Liberty Ridge

So, I made it to Ashford, WA alright. It's a crazy little town. Very little.

I spent most of the day working my way through Atlas Shrugged and at 3pm we (two other clients, two guides) met up, went through some introductions, talked about the trip itinerary, and finally did some gear checks and got everything packed.

Forty pounds. It's awesome. I think this is my lightest pack yet.

So, Monday morning we meet up in the parking lot at 05:45 and drive 2+ hours to the trailhead. It'll be a long day. We won't actually climb very high, but we have quite a few miles to cover.

The next morning we start at 3am. It'll be the first real day of climbing. I think Nate said that it'll mostly be 40-45 degree snow/ice. Nothing too crazy.

The following "morning" at midnight we start our summit day. Apparently we do about four thousand feet of real climbing and end up at some secondary summit. If we've made good time and we all feel good, then we'll make the hour-and-a-half trip to the Columbia Crest (?) which is the "real" summit. And then we start running back down.

The fourth day we'll make it back down to the van and drive back to Ashford.

It seems rather daunting thinking about it right now.

I like Alaska, in the Summer, where there is no notion of an "alpine start". It's light pretty much the entire time - except during the easy season for a few hours at night - and headlamps are never necessary.

I guess some variety won't kill me. I'll try to take lots of pictures.