A smoky weekend in August (4-6, 2017):
Long weekend in BC – time to drive a bit further than Squamish for some alpine adventure!
It was time to climb Liberty Crack in Washington Pass, a 14-pitch route up the big east face of Liberty Bell. It is rated as V, 5.9 C2 (or 13.b). There are a couple of 10-, 10+ and 11- sections that can be free-climbed or french-freed and a few harder bits that are full on aid climbing. It does go free, but I wasn’t ready for the 13.b roof just yet…
Liberty Crack is often climbed in 1-2 days (or in a couple of hours even..). If you have some aid experience then 1 day is sufficient. It took us <1 h to hike in, 9.5 h to climb and 2-3 h to get back to the car. I assume some time could have been saved if the air quality had been better and my biceps were bigger…
(see pitch 2)
On a nice smoky Sunday morning we woke up at 4.45 am and soon started our hike to the base of the route using the Pond Approach trail. There was a small amount of snow to cross to get to the base of the climb so we used a rock to carve steps and not slip in our approach shoes. Soon, we hopped into the Bergschrund and continued along the base of the mountain.
Pitch 1: There are two starts to the route, we used the 4th class traverse approach from the left and as expected there was a lot of rope drag and slack in the system created. Just before Todd continued up the harder part, he peaked around the corner and said: “You know, it is a bit scary, if I fall, I fall really far.” I didn’t know what to say, so I said: “I know” – because I knew. Todd opted on taking the much appreciated french free approach to the pitch in that case and made it up quickly to the base of the roof. I am pretty sure I climbed the pitch cleanly. Then, Todd suggested to bail, because he said he felt tired from the smoke and his throat was scratchy. I felt similarly, but I didn’t want to bail, so we continued.
Pitch 2: The Lithuanian Lip or the Biceps Roof. I only aided one roof before, so I don’t really have much to compare it to, but I found it quite hard. Our total ascent time was seriously affected by my glacial progress, but I am not going to reveal how long it took me. It could have been faster, but it also would have been better to have one or two offset cams, which we left at home because Todd thought they were too heavy. Todd had no problem following the roof, but I had already placed such good gear. I also had a bruised lip from a pulled cam.
Pitch 3: Easy aid, with a couple of fixed pieces, Todd flew up it in less than 30 min, making me look like a total beginner. On the bright side, averaging the time for the two aid pitches, came out to a fairly reasonable time for aid climbing.
Pitch 4: Killer jams as described in the book. It was a pretty good pitch and after some encouraging words by Todd (I think he said: “Slow down!!”), I made it up like a stressed beginner getting pumped because of bad planning.
Pitch 5: A chimney that was easier than expected with so many good features outside the chimney. I luckily did not have to use any chimney technique at all! Todd ran out of gear though, so the following belays did not follow the description in the book anymore. A mix of optional belays and linking pitches was in order.
Pitch 5/6/7: I had to fix what Todd screwed up before and climbed the upper part of pitch 5. Todd said it was an excellent, quite steep climb. I can’t remember exactly. On pitch 6 we were almost on track again, except for Todd screwing up again and continuing past the belay and stopping just under the rotten block of pitch 7. I attempted to climb the rotten block part of pitch 7 clean, but there were quite difficult face moves without feet. Todd agreed and took some time to get up it too.
Pitch 7/8: Some really hard flaring struggles here and a bit of runout 5.8 crack and then we had a couple of easier pitches ahead, (pitches 8, 9, 10), which could be partly linked.
Pitch 11: I convinced Todd to take pitch 11, a nice 5.8/5.9, which turned out to be really hard and sustained at the top. When I made it up, I was quite tired. Todd said he was really pooped by this point and was struggling with cramping arms.
Almost done! I climbed to the top of pitch 12 and we unroped just after that and scrambled to the top with enough time to hike down before dark.
It was an excellent route!
