[TR] Liberty Bell - Beckey Route 9/30/2010

[lilmarmot]

Trip: Liberty Bell - Beckey Route

 

Date: 9/30/2010

 

Trip Report:

With the weather forecast looking great for the next few days myself and a buddy were itching to get out and do something. We set our sights on something in the North Cascades, and eventually settled on the Beckey route up Liberty Bell, as neither of us had ever been up there in our past wanderings.

We set off from Issaquah around 8:30 Thursday morning and headed for Washington Pass, after what seemed like an eternity of driving we made it to the Blue Lake trail head around 12. We quickly packed our bags, and hit the trail with a couple great topos from the Beckey guide book, ha! After less than an hours walk on a great trail we headed up the obvious climbers trail on our left, quickly the trail ascends some talus/boulder fields and goes right up the "gulley" between Concord Tower and the Southwest side of the Bell. We began looking for a "ledge" on our left, which was supposed to be the start of our route. After a few minutes of poking around we found the little ledge and headed up.

The first pitch was nice, there is a couple of options, there is a nice little tunnel (5.6), which we decided to take. If you don't feel like the tunnel, it can easily be climbed over, with one step across move. From here, there is a nice belay ledge, and the route turns climbers left, and goes up a nice chimney feature for about 80-100 feet, with one interesting move over a chalk stone. Once up the chimney the terrain mellows out for the third pitch. The route wanders up some mellow 4th, to low 5th class slabs/flakes. Near the top of the third pitch there is one smear move, with a nice hand hold in a crack, but it is a bit of a reach with the left hand over to the next decent hold, once up this we headed climber right around a buttressy feature ona nice little ledge. We pitched out one more section of fairly mellow terrain over some ledges/slabs, and one 10 foot smooth slab move once over this we un-roped, and scurried to the summit for the unbelievable views, and some token summit shots, snacks and few minutes of relaxation. We had the entire trail, route, and summit to ourselves! We felt incredibly fortunate to have such a popular route all to ourselves on an amazing day! This is a fun, moderate route, in stunning terrain!

After about 20 minutes on the summit we scurried back down to our rope, scrambled down to the first rappel station, which is reached by going back to the top of the 4th pitch, and downclimbing/scrambling to the climbers left toward a ledge system with small trees, from here, go back right, and down a little ways, and you should see the nice bolts and chain! We only had one 60m rope, so rapped down to the second station, which is at a tree, and a nice ledge, also with bolts and a chain. After two quick raps, we were back to the "notch"/"gulley" between Concord and the Bell.

First Pitch, popping out of the "tunnel", second photo, is second pitch, third photo is a view of Concord and lexington towers, and N/S Early Winter Spires in the background. And lastly the token summit shot!

 

Approach Notes:

Follow Blue Lake trail for about a mile and a quarter, turn left at obvious climbers path, with a small cairn. Follow this path up and trending left. Trail takes you into the choss/scree filled 2nd/3rd class gulley. Once at the top of the gulley, look to your left and slightly down hill for the small ledge system, the up up and away you go!

[DPS]

Nice. Beckey Route on LB is one of the finest climbs at that grade IMHO.I like the Sean Courage style rolled up pant legs in the last shot.

[lilmarmot]

Yeah, I agree, super awesome route, Fun, not all that difficult, and amazing scenery! I wasn't sure if it would be warm enough for shorts when I left the quah, but turns out it was. So I just turned my pants into make shift shorts! Pretty epic look, you know its business time when the pants get rolled up!