The plan was for Mike and Jonathan to climb the Emmons Glacier, while Mark and Doug climbed Ptarmigan Ridge. Things did not exactly work out. The weather was too warm and the snow was too soft. The going was OK for Mike and Jonathan until they got to the steep part of the Inter Glacier. There was no boot track and they started to sink up to their knees with every step. Making progress up a steep slope, with a heavy pack, in knee deep snow is extremely difficult. This put an end to their climb. 
Mark and Doug had a long traverse, in soft snow, around to Ptarmigan Ridge. We had hoped to get to the 10,300' level on the ridge on the first day, but instead had to camp on the West side of the Carbon Glacier on the first night. We would make it to the 10,300' bivy the next day. This photo shows the Carbon Glacier with Ptarmigan Ridge in the distance.
The actual climb would have started on the lower right side of this picture and gone up and to the left.
The Liberty Cap Glacier and The upper part of Ptarmigan Ridge. There are 2 popular options once you reach the buttress at the top right of this photo. One is to go right below the buttress. We were leaning toward the other option, which is to take a left and find a path on the glacier. While we were killing time at high camp, we heard a loud noise, looked up and saw an avalanche. A huge block of ice had calved off of the LC Glacier and swept right through a large part of the route that we might have been on if our progress had been better! We spent the rest of the day napping and watching climbers on Liberty Ridge make slow progress. One group took 8 hours to climb a section that should have taken 2-3 hours. Between the ice-fall danger and slow going on steep snow, we decided to bail out on the climb. 
We got up at midnight hoping that the snow would be firmer at night. It was better, but still pretty soft. The sun rose as we approached St. Elmo's Pass and we got to the car in time for breakfast. Maybe next time. :(
