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Liberty Bell (7720ft)
Southwest Face (Beckey Route) 5.6
October 13, 2004
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Greg and I took advantage of the spell of good weather and spent two days climbing at Washington Pass.
Twice before we had made plans to climb here, but bad weather cancelled them.
We arrived at the Blue Lake trailhead around 11am and were surprised to see one other car in the parking lot.
As we were putting on our boots and organizing our packs a man jogged into the parking lot. He had just returned
from climbing the South Arete on South Early Winters Spire in three hours. We would meet him again on the trail later
since he had dropped his shirt on the way down. Since the descent off of Liberty Bell can be done in a single double rappel, I bought a 8.2 mm haul line at REI the
day before. Eventually I want to buy a double rope system, but until then this will suffice nicely.
Our original plans were to climb Liberty Bell, then jump over and climb Concord Tower, then drive down the highway to the hairpin and hike up
to Kangaroo Pass so we could climb Kangaroo Temple the next morning. It looked good on paper, but in reality it didn't quite work out. But that's fine,
as we had a great time on the Beckey Route on Liberty Bell and the South Arete on South Early Winters Spire.
