Thumb Rock

Thumb Rock

Marcsoltan
on Sep 18, 2008 2:15 pm
Image Type(s): Alpine Climbing
Image ID: 444317

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lcarreau

lcarreau - Feb 1, 2009 9:58 am - Voted 10/10

Excuse me, Marc ...

When you did LR, when was it when you first experienced the whiteout? It was after you
had reached Thumb Rock, right?

In clear weather, is it possible for a
climber to descend from Liberty Ridge, or
would there be too many obstacles to negociate, such as crevasses on the Carbon
Glacier?

I think you guys made the right choice by
descending by way of the Emmons route.

Marcsoltan

Marcsoltan - Feb 1, 2009 1:32 pm - Hasn't voted

Re: Excuse me, Marc ...

Well, there were periodic white outs even before we reached Thumb rock. But those didn't last long. But, we didn't confront real white out till we got to the very top of Rainier. Our Liberty cap photos came out pretty nice, but by the time we got to the top of Rainier the winds had picked up considerably and we had near complete white out. However, it wasn't so bad that we could not follow the foot prints down Emmons. So, all in all the weather could have been a lot worse, and we lucked out that it was a weak storm. If the weather had gotten bad around Thumb Rock which is still 4000 feet from the top, we would have had to go down LR, and across Carbon again. But, thankfully we had enough time to make it to the top and see the way down before it really hit.

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