Liberty Bell - Beckey Route 6.20.15

With my one free weekend before the summer quarter started, Aaron and I decided to head into the mountains for a two day adventure. Day one would be climbing Liberty Bell via the Beckey Route (5.6) which has been on our to-do list for several years, just something we never quite got to while we were climbing at Washington Pass. Day two would be hiking up to the Hidden Lake Lookout on our drive home. Experiencing the crowds on many of the routes in the Liberty Bell group, Aaron came up with the brilliant idea to sleep at home Friday night, and leave for WA Pass Saturday morning about 7am. We’d head to Lone Fir campground east of the pass to set up camp, then head in for the climb, hoping that the groups would have all climbed before our arrival.

The Liberty Bell Group with Liberty Bell being the closest spire (as seen from the Washington Pass overlook)

We left the Blue Lake trailhead about 11:20am. Aaron had the rope and took the rack so that I could move a little faster – what a guy. We took our first break at the climbers’ trail turnoff from the main trail. It was a beautiful day and it felt great to be in the mountains.

Quick break at the turn for the climbers' trail

As we followed the climbers’ trail up a pair of hikers and their dogs caught up to us. Unfortunately the dogs were off leash and when we encountered a group of 5 goats (2 large and 3 little babies) the dogs rushed them. They were called back just in time before any physical clash, but clearly they had upset the goats. The one, with horns pointed our direction, started stomping a lot. We backed the whole group up and bushwhacked up a bit, trying to put a bunch of space between us and the irate goats. We found the trail just a little bit higher up the mountain side and soon found the fork, heading left to get to Liberty Bell.

The one staring me down was also the one aggressively stomping

As we got to what we thought was the bottom of the gully, we stopped to put our helmets on having heard the horror stories. Aaron had tried to climb Liberty Bell years ago but due to the crowds they bailed and climbed Concord instead. He knew they crossed the gully to the right side too early so we stayed left and snaked up the rocks. We heard a lot of voices and were afraid there were a ton of people waiting to get on route, but luckily it was just the large group (~8 climbers) that had been first on the route that morning heading back to their cars. They said there was one group that was just starting up, otherwise no line – yay! There were more pairs of Mama goats with their babies in the gully but luckily none of them seemed too bothered by us. We passed one more climbing pair heading down before reaching the level of the ledge to start the climb. It had taken us about 2 hours which is what I was expecting with my slow approach speed.

[Left] Looking up the approach gully to reach the notch. [Right] The approximate Beckey Route up Liberty Bell

We geared up, left our packs on the rock face down hoping our sweaty-salty straps would be out-of-sight, out-of-mind for the goats so they wouldn’t bother them. Aaron walked out on the ledge to the base of the rib for the first pitch and flaked the rope. We tied in and Aaron started up, making quick work of the rib. The wind was howling up the gully, and despite standing in the sun with my wind shirt on, my hands were soon frozen. As in, all but about two or three of my fingers were completely numb and white. That would certainly make the climbing more interesting!

[Left] Looking up at the top of the gully at the notch, where you rappel down to. [Right] Aaron heading out on the ledge to the start of the first pitch

I started up after Aaron, for once enjoying the warm rock in the sun as I briefly could feel it. At the top of the rib, Aaron had anchored into a tree near three other guys from the party in front of us. They were climbing as a group of four – one leader with three followers. Their leader had just finished up the pitch and they were really cool about the whole situation and offered to let me lead through them so we could pass, understanding that they’d be moving slower in their climbing configuration. I told Aaron my hands were frozen and I wasn’t so sure about leading without being able to feel the rock, but he thought I’d be fine (of course he did).

