In May 1960, Liu and his teammate Wang Fuzhou, Qu Yinhua and Gongbu tried to ascend to the summit of Mount Everest via the north ridge. Liu volunteered to be a human ladder when the team reached the Second Step, which helped his teammates become the first to reach the peak of Mount Everest via the north face. Although failing to reach the summit, he was soon thereafter described as the human ladder of the Mount Everest and was awarded a National Sports Medal of Honor. His heroic story Climb to the Top of the Earth () was included in the Chinese textbook of junior high school. He retired from mountain climbing in 1973 and worked at Harbin Electrical Machine Factory.