Routes climbed:
1.Liberty Bell – The Beckey Route
2.Concord Tower – The Cave Route
3.Lexington Tower – North Face
4.South Early Winter Spire – Southwest Buttress
I finally took a trip to Washington Pass this year. After climbing Slesse, making trips to the Pickets, numerous Cascade Pass trips, and more typical Cascade climbing, I actually saw with my own eyes the Liberty Bell group. I had never even been past the Ross Lake trailhead. OK, enough about my surprise at how long it took me to make a visit. Robert and I planned to climb several of the classic moderate routes. We planned to make the short hike of about an hour to an hour and a half each morning and camp somewhere down in the valley. We left my house around 7AM after searching a while for my escaped cat.
We hit the trail around 10:45 AM with our eyes set on the Beckey Route of Liberty Bell. This is one of the most popular routes in the group. It’s rated 5.7 and is about 5-7 pitches, I think. On the hike up, I thought how nice it was to be doing some easy climbing for once – no long, painful approach featuring stream crossings, bushwacking, exposed scrambling, rappelling. We felt like we were living the equivalent of a life in a big touring RV. At an hour, we were at the base of the loose gully. Well, so much for the RV, the gully, while short, was a typical Cascadian couloir of loose rock and dirt. At the notch, we scurried along a ledge to the base of the climb. “You wanna lead?”, asked Robert. “Yeah sure.” I was feeling pretty good and was happy to lead out and get moving. We decided to simul-climb the route. I led up on the comfortable warm granite enjoying the moderate nature of the climb. At the chimney pitch, a chockstone divided the route between choices of left or right. For some reason, I chose right which was at least a 5.8 move. I instantly knew the correct was was the left, but I continued up. After all, there were slings that protected the move. I clipped one and made an awkward chimney move to get on top of the chockstone. Then, I placed another piece, unclipped the sling to prevent Robert having to go that way and continued up.
To me, the chimney was the crux of the climb. It’s easy, but at least sustained. At the top of the chimney, I recognized the description of the beginning of the third pitch. Robert still hadn’t started climbing but would be doing so soon. This next section of the climb was easy, featuring one tough move up a short crack. I did spend a good amount of time deciding how to protect the move and ultimately settling on a cammed hex. Beyond this, a fun, easy, and exposed traverse brought me up to more moderate ground to near the end of the route. “Hmm, the 5.7 crux is somewhere up here.” I hadn’t bothered looking at the topo lately and didn’t feel the need to since I could see the summit. I made a thin bouldering move up a short blank face (turns out this was the crux) and continued up along more easy ground.
Below the summit, I assumed I saw the crux although there was obviously a 5.0 way which was more direct to the summit. “Hmm…weird,” I thought. Well, I continued on up fun flakes on the left. After one long simul pitch I was on the top and belayed up Robert. “Hey, that was a fun ending you added on”, he said. I asked if that was the crux and he informed me that, no, it was actually the blank face. Ah, ok. Well, a fun route!
Downclimbing and rappels saw us back at the notch where we set off for the Cave Route on Concord Tower (5.8). Robert set out off the lead. The crux pitch is the first one. We were a little worried because there was signs that someone had bailed off the route. The first part of the climb is a fun traverse to an awkward move to reach a short dihedral. Here, someone left a sling and a cam! Well, Robert clipped it and kept going. Robert reported it was quite fun…and solid! The dihedral looked a little intimidating too, but also turned out to be reasonable and fun. I followed up and found this to be the case. It’s a great opening pitch. Robert decided to continue up and ended up traversing under a long roof. I followed up and found it distinctly easier but just as fun. I thought maybe this large roof was the cave. No, Robert was belaying in the cave. It’s actually a long tunnel (great place to bivy!). I took over the lead, walked through the tunnel, and emerged onto warm granite slopes. Exposed at first, this pitch becomes quite easy, mostly an easy friction climb to the summit.
We had a 50 meter rope and our rappels were short in a couple of places on the descent. Back at the notch, we retrieved our packs and headed down to Lexington Tower’s North Face route.