Aaron led the first pitch up the blocky rib, anchoring into a group of trees at the base of the chimney

I took the gear back and with the audience hanging out by the trees, started up the chimney trying to figure out how to get over the first chock stone. From my beta, it said that there was always webbing to pull on that made the move easier. Apparently someone didn’t like it and it’s gone now, I could just see a small piece still sticking out. I placed a couple pieces of gear, getting really high up under the rock. Finally I knew I had to get out and on top of it. I reached up, got a decent hold on the rock on the left side, and mounted it – yes, I sat on it. But hey, I made it! I continued up the route, placing gear in between where the other gear already was. My hands were still frozen. I’ve led once before at Vantage in March with frozen hands and didn’t like the experience because I couldn’t feel/tell if I had a good grip on the rock for my holds, luckily it was a sport route so clipping the bolts weren’t too difficult. This rock was less about finger tip holds and more about giant rocks, but I also couldn’t feel my carabiners as I tried to open them to get gear off of my harness to place. I couldn’t tell through feeling if the wire gate was open or not, so I had to look at stuff a lot more – and also hope I didn’t drop anything without being able to feel it. I made it up, not placing much gear, and girth hitched a sling around a snarled tree by the other leader. He was really nice and we talked about climbs we had done while we waited for our seconds to head up.

Aaron made quick work of the second pitch and I gave the gear back to him so he could start on the third pitch and we could get out of the other group’s way. He placed his #1 down low in the seam to protect my anchor, forgetting that that was the one piece called out to protect the finger traverse. Having read about the potential of horrendous rope drag, Aaron’s challenge was to lead the pitch with minimal gear placements – and he was quite successful in meeting that challenge. He didn’t clip the piton because I had heard about the rope drag, but in the end, he didn’t place a piece until he was on the ramp above the finger traverse so he probably could have. Once he was up the ramp and around the corner, I soon heard him yell off belay. I headed up the slab, left across the finger traverse which seemed very reasonable, and right up the ramp to find Aaron anchored at more trees around the corner.

[Left] Start of the third pitch, heading straight up towards the roof, then heading left across the finger traverse before following the ramp up right and around the corner. [Right] View from around the corner on the third pitch, can anchor into the trees just over the top ledge.

We coiled the rope and left it there, figuring we’d be back that way on our way to find the rappel chains. We spotted the slab and headed up towards it. I went up first, using the seam and then finding a couple intermediate features until I could grab the lip and haul myself up. Aaron made quick work of the slab and then we just scrambled the path of least resistance to the summit.

[Left] Looking up the rest of the route from the top of the third pitch. We spotted the slab and took the path of least resistance to the slab and above the slab. [Right] The slab

It took us an hour and fifteen minutes from the base of the climb to the top. It was a little windy on top but not as bad as in the gully. The views were spectacular as we had a clear 360 degree view. After lots of pictures and reveling in the mountains (I have to soak up as much of it as I can) we started down.

Summit views

Aaron downclimbed the slab first while I tried to point out any features I could spot to help. He then did the same for me from below to coach me down, so the slab turned out to be a non-issue. We picked up our rope and headed down the rock and through the trees. I spotted the yellow rock with rappel chains off to skier’s right so I headed across with the rope to get the rappel set up.

Head down through the trees from the top of pitch 3, first trending skier's left and then heading skier's right to find the chains

Head right across a slab to reach the rappel chains

There was another climbing pair on the summit with us that rappelled down instead of downclimbing the slab, so they were just finishing that as I set up our rappel. Aaron talked to them to team up so we could get through the rappels a little quicker by sharing ropes. I rappelled down first and spotted some blue webbing around a large rock with a rap ring and old locking carabiner so I headed there. I’m pretty sure there is a better rappel station but I didn’t see it so we made that work. It did require some traversing skier’s right to reach the ledge at the top of the gully.

We packed up the gear and started down the gully, our next obstacle. Once we were clear of the bottom (while we were in the gully the goats seemed to enjoy kicking some occasional rocks down) we took off our helmets and started for the car. The angry group of 5 goats was no longer near the trail which was nice. We made it back to the car 6 hours after we had started, not too bad for an afternoon adventure and that left us plenty of time to head into Winthrop to grab some dinner at the school house brewery before heading back to camp. I finally got the opportunity to try out my new hammock that I had gotten from Steep and Cheap last year. We figured out the webbing we needed and spent a few minutes trying it out. It’ll be a fun addition to our car camping trips.

Trying out the new hammock

After that we retired for the night before 9pm to get lots of sleep before our hiking adventure the next day. One of my favorite parts about camping in the mountains is the early bed time and lots of sleep!

Gear: 60m rope, 5 singles, 5 doubles, set of nuts, C3 #0 – 2, C4 #0.3 – 3 (#3 is probably not needed). More than enough gear for any single pitch.

GPS track

Approach to Liberty Bell