[TR] Liberty Bell - Liberty Crack 8/24/2010

[selkirk]

Trip: Liberty Bell - Liberty Crack

 

Date: 8/24/2010

 

Trip Report:

Liberty Crack, on Liberty Bell

Grade V (kind of!), 5.9 A2. ~1200 ft

11 Significant Pitches, 2 Pitches of Low 5th/4th Class, and a couple hundred feet of low 5th scrambling to the summit

One of Steck and Roper's 50 Classic Climbs in North America

Wake up time: 3:30 AM

Total Time Car to Car: 18.5 hours

Left Car: 4:30 AM

Started Climbing: 5:30 AM

Topped out: 7:30 PM

Started Rapping 8:00 PM

Back at the Car: 11:01 PM

 

 

Liberty Crack has been on my list for the last 4 years. It seemed like a high quality, local, Grade V rock climb that just might go in a day, even though I'm only a weekend warrior. (Grade I = 1 or 2 hrs of climbing, Grade II = Less than 1/2 day, Grade III = Half day, Grade IV = Full Day Climb, Grade V = 2 day climb (strong/ fast parties may be able to climb it in 1 day), Grade VI = Multi Day climb). All of the climbing I've done to date have mostly been Grade II / III or at most Grade IV. I've never even attempted a Grade V climb until Liberty Crack.

Last year the pieces started coming together so that Liberty Crack started to be feasible. I was leading in the upper 5.10's and lower 5.11's, completed a couple of long relatively hard day climbs in the North Cascades, and had a partner in Bartek P. who is rock solid, is as safety conscious as I am, and at a similar skill level on rock. After a shakedown climb on South Early Winter Spire we thought that we were ready for Liberty Crack. We hiked in last August planning on trying to do it in 1 day, but giving ourselves the option to do in 2 if we needed to. The morning was cloud covered and misty. Just as we reached the bottom of the route at about 6:00am, the skies opened up and threw a thunderstorm at us. Splitting lighting, utter downpour, and the climbing route was a waterfall. We stood there and looked at it for a couple of minutes, then turned tail and headed home, soaked to the bone. We stopped at Index on the way home for a little sport climbing, but that was all she wrote for Liberty Crack in 2009. We tried to plan a 2nd attempt in September, but we just didn't feel like we had enough daylight to have a shot at a one day ascent.

Fast forward about a year. Shelly and I had Geneva, and I've done almost no rock climbing this year (a total of 4 days outside), less climbing in the gym, and no multi-pitch climbs or aid-climbs at all. Bartek has been in the gym more consistently, but has mostly done easy to moderate rock climbs outdoors, though some more difficult ice climbs on Rainer and Baker.

 

Since Shelly was on another leg of the traveling Baby Road Show it worked out that I was going to have a free weekend in Seattle so I gave Bartek and e-mail to see what he was up to. He immediately suggested the Complete North Ridge of Stuart over 3 days. Since I needed to fly out on Monday my epic tolerance was a little low, so I suggested another shot at Liberty Crack. Needless to say since I was coming off the couch, it was a little like jumping into the deep end and hoping Iremembered how to swim!

 

We sorted out our general approach to the climb (shoot for a 1 day climb, but have enough gear for minimal bivy in a pinch) during the week, and I picked Bartek up at about 4:15 on Friday, and headed into the North Cascades. We rolled past the pull out at about 9:00 and settled into camp at the

Cutthroat Lake trailhead at about 9:30. After getting the tents out we did a quick sort on gear to settle on our rack for the climb.

 

After sorting the rack out we crashed for the night and planned on a 3:30 wake up time.

3:30 came gawd awfully early, but we rolled out of bed, had some oatmeal and a banana each, and threw the tents into the back of car, and were rolling by 4:00 am. We hit the trailhead and started hiking by 4:30. We almost took a wrong turn at the first boulder field (trail seems to go left, but actually goes straight up, keeping the big boulder on climbers left). The bigger issue was that I started out a little too fast, and started feeling a little nauseous. After slowing the pace a little we still hit the base of the climb at about 5:10 or so and started racking up. A little water / gu / anti-nausea med's later and I was on the mend. There's still a compact snow patch at the base of the route that made for an exciting 30 ft traverse. After that Bartek changed into his rock shoes, and led out at about 5:30 am, with just enough light that headlamps weren't needed.

Pitch 0: Barteks lead. 1x 5.6 move and then a 4th class ledge. Belayed from 2 recent nuts, looked like they may have been left in the process of bailing. Contemplated booty-ing them, but decided to leave them for the next party to booty! I kept my approach shoes on for the first few aid pitches to be kinder to me feet.

