[TR] Liberty Bell Mountain - Liberty Crack 7/4/2009

[GregD]

Trip: Liberty Bell Mountain - Liberty Crack

 

Date: 7/4/2009

 

Trip Report:

You would think we were pretty patriotic to climb Liberty Crack on Liberty bell mountain on the fourth of July. Really, we just needed a three day weekend to manage the drive up and back to the North Cascades from Portland. One of Roper and Steck's 50 Classic Climbs of North America (1979) this route starts out with three pitches of intimidating aid then follows the crack system on the NE face of Liberty Bell Mountain wrapping around to the SE face to meet up with the Becky route for the final scramble to the summit. Surprisingly, we had the route to ourselves for the weekend.

Graham and I drove up highway 97 with Casey Thursday after work and arrived at Lone Pine Campground about 2:30am Friday. As our goal on Friday was to simply fix the first three aid pitches I was in no hurry to get an early start.

The approach is quite obvious from the highway and although the trail can easily be lost in the woods below it takes about 45 minutes with full packs to reach the base of the climb. Ditching our packs and putting our harnesses on at the last shady spot we lugged a small arsenal of aid gear up the final snowfield and to the base of the climb. We used this Topo as our guide.

 

Start (Greg's Lead): 30 feet up 3rd class terrain to some ledges out of the snow.

P1 (Greg): Up about 100 ft of A1. It took me a few placements but the aid skills came back to me.

P2 (Graham): Aided up the intimidating "Lithuanian Lip". Thankfully there was plenty of fixed gear over the lip. Graham did find the aid right after to be quite thin and his technique a bit rusty as its been almost seven years since half dome.

P3 (Greg): More thin aid to some manky fixed gear. Old pitons, copperheads and small chocks pounded into the seams, thankfully it all held and this pitch went quickly. There was supposedly a hook move at the very top of this pitch but I either reached past it or was lucky to have some fixed gear in the right spot but I didn't need to use the skyhook at all.

Our high point reached for the day we fixed one line back down from pitch three to the top of pitch two and then one line to the ground. Although we had heard otherwise, it is quite possible to reach the top of pitch one from pitch three with a single 60m line.

Rapping down we headed back to our gear stash and left most of the rack for our climb the next morning. Then we hiked down to the car and drove to the campground for dinner and a few well deserved frosty brews. The actual time spend on the wall climbing the first three aid pitches and fixing lines was less than five hours.

 

Saturday, (July 4th) we were back at the base of the climb by 8am. The approach was easy as most of our gear was already up at the wall and we had jumared back to our high point (dropping the line fixed on the first pitch) starting the day's climbing at 8:30.

P4 (Graham): The free climbing crux of the climb. Graham styled this pitch, I slogged up it cursing my 5.10 crack climbing skills with any sort of a pack on.

P5 (Greg): Another very physical pitch, this was a wide 5.8 crack. We had brought two BD #4 cams specifically for this pitch. Although there were plenty of spots to place them I kept placing other gear figuring I would need them up top. By the time I got to the anchors I never placed either one.

P6 (Graham): Some 5.7 stemming moves. Many thanks to Graham for not kicking any loose rocks down onto me. A few aid moves at the top gained us the "rotten block".

P7 (Greg): Another couple of aid moves put me in position to pull the corner and gain the slab. Fun friction climbing with good pro, I really liked this pitch. We were even able to snag an old offset left in a crack.

P8 (Graham): His favorite pitch of the climb, Graham lead past an intimidating, yet very enjoyable 5.9 corner to a long 5.7 slab.

P9 (Greg): The 5.6 chimney was a tight squeeze for someone as tall as me but it was fairly easy to climb and to protect.

P10 (Graham): Another classic pitch, Graham lead through another 5.9 corner to a long section of 5.8 and through the chimney stopping to belay a bit higher than noted in the topo he probably used at least 50 m of our 60m line.

P11 (Greg): Low 5th class slab follows a corner for a long pitch to belay at a tree.

P12 (Graham): Traverse along mostly flat, 4th class terrain meeting up with the top technical pitch of the Becky route.

