[TR] Liberty Bell - Beckey Route 9/29/2008

[KaskadskyjKozak]

Trip: Liberty Bell - Beckey Route

 

Date: 9/29/2008

 

Trip Report:

 

Due to the awesome weather forecast and my desire to get out to WA pass, I took a day off and convinced my friend CF to join me on a climb of Liberty Bell (Beckey) and Concord Tower (N face). Actually, it did not take much convincing.

 

We drove up to the Blue Lake TH on Sun night and camped in CF's van. We woke up today around sunrise and headed up.

 

On the climber's trail:

 

The temps were chilly in the morning, the skies were bluebird, and we made good time to the routes. The plan was to climb Liberty Bell first. We met a party who were traversing all 5 peaks and were just starting up the N face of Concord. Later we would see them topping Lexington.

 

I led the first pitch. I opted for the rib option, which is listed as 5.3 in my guide book. I think I went too far around the right and it seemed more like 5.6. Later I traversed back left into the chimney and it became low 5.x.

 

CF led the second pitch with the awkward chimney moves over the chockstones. I was happy to have him lead that one. :-) There was a really awkward move over a horn and neither CF nor I managed to do it without straddling the horn like dorks.

 

I led pitch 3. I had some minor troubles figuring out the route - first there were two pitons, and I got confused by the first. The second is the one in my route description (under a bulge you must traverse left). Later I tried to move left instead of right, tricked by some tat/slings. There was a bit of rope drag once I got towards the top of the undercling/friction moves. The pitch was quite fun and sporting 5.6.

 

We then stashed our rope and rack and scrambled to the summit. The 5.7 boulder move on the slab was exciting.

 

CF after finishing the 5.7 move:

 

View towards the other members of the Liberty Bell group:

 

KK on the summit:

The three pitches took us 3 hours so we did not linger long on the summit. We retraced the scramble, opting to loop two cordelettes through a rappel sling above the 5.7 slab for a secure handline to downclimb it.

 

Then we had some issues. We wandered around all the by-trails to the E of the top of the third pitch and could not find the rappel anchor. We wasted around an hour on this. Finally, I was able to locate the anchor. We rappeled two single rope raps.

 

CF on rappel:

 

Unfortunately that put us on the ground around 3:00. If we took 3 hours to summit Concord, plus a rap, that would put us close to dark. We already had a great day - no need to push our luck. We hiked out leisurely, grabbed a burger in Marblemount and got home around 9 pm.

 

View on the way out:

 

 

Gear Notes:

Stoppers 4-12, hexacentric 9-11, C4 1-3, green and yellow aliens

 

Approach Notes:

Larches are starting to turn yellow

[sobo]

Weather looks bee-uuu-tee-full. Bummer I couldn't go. Also, too bad you got stymied by the route/rappel finding and ran out of time, cuz the NF of Concord is a great moderate route. The last 15 feet are freakin' awesome.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

Weather looks bee-uuu-tee-full. Bummer I couldn't go. Also, too bad you got stymied by the route/rappel finding and ran out of time, cuz the NF of Concord is a great moderate route. The last 15 feet are freakin' awesome.

 

that just gives me an excuse to go back again...