The trip itself was fantastic - the morning started out cold. Somewhere around 5C. At the peak of Liberty, it was perhaps -10C. Thankfully, the weather was mostly clear. We could see about 270 degrees around the peak. We summited around 1:15pm and thought about doing Flume and coming back down the same trail. Instead, we decided to turn around.
But we were prepared. The ninja turtles that we were, we were each carrying a sled on our packs. Most of us had 2-foot-in-diameter hard green plastic sleds (courtesy of MITOC) that we sat down on as soon as we got below treeline again and slid down the Liberty Trail. It was the best trail to slide down on. I think I hit every single snowbank on my way down, but we easily slid 3 miles downhill on the sleds. No iceaxe was needed - just use your boots and hands!
The entire trip took about 7 hours go to ~8 miles, including spending some time at the summit and sledding down the whole way. I highly recommend this hike - bring at least 2.5 L of water for a winter hike!
