied 7,000ft of varied, complex and just plain fun skiing. We hit the West Side Road by 7:30pm and met our good friend George at the gate just as dusk swept over Mount Rainier National Park. We wrapped up our day reminiscing in the Trailhead Bar. All in all an unforgettable day in the park. 

South Tahoma Headwall

For the second year in a row, I headed out to Washington to work for RMI Expeditions for the summer. The work has been great and the springtime conditions up here can be hard to beat. With the first few weeks of May off from work, I focused my attention on some personal skiing on Mount Rainier. 

Headed up the snowfield

The first mission began right when I arrived in Ashford. Henry Coppolillo had reached out and was hoping to ski for his birthday on May 3rd. Arriving late on the 2nd of May, I quickly unpacked my kit, repacked and tried to get some sleep prior to my 2:30am pickup from Henry and Ben Ammon another guide at RMI. Our plan was to something on the Southwest side of Rainier with the plan of skiing back down to the car from Paradise. But when Henry and Ben picked me up in the morning that had other ideas. They were keen on checking out the South Tahoma Headwall on the west side of Mount Rainier. I was enthusiastically on board and we quickly began up the Muir Snowfield. 

We made great time up the snowfield and soon we were booting up past the Beehive and to Gibraltar Ledges. We kept the rope tucked away and continued up the ledges and into the upper part of the couloir. Here we rested and refueled. 

On top of the ledges

I was feeling particularly worked having driven out to Washington the day before, and those guys smoked me on the upper part of the mountain. After our break we continued up through the tumultuous and broken upper Nisqually Glacier, having to pull the rope out and even "pitch" out a few small traverses. This is my favorite kind of mountain travel. One that involves all of the tricks and skills you have in your bag. 

Racking on the upper mountain

Once we moved through the broken, glaciated terrain, the terrain eased and we settled into mellow walking up to the top of Point Success. By this point I was extremely tired and those guys certainly had to wait for me to keep up. Thankfully the terrain was simple and a rope was not needed. After some much needed self-care time on top, we were ready to ski. 

The first rappel

Since it was Henry's birthday and Ben was preparing for his AMGA Ski Exam, by default I let those guys lead the charge to the notch of the South Tahoma Headwall. Ski's were donned just below the true summit of Point Success and we gingerly hop turned our way down diagonal ramps of pleasantly soft snow. We leap frogged and smiled as the terrain was pretty casual and it was comforting to finally have skis on our feet. We finally got to the first cliff band and opted to leave an old aluminum, deadman picket. 30m later, we had our skis back on and continued down slope.

With the warming temperatures, there was an increase in rockfall and we skied on the far skiers left down a tongue of snow and out of the couloirs gut. There were few places where we side slipped through ice filled chokes but overall the skiing was pleasant to say the least! Finally, we reached a point where we could either traverse skiers right into the gut or continue down the left tongue of snow. We chose to stay left.

We finally ran out of snow and to a downward sloping scree ramp and then about a 100ft cliff. We realized our mistake and considered booting back up and out but figured instead we would just rappel. Ben and Henry set up the rap as they had skied to the edge of the cliff first and I watched in a safe zone just above. 

Ben slung a shallow horn of rock that was smooth, strong and of good quality with some 7mm cord. With loose rock below, we figured the safest option was to lower the first two skiers so the ropes were hung slowly and not tossed. This ultimately would save Henry's life or at a minimum prevent him from serious injury. 

Henry clipped the end of the rope with an overhand on a bight to his harness with a locking carabiner. Ben threaded his belay plate with the rope and attached a "third hand" auto block to the brake strand and began to lower Henry down to the couloir below. As Henry was being lowered over the sloped edge, the load strand began to fully weight the anchor and after about 10m we all heard a "pop" and Ben yelled "oh fuck." The cord had slip off of the smooth, rounded rock horn and Ben had caught Henry off of his harness. "What the fuck was that?" Henry called up. Ben replied, "Henry are you in an okay spot? The anchor just blew." Henry was thankfully on a sloped ledge and was able to take some weight off of Ben. In the meantime, I was scrambling to find another anchor. The snow had turned quite soft, and the thin bit of ice underneath was not nearly enough for an anchor. A picket also resisted my anchor attempts in the shallow snow. 

Finally, I realized there was a massive boulder that we might be able to sling and transfer Henry's weight to. I slung the crumbly, volcanic boulder and just had enough cord to do so. I tied both ends together and clipped and flipped a locker to it. I then tied a releasable munter mule overhand (MMO) and Ben slowly lowered Henry's weight onto the new anchor. The cord from Henry's wieght cut into the crumbly, volcanic rock and Ben and I held our breath. Finally the load was fully transfered and although it was poor rock, it was unlikely the cord would cut through the full formation. I released the hitch and lowered Henry to the snow (or so I thought). 

Henry had reached a ledge and decided he was done with the ropes and down-climbed the 10ft section to the snow. Now it was my turn...

Ben and I tied both of our ropes together and fixed the rope with an extra 20ft of rope. "That should be enough," Ben said. I started to rappel and gingerly avoided the loose rock. After some faffing, I made it to the snow. Psyched to see Henry down below after our hour long mishap. Ben followed and we soon pulled our ropes with our skis back on our feet. 

Feeling pretty shaken up, we were all pretty psyched to get out of the gun barrel we were now in. We simul skied the lower portion of the South Tahoma Headwall and enjoyed steep, edge able skiing in an amazing setting. Whooping and hollering we all fist bumped once we were out of the serious, objectively hazardous terrain. We still had 3k' of skiing left to do.

The rolling terrain of the Tahoma glacier was a dream and we stopped a few times to recheck our gps maps and tracks that helped aid our descent. A few times we had to side step and soon we reached the treeline were the skiing got a whole lot more "techy." By this point the skiing was more like a controlled fall and very desperate. We were nearing "ski crash" territory. The fallen fir branches from the windy winter made our skis stick and nearly made me crash. 

After a break we strapped our skis to our packs and continued the descent on foot. We hit the West Side Road as the sun began to set and reached the cars just as dusk swept over the valley. We were tired, psyched and thankful. Thankful for a safe birthday ski day for Henry's 24th year on earth. That being said, we cut the margins pretty thin and the day could have ended a lot differently. Nothing more to do than go to the Elbe, smoke a cig and drink a beer. All while scheming the next trip to the top of Washington with skis.