The Liberty Traverse (V/IV 5.9)

 

The famed Liberty Bell group Traverse (V 5.9 )

Tino Villanueva and I drove up to Washington pass Sept 28th knowing it was going to be cold (near freezing temps at the pass when we arrived at 9am) and that it had snowed nearly an inch down to around 6500ft the previous day and the snow was still hanging around in most shady places. Tino had been wondering about bolts so we wasted a hour or so talking about them waiting for the temperature to warm up. I had a few moderate routes in the Liberty Bell group to do for the book so we decided with the new snow it might be best to keep it mellow.

 Tino Starting the Third pitch of the "Girl next door"(II 5.9-), this leaves the same belay as the top of the second pitch on the Becky route and climbs the arete to the left of the big third pitch corner

We didn't leave the parking lot until 12:30pm waiting for the west faces to go into the sun. We started off on Liberty Bell, climbing the Girl Next door (II 5.9), claiming what I believe is the third ascent. The route starts at the lowest toe of rock below the Becky route and shares belays with the Becky routes 2nd and third pitches. The route isn't as good as the Becky route but is decent and will clean up with time. The first pitch climbs mostly slabby terrain to ta two bolt anchor even with the start of the Becky route.  Then climbs straight up with a very short 5.9- section and a terrible 5.3 "Kitty litter pillar". Tino has still never climbed the Becky route, whats up with that craziness? After the Girl next door I had to finish up all the variations on the North Face of Concord including one that we had dubbed the North Face "Directisimo" (II 5.8).

 As you can see Tino following below on the top of the "Second" pitch it was snowy and cold.

Tino Belaying back in the sun near the top of Concord Tower, we had planned to simul-climb the whole route but the icy conditions forced us to pitch it out, the steep cracks where fine but the low angle face was very icy and SCARY at times.

 After climbing Concord tower we decided rather than walk down the wet, snowy icy gully it would be "Faster" and more fun to just rap down the South Face of Concord and climb up over Lexington Tower and rap it's south face. Tino on the ridge South of Lexington, this leads to a short exposed third class section which leads to a short 70ft rappel and an easy walk over to the base of North Early Winter Spire (NEWS)

 Tino Walking over toward NEWS after the rappel. After speaking with Larry Goldie I wasn't sure I went the correct way on the last pitch of the Chock Stone route (II 5.7), So I wanting to make sure I got it right. Tino wondered "Do people actually climb up this thing"?. Well they do and Tino was nice enough to climb up it. Larry said go all the way right and I wasn't sure if I had gone "right enough". But it turns out I did but at least we got to bag our 4th tower of the day.

Here I am standing on the summit of NEWS at 6:45pm. Not bad considering we hadn't started climbing until 2pm and everything was cold and snowy.  We decided after rappelling NEWS with the last of our day light that we climbed 4 towers, might as well climb 5. The South West Rib (III 5.8+) on South Early Winter Spire is in my opinion the best 5.8 in the state. It is due west facing and had very little snow on it. Tino and I climbed the route in the Dark with no moon (But spectacular views of the Milky way and the night's stars) justifying it to ourselves as "its good practice to intentionally climb in the dark" and "might as well finish off the traverse". It was just plane fun, while the darkness, temperature and slight dampness made it hardly the 26 minutes Chris McNamara climbed it in in 2009, Tino and I still did a respectable 1:20 on route.

 Tino starting the second pitch "Wavy hand crack" by head lamp, too much fun!!!! Also if you have an opinion on if the Liberty Bell Traverse should be grade IV or Grade V let me know, It takes me longer to do the LB traverse than LB crack, also the LB traverse normally means climbing something on the south face of LB, something on the North face of Concord Tower and Lexington, rapping each of their south faces, then west face or NW corner of NEWS rap the Chock stone route and climb up the SW rib and down the S arete, so 2 grade III's, three grade II's 26 pitches. Took Tino and I 5 hrs in the dark, snowy and cold, but it took us 4 hrs for Clean break (Grade IV+), 4 hrs for Liberty Crack (Grade V)(With Jason Broman) and 2:15 on Town Crier (Grade 4). I also feel a normal team might struggle to complete this in a day, but give me your feed back!!!!!!