 

Pitch 1: Still Bartek’s lead. He did a very nice job of mixing free, french free, and some aid to work through the corner, and then went mostly free to the belay. A couple of fixed pins up high, as well as slung root with a carabiner about half way up (that we also left for posterity). Off the ground, without 15 lbs of rack and 20 lbs of pack, and not at 5:30 in the morning, I'm certain we could have gotten this free (only a couple of 5.11a moves), but as it was we were far more concerned with speed than style. Belay was 2 new bolts. He fixed the rope and I proceeded to jug it.

 

 

Pitch 2: The Lithuanian Lip, my lead. I think I placed and back cleaned 1 piece in getting up to the lip, but it's effectively fixed gear up to the lip. 2 pins, followed by the sling attached to the bolt getting up to the bolt, then a fixed nut in the roof, and new looking pin at the lip. Getting there was only half the fun though as I've never aided a roof before, so needless to say I was slow, But there were a plethora of good placements above the lip for the small brass offsets, so with much grunting and straining against our way too large a rack I eventually pulled over it, back cleaning probably every other piece to conserve runners. Once above the lip I grabbed the bolt to climbers left, and was presented with a mandatory free move, .... wearing approach shoes .... and sweaty socks, with a pack... crap just what I wanted. Getting out of the aiders to make the move was mostly metal. Even in approach shoes and sweaty socks it was probably only a 5.7 move. Once there, a small cam came in handy to reach the fixed pin, and then a quick run up the bolt ladder to the belay. One very good piece of advice I had heard was to use a chest sling at the roof. This really helped to keep me more upright so that I wasn't burning my core out too quickly. I fixed the rope and Bartek started to jug, having his own fight at the roof. Once through the roof he very quickly joined me at the belay and launched up the next pitch. Belay was 2 new bolts.

 

 

Pitch 3: Thin aid, Bartek's lead. Lots of interesting fixed gear, some bashies, and beat up nuts. Bartek even got to use the sky hook he picked up last year specifically for this route. Talk about a big hole for the hook though! He hit the top and set up the belay on 2 new bolts. I jugged and mentally started getting ready for the next pitch. We hit the top of pitch 3 at about 10:45 averaging ~ 1hr 45 min per aid pitch. Not fast by any stretch of the imagination, but fast enough.

 

 

Pitch 4: 5.10a, though we climbed it at 5.9 A0. This pitch started out at solid 5.9 in a hand crack, that started to get bulgy. I could blame it on lots of things, but at the end of the day I fell out of a freakin hand crack! I clawed my way upwards free climbing as far as I could, and then switched to aid to pull the last bulge. Much like the first pitch, right off the ground, without the pack and the heavy rack, this probably would have gone at 10a , but after 5 1/2 hours of climbing with a pack and an alpine start, it just wasn't going to go free for me. I hit the belay (2 new bolts) and Bartek started his way up, climbing the bottom free and the top french free.

 

Pitch 5: Barteks lead. Sustained, physical, 5.8+ 50m. Burly! Bartek led the corner in good style, but this was another fight. Very sustained and physical 5.8+ switching between stemming, wide cracks, and some laybacking. Nice lead! Bartek hit the belay (2 new bolts) and up I came. It was good to have the #4 camalot and the hexes for this one!

 

Pitch 6: Rotten Block pitch, my lead. At this point I was feeling wiped. A bunch of hard pitches, trying to make good time, in the sun, but the good news is that this was the last sustained hard pitch. After this the climbing would ease a bit. So up I went. Start of the pitch was straightforward and easy 5.7 blocky climbing. Then up the layback flake (which I didn't think was that bad. There was even a good placement for a large hex in a pocket to climbers right). From there I didn't quite feel up to free climbing the right side of the block, so I pulled out an aider, and worked my way up the pitons on the left side of the block. Belayed from 2 new bolts backed up with a pin. The block definitely lived up to it's name. It has the consistency of a popcorn ball held together by caramel. But it's big and flat on top with a nice bolted belay on good rock to the right. Bartek started up and when he reached the block, I actually back cleaned the aid gear on the pitons to climbers left, and he free / french freed the block to the right hand side.

 

The good news was that we were officially 1/2 way up at 2:00pm, after climbing for 8.5 hrs. The free pitches were taking about an hour a piece, and best of all we had finished the hardest pitches. Getting out in the daylight was beginning to look real. The bad news that we were feeling beat up. I was feeling exhausted and a little nauseous, Bartek was doing a bit better but said he had never felt so defeated on a climb. Every single pitch had been a fight. We both choked down some calories and water and Bartek set off.

