Greg_W Posted June 21, 2004 Share Posted June 21, 2004 Climb: WA Pass-Liberty Bell, Concord Tower Date of Climb: 6/19/2004 Trip Report: Myself and jja decided to traverse the Liberty Bell group this past weekend. And it all started out just fine… We had a decent bivy at the Blue Lake Trailhead after minimum difficulty on the drive. The sun rose early, and we were moving shortly after 5 a.m. Lucky for us, we were ahead of a group of Mounties and we avoided getting trundled on. John led the first pitch up the Beckey Route, bitching about cold hands. I didn’t really recall asking about the condition of his hands, but okay. I followed, and led the second pitch; I recall that my hands weren’t cold. Maybe John has circulation issues, I don’t know. Anyway, John took off on the third pitch and then we dropped the rope and soloed to the summit. The sun was nice and warm; took pics and headed down. We rapped back to the col without incident and warmed up and had a snack. Number 2: Concord Tower N. Face. We swung leads with John taking pitches 1 & 3. This is a fun climb and we finally got into the sun. During the climb I ignored John’s cries about cold hands, because mine were cold, too. Instant karma from the last route was probably fucking with me. Now, the spice is about to start. I had received beta a year or so ago that it was possible to rappel with a single rope from the notch due West of the summit block and get to the Concord-Lexington notch in a couple rappels. So, we headed over to do that. We set up the rap and John went first. It seemed like he took forever to get down a single rope rap. Finally, I heard, “OFF RAPPEL, it’s sorta spicy, though.” I thought to myself, “what’s so spicy about a rappel?” I soon found out. I started rapping down and soon found John perched on a ledge clipped in to one nasty anchor (A 1” diameter bush, a booty’d tri-cam, and a cam). I perched myself on a protrusion about the size of a dinner plate and clipped to the anchor. After some debate, we decided to use this anchor and rappel down. We went to pull the rope…no dice. After several attempts, we realized we were fucked. I swung out on rappel and saw the rope stuck fast in a crack. What to do, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you. I rapped to the end of the rope (another 12’ below John’s anchor) and set up an anchor. It wasn’t one I was too proud of, but it was all that was there. John came down and built a better anchor in a crack at my feet that I hadn’t seen. We thought we could down-climb with some assistance, so we strung together all the slings (about 7) and two cordelettes and John went down tied in with a Munter hitch. As an editorial note, the Munter passed the girth hitches rather well. At the end of the “line”, John was at some flakes that he could down-climb (5.2?); first he pitched his pack. Rather morbid, I thought, to use the pack to see where you broken body would land if you fell. But, to each his own. Down without incident, I followed. After several interesting moves, I reached the “pack toss” point and heaved the bitch out into space. John caught this on video (hopefully he’ll link it to this TR). Finally, I was down and all was well. Phew!! We met Mika & John, who thought they were in the Beckey Gully. Oops. Day two: Rescue Operation. With a borrowed rope, we decided to climb the South Face – East side (5.4) route on Concord to retrieve John’s rope and gear. After much debate, we decided we knew where the route was and racked up. I started up and then backed off of the lead; my head was other places that morning. I handed the rack to John and he headed up. I remember thinking that he was placing a lot of gear for a 5.4, but oh well. He surmounted a 10’ near-vertical wide crack and set up a hanging belay. He brought me up and I gained a new appreciation for his reasoning in placing so much gear. 5.4, my ass!!! Well, I thought I saw the way and I started on the second pitch: a leftward, rising traverse along a finger-to-hand crack with descent feet. There were loose blocks, lichen, and dirt – Yummy!! Soon, I noticed I was placing a lot of gear. About 2/3 up the pitch, I had to abandon the crack I was in and traverse right to another crack system. I by-passed a small roof by continuing along the crack and then traversing back right above it; John pulled the roof directly and said it wasn’t bad. I got a questionable .75 Camalot in and an even more questionable nut above that. I was out of slings. I looked above and the ground looked pretty moderate, so I kept going up. About 30’ more and I was lurching over onto a large platform below the summit block. I set up a bomber anchor with the meager holdings I had left on my rack and belayed John up. The climbing was 5.7-5.9, and reminiscent of the crux section of Outer Space with better feet and more dirt. We rested and then I led up to the summit. We quickly got organized and continued to the rescue effort at hand. Down at the rappel station in question, we rigged a long cordelette off the main anchor and threaded it through a groove to avoid the crack that had tripped us up before. This done, we uneventfully rapped to the ledge, got out gear, and got back to our packs. It was a long day, as the sun was relentless, but we accomplished our mission and did some spicy climbing. Looking at the route description afterwards, we figure we climbed the “South Face – Center” route (5.7 A3) according to Beckey’s book. Don’t know if it’s been freed, but we had fun on it. Gear Notes: Standard rack, with some doubles, lots of slings, cordelettes, rope from a friend. Approach Notes: Fairly snow free. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Billygoat Posted June 21, 2004 Share Posted June 21, 2004 Sweet "Adventure" climbing All Beta is suspect. Good job keeping your wits about ya. BTW Any site historians on the legitimacy of that FFA? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen_Ramsey Posted June 21, 2004 Share Posted June 21, 2004 Hi Greg_W, Thanks for posting the trip report. The down-climbing part sounds pretty sketch. Nice work getting out of a jam. I'm just wondering, would it have been possible to prussik back up the rappel rope, to unstick it? (the one that was stuck). Cheers, Steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg_W Posted June 21, 2004 Author Share Posted June 21, 2004 Stephen, Yes, it would. We discussed this as one option. Given that jugging a rope can create a lot of bouncing and stress, we weren't sure that it would be a good idea to stress the rap slings in place. The downclimbing wasn't horrifying, just nervewracking. Greg_W Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen_Ramsey Posted June 21, 2004 Share Posted June 21, 2004 Greg_W, Thanks for the reply. I hadn't thought about the bouncing and stress on the rap anchor... good point! Hopefully JJA will post the video. That would be cool to see. Cheers, Steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Billygoat Posted June 21, 2004 Share Posted June 21, 2004 Me, personally, I would have used my bolt gun to set up a tyrolean traverse over to Lexington with my "spare" rope (since I pack "like a girl"). But that's me... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg_W Posted June 21, 2004 Author Share Posted June 21, 2004 Me, personally, I would have used my bolt gun to set up a tyrolean traverse over to Lexington with my "spare" rope (since I pack "like a girl"). But that's me... It is true that you pack like a girl, but odds are you would have left the bolt gun next to your tent...back home. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bug Posted June 21, 2004 Share Posted June 21, 2004 Me, personally, I would have used my bolt gun to set up a tyrolean traverse over to Lexington with my "spare" rope (since I pack "like a girl"). But that's me... It is true that you pack like a girl, but odds are you would have left the bolt gun next to your tent...back home. Cheap shot. I like it. But it should be pointed out that both of you have been known to use the girl's room. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Billygoat Posted June 21, 2004 Share Posted June 21, 2004 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jja Posted June 22, 2004 Share Posted June 22, 2004 After I got down looking back up Greg, pre pack toss stage The pack toss Greg, post pack toss The 5.4 route we didn't do The center s face route we did do Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Billygoat Posted June 22, 2004 Share Posted June 22, 2004 Ouch, there wasn't anything valuable in that pack, was there?! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg_W Posted June 22, 2004 Author Share Posted June 22, 2004 Only thing that broke was my little bottle of water purification tablets; I don't know why they put those in glass bottles still. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chucK Posted June 22, 2004 Share Posted June 22, 2004 I could watch that all day! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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