Rainier: Liberty Ridge

The view as we approached gave us a good assessment of the anticipated route. Our high camp would be to the right of the “fin” known as Thumb Rock at about 10,800 feet on the ridge. With an early morning start we planned to traverse onto the right side of the ridge (the '1955' route) and up snow slopes until we could traverse back onto the left side of the ridge for some very exposed climbing before the final easy slopes to the summit. The actual route we took is in red.

This picture is taken from an altitide of 7,000 feet. There is still about 3,800 feet to get to base camp and another 3,300 feet from there to the summit.


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