Summit Scramble: My feet were killing me so I switched back to my wall shoes. Graham was happy to keep his climbing shoes on as the scramble to the summit included a short section of 5.7 slab moves. Although un-roped for the final pitches up to the summit we were smart to have a rope with us for the descent from the top. The views to the south were astonishing.

Descent: Rapping back past the slab and scrambling down we followed the other parties that had climbed the Becky route. Teaming up with another pair we were able to link the two 80ft rappels into one, long rap by tying our ropes together. This proved to be a smooth move for us as we passed a party of four and made our way down the gully to the south. Stopping to talk with a few climbers headed up for a sunset view we were reminded that such a gully isn't the best place to stand and chat as a call from above and a half dozen bowling ball sized rocks came hurling down at us. Luckily we were able to dive for cover in time.

Not having come up the trail we came down we got a bit disoriented in the section where an avalanche wiped out the trail this winter and ended up following the trail to Blue Lake itself instead of the Blue Lake trail head at the highway. Thankfully the trial isn't that long and we eventually made it back to the highway and our car where Casey was in his tent hiding from the mosquitoes while he waited for us. Graham graciously went back to the base of the route to retrive the rope we dropped and the pack we left.

Packing up and driving a few hours seemed to be the consensus of the group so we finished the drive west along highway 20 to I-5 as the sun set. Needing water, showers and a place to camp we found the perfect spot for the right price, heck the whole place was even for sale.

View from the highway

 

Lithuanian Lip

 

Pitch Seven

 

Summit

 

Unknown climber on Concord Tower

 

Gear Notes:

Most belays are either bolts or trees and as such not gear intensive.

We had the following:

Two 60m lines fix the first three pitches

Hooks: I didn't use them but it was probably good to have at least one anyway

Micro Nuts

Offset Nuts (very handy)

Regular Nuts as well

Lots of small aliens or TCU's for the aid

Cam's BD #.5-1: Triples for the aid, doubles are fine if jumaring past the first three pitches

Double #2 and #3. Although we had two, one #4 is probably enough

6 QD's

6 "Alpine Draws" shoulder length slings

Etriers

Jumars

We were thirsty with only three liters of water between the two of us for the second day of climbing. Iodine for the way down might be handy.

Defiantly need good walking or approach shoes for the descent

 

Approach Notes:

Relatively direct from the highway. The trail heads a bit to the right and then traverses back to the left side of the wall.

[Argus]

Nice Tr. Here's a couple of pics I snapped of you on Saturday.

 

 

[Pete_H]

Here's a tip regarding the ever-so-stylish helmet/headlamp look: even if it may save you the whole 30 seconds of having to take the headlamp out of your pack to put on your helmet in the unlikely event you might actually need it, it looks pretty dorky in photographs.

 

And how come no one free climbs the first pitch? Its the best pitch on the route and if you are a 5.10 free climber there's like 1 point of aid.

 

 

Other than that nice work getting it done in the hot-ass weather!

 

[suck-it-trebek]

Greg and Graham,

 

Thanks for the double rap and the Batman moment at the slab upto the top. Marisa and I were lucky to hook up with you guys. If not we might still be sitting at the rap station waiting for the parties in front of us.

 

Sorry about the rocks. One slip of the foot almost made for a very bad day. Glad to see that everyone was able to get out of the way.

 

Nice job on Liberty Crack.

[NoahT]

In that last pic, is that crack above the bush the 5.11 OW on freedom rider?

[Pete_H]

Yaar! I think so. That one's kicked my ass a few times.

[spotly]

The grungy white tee shirt isn't "in". Other than that one glaring detractor, excellent

[RJRiha]

Greg and Graham,

 

Thanks for the double rap and the Batman moment at the slab upto the top. Marisa and I were lucky to hook up with you guys. If not we might still be sitting at the rap station waiting for the parties in front of us.

 

Sorry about the rocks. One slip of the foot almost made for a very bad day. Glad to see that everyone was able to get out of the way.

 

Nice job on Liberty Crack.

 

I was in one of the two parties in front of you, and I take take your comment as somewhat of an insult. That is, considering that we STOPPED rappelling and waited for all 4 of you to get down before we made our second rappel to ensure that we didn't knock any loose rocks down on you.