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About Us > Adventures > Liberty Bell Liberty Bell - Beckey Route 8/23/03
Liberty Bell / Beckey Route is a popular first intermediate rock climb among Seattle Mountaineers climbing students. On Saturday, Ken Hahn, Jill Bodnar, Doug Schurman and I left the Blue Lake Trailhead (BLTH) at 6 a.m. in front of Tom Nims’ group of six heading for S. Early Winters Spire. We’d driven up the night before (3 hours from Seattle) and slept in the back of our Chevy S-10 in order to be in a good position to be first on the route. We followed the gentle trail around to the base of Liberty Bell and Concord where we started to climb in earnest; at the cairn marking a “Y” in the path, we headed left and straight up toward the blocky gully. In June of 2002 when Doug and I had last climbed the Bell there had been plenty of snow filling the gully; this time, without snow, it was all loose, blocky crud that required as much attention descending as ascending. By 7:45 we reached the notch and changed into rock shoes and harnesses. Aware that goats frequent the spires, we tied boots and packs to the dead branches of a snag marking the traverse to the first pitch. Ken belayed Jill up the first pitch (5.0). There are two primary options, a chimney (left) that Jill led, with the option to go straight through the hole, and the more airy aręte (right) that I led. As I waited, I found myself shivering rather violently until I heard Jill call out “Off belay” – it wasn’t until half way up the second pitch that we all emerged into sunlight and warmth. Another reason to climb earlier in the season or later in the day! Doug quickly joined me at my belay spot, a tree just to the right of the start of the second pitch. Ken belayed Jill up an off-sized chimney with a chockstone not far off the deck, and Doug led for our rope, cursing the cold rock until he emerged into the sun. I love chimneys; they somehow feel more secure than thin cracks and friction face climbs. I enjoyed climbing this route a second time, opting to lead the first and third pitches, since I’d already led the second the previous year. What surprised me the most was the fact that I did the whole climb wearing a down jacket--in August! Once I climbed up to Doug I had a chance to watch Jill making her way up the third pitch: the fingertip traverse and undercling. It didn’t look that bad. I quickly made my way up to the rusty piton just right of the crux move, and got my right hand as far left as possible, with a high solid right foot hold, then eyeballed the rock for my next left foot hold. Trust the feet, the friction on this granite is great! Once I got my left hand where I wanted it, it was a matter of shuffling the feet over until I could find a good resting point. After draping myself over a large boulder to rest my hands and catch my breath for a moment, I made my way over the boulder and put in a good piece of pro. I wasn’t finished – next I had to do the undercling crack. Only, I didn’t do it as an undercling, I had my left hand in the crack and my right balancing on the face (more difficult, in hindsight, than using counter pressure to crank my way up and over the crack. Oh well.) Ken had been waiting for me to top out, and he and Jill headed for the final scramble and friction wall as I belayed Doug up to me. The final “pitch” we did unroped – I scampered up the 8-10 foot friction wall (rated 5.7) and then we joined Ken and Jill at the summit by 11:30. Across the spires, we could hear a female voice singing the Canadian anthem – it turned out to be Holly Beck and her climbing partner Tom, who were doing a traverse of all five spires in a day, a respectable endeavor requiring perhaps 12-15 pitches of climbing and multiple rappels. We also saw Tom Nims’ group top out on S. Early Winter Spire around 12:30. It was a beautiful sunny day, with great views; we stayed at the summit for over an hour. We did a single rope rappel from the summit to avoid having to downclimb the friction face, then scrambled down to a rappel anchor and did one double rope rappel (50m) back to the notch. We decided against an ascent of Concord Tower, opting instead for the quick return to the car (by 3 p.m.) and early supper in Winthrop at the Duck Brand Hotel and Cantina. While Ken went in search of a bookstore, Doug and I stumbled upon a country crowd at the 6th Annual North Cascades Oldtime Fiddlers Contest near the visitor center. I found myself face to face (as well as hand to mouth) with an enormous black and white male Holstein ox! I got to feed him some grain, and found myself thinking longingly of our brown and white dog, Emily, who always has to stay behind while we go on our climbing adventures. When we returned to the BLTH just after 8 p.m., Tom Nims was just getting ready to leave; their climb of S. Early Winters Spire (the climb we’d be doing the following day) had taken 14 hours. We prepared our packs for the next day’s adventure and were one of only two cars remaining in the parking lot by the time we climbed into our sleeping bags at 10:30.
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