 

Pitch 7: Barteks Lead. He aided the opening 5.10c section and then struck out on the short 5.7 slab. I was glad he was on a gri-gri (an automatic belay device) as I was nearly falling asleep. He set up the belay at the top of the initial slab from 1 new 3/8" stainless bolt, and 1 old rusty 1/4" button head. He fixed the rope so that I could jug the aid portion and pretty quickly joined him at the belay. The food, water, and rest were starting to kick in and I was feeling a tad better.

 

Pitch 8: My lead. Still feeling a bit wiped I decided to french free the opening 5.10a free move and then headed up the 5.8 slab above, passing the alternate 2 piton belay and shooting for the big tree. I slung the tree and Bartek made short work of the pitch. I finished off my 2 liter water bladder here, but still had a 1 liter bottle left.

 

Pitch 9: Barteks lead. 5.6 chimney. Oh the joy of just less than shoulder width chimney's with a pack and a fat rack. As with many chimney's the issue wasn't falling out. You couldn't fall out if you tried! But making upward progress was a challenge. Bartek persisted and hid the next tree bringing me up. Bartek set up the belay and up I came.

 

Pitch 10: My lead, sustained 5.9. I had been dreading this. I was really hoping Bartek would get this pitch. However I was feeling much better than at the top of the rotten block and it was my lead. It turned out that this was a great pitch! A less than vertical, slabby corner, that was a fun combination of delicate and a little balancy, but not too strenuous. It's just too bad there weren't a few more like it! after the initial ramp, at the bottom of the vertical corner, there is a nice sandy ledge in a pod out to climbers left. I transitioned low into the 5.7 cracks below it, and then built the belay in the crack to climbers left, using a fixed piton and adding in a couple of small nuts. Bartek styled the pitch and we were nearly there.

 

Pitch 11: Bartek's Lead, 5.8. It had already been a long strenuous day, and the start of this pitch was the final sting. Steep, physical, sustained 5.8 climbing for roughly 30 feet. Bartek was feeling a bit sketched out so he took his time and a couple of brief rests on gear while working to the top of the corner. Once at the top he followed the low 5th slabs up to the tree at for a 50m pitch, and brought me up. The slabs above the corner were surprisingly difficult as we had seen them rated 5.0. I would say they are more like low 5th the up to 5.4 or so.

 

Pitch 12: We didn't even both to re-rack, I just grabbed everything and took off. Turns out this was awfully soft at 4th class. I followed the sandy ledges and trees until I reached a good spot, propped myself against a rock and brought Bartek over.

 

Pitch 13: From here we short roped and simul-climbed / scrambled the last 100m or so to the summit.

We finally hit the summit at 7:30 pm after 14 hrs on route, feeling tired, but happy that we would sleeping in our tents tonight and not one some little ledge shivering. We took a nice little 30 minute break nibbling on some summit treats and downing some water while the sun sank lower and lower. Took a few summit pictures, and decided it was time to go, giving us just enough time to get into the Liberty Bell / Concord gully before it got dark. A short down climb, and 2 rappels later we were in the gully. We got the rope coiled, the rack packed, and ditched the rock shoes and harnesses. Boy did it feel good to be in tennis shoes again!

 

 

We threw on the packs and headed down the bowling alley by headlamp. If you've never been in the Liberty Bell / Concord gully be thankful! It's just steep enough to hold loose rocks, and they all seem to be the size of bowling balls. But at least we had the gully to ourselves. We kept our helmets on and picked our way down. After exiting the gully proper we weren't sure that we were heading in the right direction, so did a quick hand over hand rappel down a short face, and struck out cross country trying to find the actual trail. After poking around a bit we just gave up and headed downhill and to skiers left over the heather slopes knowing that we would eventually hit the South Early Winters trail, which we did. And then we just trundled downhill towards the car along the Blue Lake trail. It always amazes me how flat the grade on that trail is. Definitely a hikers trail and not a climbers trail. I swear some of those switchbacks go uphill !! When we hit the last leg that parallels highway 20 we headed through the bushes and onto the road so as not to have to backtrack, and then off to the car. By 11:01 pm we were back at the car drinking gatorade and eating a banana for dinner. 18.5 hrs car to car. Certainly no speed record, but not shabby either. We headed back to the Cutthroat Lake parking lot and pitched the tents and were fast asleep by midnight for a total of a 20.5 hr day. Amazingly, we didn't see a single person all day, which considering how popular the route is and the other climbs in that area is astounding. We heard a few voices, likely from Concord, and saw a headlamp over at Blue Lake, and another combing down from South Early Winter Spire but that was it.

