bramski Posted July 22, 2010 Posted July 22, 2010 (edited) Trip: Liberty Bell - Liberty Crack Date: 7/17/2010 Trip Report: Matt and I had had our eyes on this classic route sometime after our climbing trip back in January, and it definitely delivered on it's "classic" status, and gave us a pretty exhausting one day ascent. As seems to be the standard with LC, I'll detail the pitch-by-pitch, play by play. Pitch 0 We didn't read the approach beta very much and wandered into the dense trees very near the cliff band by the road shoulder. Decided the bushwhacking sucks, and walk to the hairpin. After determining the hike from the hairpin would be a great aproach for SEWS, we pulled and squeezed our way through trees and alder near the turnout until we got to the boulder field and noticed a trail! Yay! Our super lightweight ice axes and approach shoes were just good enough to get us to the base of the climb on really hard packed snow at 5am. Pitch 1 - Thin and full of mosquitoes! We discovered that we weren't the first ones to get to the climb, and Eric Kramak and his buddy had already set a rope on pitch 1. After determining that Eric's crew was going to be a bit slower than us, we decided to see if we could pass them during the first 3 pitches. So Matt flew up the 5.11 pitch, making use of Eric's gear where it was appropriate (Thanks dude!). This pitch is super thin, with quite a few fixed pitons. We mostly frenched this pitch, but it would be super fun to go at it free when in less of a hurry. Here’s a pic of the beauty of the east face of liberty just as the sun hits the wall: Pitch 2 & 3 - How I learned to stop worrying and love aiding While Eric's buddy was jumaring pitch 1, Matt aided pitches 2 and 3. I’m still mostly trying to figure out if he was actually “aiding” or if he was just levitating on his etriers since he aided both pitches in about an hour and left as much protection as I could count on my hands. He would later tell me it was the easiest pitch of aid he’d ever done. Guess that’s a good indicator of how the aid pitches stack up against Yosemite big wall climbing. There are quite a lot of fixed pitons and bolts up through those pitches which eases the going of the aid to a large degree. Classic picture as Matt aids over the Lithuanian Lip: Pitch 4 - Bulgy jamzilla Finally free climbing! I took my first lead at this pitch, and got my ass kicked pulling through the two bulgy cruxes on this pitch. It takes mostly mid-size gear, (yellow alien -> #1.5/2). Plenty of solid jams, but the rock gets kind of crumbly near the top. Leading out on Pitch 4: Pitch 5 - Grunt, slam, pull, step The mosquitoes had mostly stopped chasing us now, and Matt lead out the off-width which is pretty much a giant gruntfest but has tons of solid stemming, grunting, pulling on semi-loose blocks behind the off-width and takes some larger gear (made use of a large tricam & hex on this pitch). Pitch 6 - Rotten blocks glued with sand! This “5.7 stemming” pitch is extremely rotten. There are enough places for good gear on this pitch, and the climbing isn’t particularly hard, but nearly every block feels wiggly or detached in some way. Caution what you reef on. The “rotten block” at the top still lives up to it’s name, I might describe it more like a popcorn ball resting on pebbles than a “block”. Belaying up the pitch from atop the block: Pitch 7 - How the hell do I get out of this belay station? Wow, talk about stupidly awkward scary pitches. The move off of the block onto the slab I did a french free pull, then a finger lock, followed by a headcam which eventually got me into a chimney/stemming move after which fricton on the slab actually became an option. The rest of the pitch is semi-glassy slab with not a lot of pro. Pitch 8 & 9 - Rampy traverse and super mario chimney Mostly easy/ exposed travering got me through the first pitch of this which takes more big gear (always feels so good to leave that #4 in a crack, though, in hindsight it probably could have been left behind for this climb). The chimney is not really so much a continuous chimney as super mario brothers style steps inside a slanting chimney. This leads to a belay where you can sit back, relax, and belay up your second. If I hadn’t run out of water at this point, that would have been really nice to drink here too. Fortunately we had our last peach which gave me some moisture and tasty sugar. Pitch 10 -- Awesome! This is definitely the most fun pitch of the climb. Big 5.9 moves mixed into a corner system that weaves out and up to a final finish with big blocks & huge jams to a tree. There are a handful of fixed pins here as well, but it protects great and is a real joy to climb. Pitch 11 -- This easy terrain ends right? It’s like a move or two of 5.8 and then lots of wandery 5.0 stuff until you cut a corner and start walking on the sandy shores of the side of the summit block. Matt & I pounded our last Snickers bars and went wandering around the 4th class ledges until we found the rap bolts (beautiful and well kept up!) and then left the ropes and gear and scrambled up to the top for awesome views and great pics. Just a beautiful day in the North Cascades: We did the ole’ rap down to the notch and being waterless at that point hoped for some melt-off from the snow in the gully. Given the copious amounts of goat scat in the snow & gully, we thought it better and hiked our way all the way back to the blue lake trailhead where some nics folks (Thanks Hector!) gave us some water. We were able to hike out mostly still with usable light, and got a ride to our car. Having not seen Eric & his buddy for the entire rest of the climb, we wondered whether they had bailed or not. After driving around the hairpin we got a good look at the darkened liberty bell to see headlamps maybe 3/4 the way from the top, yikes! Apparently Eric and his buddy topped out at midnight and undoubtedly had an absolutely epic bivy on the top of Liberty Bell. I’d hate to do those last pitches in the dark, so, kudos to them for finishing it up! I guess about 16 hours car to car. -Bramski Gear Notes: We brought too much. Bring some hexes, leave the #4 at home. Doubles of #1, red, and yellow aliens (or similar size). We had a lot of tiny cams, which were probably not needed. Approach Notes: You may want to look for the actual trail. Snow is currently melting out, but you will want something more than approach shoes for the snow at the base of the climb. It's non-trivially angled, and extremely solidly packed. I used the top of a whippet, and matt sawed a BD Raven down to the top 1ft of the ice axe. Edited July 23, 2010 by bramski Quote
mountainmatt Posted July 22, 2010 Posted July 22, 2010 Nice Bram and Matt! Way to get after it in a day I love the description of the block (a popcorn ball resting on pebbles). I still need to get on this route, hopefully this summer... . Quote
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