Lexington Tower’s north face route was my least favorite. The route is 5.7 and is determined by the very first move. The move is quite awkward. It’s not too hard though, just goofy and nothing aesthetic. The remainder of the route was quite moderate. I think we finished the climb in one more simul pitch. The descent was a little problematic, our rope got caught more than once.
By now, it was pushing 7pm, I think and we decided to head down and drive to Winthrop for some food. Wow, real food tonight, no freeze-dried. Well, not really. We arrived in Winthrop at 9pm, just after all the food establishments closed. A sympathetic waitress however, scrounged up some grub for us in the form of a Caesar salad and some frozen tiramisu. Tasty. We then headed for a “secret spot” that Robert had used a few times in the past. It turns out we were in the wrong spot, but it worked. It was an old road forgotten by man covered in weeds. We slept in a dark spot that ended up being not far from the road. Cars zoomed by periodically and startled us. It was also quite warm this night and sleeping in my 30 degree bag had me waking up covered in sweat.
Oh well, it worked. We woke up and ate a crude breakfast and headed back to the trailhead. We ate a little more at the trailhead, divvied up the gear, and headed out. Our goal this time was the Southwest Buttress on South Early Winter Spire. If we had the time and energy, we thought we’d do the easy route on North Early Winter Spire, thereby climbing all of the major spires this weekend. The Southwest Buttress route is a grade III so we expected to be done sometime in the mid to late afternoon. Getting to the route featured a minor problem solved by a clever rappel rig. At the base of the route, I anchored in to bomber trees and Robert headed off for the 5.8 crack. The crack felt pretty easy, the hardest part being right at the beginning. All it takes is balance and cool nerves, but you get the sensation that the crack wants to spit you out. A few moves up and the climbing becomes easier. It was a little wide for me to jam effectively so I ended up smearing up the face.
Robert was sitting at a beautiful belay station at the base of the second pitch. I decided to lead out and also to string the next two pitches together. The first part was up another crack, rated 5.4, I think. At the top, I had to climb hard to the right so I placed a sling high on a tree as a directional to reduce rope drag. The third pitch is rated 5.6+ and Beckey calls it “nervous”. 5.6+ Old School! Well, I hadn’t read that but that was quite the accurate description. The climb is an exposed face climb with sparse protection. I protected at every opportunity that I could, but they were quite spread out which gave it a nice spicy (nervous) flair. The final move was definitely the scariest for me. Standing with a single foot on a small nub and both hands gripping on tiny nubs, I realized I was at least 15 feet above my last piece and had to move laterally another 10 feet along very thing rock to a crack with a sturdy looking little tree growing out. Well, I knew I couldn’t easily downclimb, plus, I just had one more move to make…don’t give up! I stretched my right leg way out to a small nub. Unfortunately, the part of my shoe that I needed to smear had a hole in it! It held though and I felt my heart in my throat as I put my weight on it and made the quick move to the thank-God hold in the crack. Whew! I slung the tree, clipped, and climbed up to the belay.
Robert led the next pitch, the “Bear Hug”! Easy pitch. Protect with a 3.5 cam in the right crack and go! The climbing is easy and Robert cranked through it in 30 seconds. I followed in the same style. Easy and fun stuff! Easy ground got us to another exposed pitch which I led. Being 5.4 though, it was a cruise. This was a long pitch that led us to the “Rabbit Ears”, one more pitch to go to the summit. Robert led out for the last pitch, crossing over the miserable looking gully and climbed up the fun 5.2 crack. Interesting that this was 5.2 and the previous pitch was 5.4. While this was an easy pitch, I thought it was a little more technical than the previous pitch and though it deserved the 5.4 rating. No matter, we were at the top.
We took a nice rest on the top. Looking over at the route on North Early Winter Spire, we saw lots of sandy moves. The gully certainly didn’t sweeten the deal either. The heck with it! We decided to head out and drive to “Good Food” for some burgers and shakes. This was a fun trip. I really enjoyed an easier weekend that didn’t feature a typical brutal Cascade approach. Oh yeah, Georgia (my cat), was taking a nap in the backyard when we drove up to my house in the evening.