Lessons learned:

1) Liberty Crack in a day is reasonable for a party of 2 who's reasonably proficient on both Aid and Free. We didn't free climb anything harder than about 5.9, and both of us are novices at aid, with only 2 or 3 pitches each out at Index.

2) Don't waste time at belay change overs. We would re-rack and head out right away. The closest we came to a break was about 5 or 10 minutes on top of the Rotten Block. Having a gri-gri and/or auto-locking belay device was invaluable for me, as I could eat and drink while belaying Bartek. Having the Bolted and Tree belays also significantly sped things up.

3) Gu is wonderful stuff. I subsisted primarily on various types of Gu and Shot blocks as well as a little granola. While I probably should have eaten more, the Gu kept me from crashing, except for the brief bonk on the Rotten Block.

4) A lighter rack / lighter packs would have helped. If we go back I think we'd trim the rack a little (a single set of nuts instead of a few doubles, and 1x aid through finger sized cams instead of 2x), leave the bivy gear altogether or share a puffy / bivy instead of taking 2, take enough food for 1 day instead of 1.5, take 2.5 liters of water each instead of 3 (assuming the temperature is similar). With trimmed pack/ bivy gear, you should be able to have a very small leaders pack and a slightly larger followers pack which would make more of the terrain free climb-able and the free climbing go faster.

5) The route would be quite easy to retreat from with a single 60m rope. From pitch 7 down you would probably need to leave gear at 2 rap stations mid-way on pitches 5 and 6, but everything else would be from the belay / rap stations. Pitch 8 and 9 could be rapped but they traverse enough it would be exciting, and may require some gear mid-way to protect a pendulum? However from the top of pitch 7 up the climbing / route finding is straight forward enough you could continue on by headlamp without too much difficulty and take a fail upwards attitude instead of bivying.

6) Start early and be the first group en-route. We were starting the technical ground just as it became light enough to climb without a headlamp. If we had to wait behind another party, our best case scenario would have been summiting in the dark at 9:15 instead of in the daylight at 7:30, and back at the cars at almost 1:00am the morning. Though you could skip the summit scramble, and fore go a break at the top and save yourself 45 minutes if pressed for time.

 

 

 

Gear Notes:

Rack:

1x set small offset brass nuts (HB design)

1x set nuts (mixed DMM alloy offsets and DMM wallnuts + 2 or 3 mid sizes)

2x cams tiny friggin aid sizes through #3.5 camalot (mixed bag of Metolius TCU's, Metolius Master Cams, Camalot's, Link Cam's, and some larger DMM 4 CU's)

1x #4 Camalot

All cams racked on individual biners

Top 3 Hexes - Wild Country Curve Hexes

9 alpine single draws

2 quick draws

2x doubles

2x loose slings

(Note: In retrospect 1x cams from very small to 0.5 Camalot / #4 TCU and 2x from 0.75 Camalot up to #3.5 + 1x Old #4 was all that we really needed for cams.)

Personal gear- the usual multi pitch assortment + stuff for aidding / jugging

personal stuff: 3 Liters water, food, Puffy + small bivy kit

 

Once we got back to Seattle we weighed things out of curiosity.

Rack: Pro / Slings ~ 15 lbs

My pack came in at ~ 15 lbs and

Barteks pack came in at just over 20 lbs

 

Approach Notes:

park at Peggy's pond and find the climbers trail at the east end. Go uphill. At the boulder field where you think you should go left, don't, go straight and slightly right.

[JasonG]

Thanks for the TR! It gives a weekend warrior dad like myself some hope that I could work up to this . ..Cool!

[selkirk]

Go for it Oodles of fun!

 

[stevetimetravlr]

Nice send!

[Layback]

Nice. I'm hoping to hook up with a couple people on this route in July. You're description is really helpful.

[mattp]

Nice. I'm hoping to hook up with a couple people on this route in July...

 

Good luck with the mosquito's. Seriously. Beat the hatch or late season may be a better bet.

[Layback]

Thanks Matt. Do you think first weekend of July/last weekend of June is still too late? I've been up there in August and realize just how heinous it can be. Kiddo #2 is due in mid/late-August and my season will pretty much go down the crapper after the last weekend of July.

[counterfeitfake]

Really depends. Last year there weren't bugs on the 4th of July weekend. Four years ago they were horrendous. But that didn't stop me from climbing Liberty Crack.

[Friedrich]

Well done! I second what Heinrich said