Liberty Crack Trip Report (longish)

[ScoPi]

This is a trip I did last summer. It took me this long to get it out of
my head.
Scott

It was the sound of a tight swarm of angry hummingbirds zipping past me
somewhere to my right. The distant, yet sickening thud of stone hitting
snow came next. Robglibly volunteered it's proximity to me as "under
fifteen feet" from the safety of the overhang. Judging from the breath of
the stones vibration on my face I guessed it was more like fifteen inches.
The words "massive head injuries" sprang to mind, so I frantically
finished cleaning the pitch up to the shoe-box sized stance, and haven,
under the Lithuanian Roof.
I was completely freaked out. Rob calmly began racking for my lead as I
ducked and flinched at the sound of flies buzzing around the belay. The
last thing I wanted to do at that moment was stick my head over the lip of
that roof into a field of fire that was surely going to center punch my
forehead. Rob seemed unconcerned so, with a presage of doom hanging like a
pall around my shoulders, I clipped into the belay and started up.
Crouching in my aiders under the roof, I quickly peaked out over the lip
to see that I was hanging from a fixed knifeblade hammered to the hilt.
Gaining a modicum of psychological security from this sight I heaved
myself into a standing position and into the line of fire. The second
placement above the pin was a brass nut that rocked like the pivot of a
pendulum each time I stood up to get a look at what lay ahead. A beautiful
placement of an ugly little wired nut aptly stamped with the moniker
"Troll" got my knees above the roof, and a chance to cower and ponder
imaginary whirring and buzzing noises. A plethora of beaten fixed nuts,
half driven, rusty 1/4 inch bolts, and wildly pounded pins were
interspersed with small, marginal nut placements. Finishing with a
difficult traversing move out of my aiders to a mantle, I stood at the top
of the second pitch of the Liberty Crack.
"Uncle Bob!", I shouted at the sight of Rob's black hat coming out from
underneath the roof. Cllipping the pro to bypass the roof, he was
strangely silent as he cleaned my lead. Even my news of much fixed gear
above failed to invoke the usual, sublime epithet that characterizes Rob's
climbing patois. The look in his eyes as he neared the stance explained it
all: It was his turn to be gripped. "You want this pitch?", he asked in a
voice that fit his face. "No.", I emphatically replied just a bit too
forcefully. "I'm gripped.", he pleaded. "Look, there's eight pieces fixed.
The hard part's real short. It's your lead. Do it." We racked gear, drank
water, reviewed the pair of crumpled, ambiguous topos we had brought along
for moral support and argued ridiculously about nothing in general. Rob
refused a granola bar, citing "...lower intestinal anxiety." and moved off
the belay.
Standing on a what he described as a fixed "full-view copperhead with a
horsehair-sized cable that's frayed", Rob stated flatly, "If there's
anything worse than this, I'm coming down.". Fortunately there wasn't. An
old mashie, a hook move, a good nut, and a strangely fixed, barely
discernable hex got him past the A3. A more jovial Rob quickly finished
the pitch up to the third stance. An hour-and-a-half, two rappels, and a
great glissade later, we were making pesto linguine and guzzling cold
beers. While pointedly ignoring the ominous cloud cover and engaging in a
spirited mosquito killing contest, we occasionally gazed at the pitches
above our high point through the binoculars. We later crawled into our
bags totally stoked, and I drifted off to sleep imagining each of the
pitches we would be doing the next day.
I was awakened about 3 a.m. by raindrops hitting me in the face. I
burrowed deeper into my bivi sack and tried to will away the inevitable by
going back to sleep. Driven from our bags by the incessant patter of the
rain at dawn, we drank coffee and discussed our sparse options until about
ten before we gave up the vigil and left, leaving the ropes and gear
behind. The thought of jugging through the sheets of water that would most
certainly be pouring from the lip of the roof was enough impetus for that
decision. The idea of rain-induced rockfall came later and was sufficient
rationalization to waylay some of the pain of what looked to be the
certain loss of all of our fixed gear. Stopping to get some coffee in
Marblemount, we were not amused at the picture postcards of a sun-drenched
Liberty Bell massif at the front counter. We bought a couple of them
anyway, and cursed the Northwest weather soundly as we drove out of town,
postcards defiantly in hand. It was a dismal, gray drive home that
morning, punctuated by the ironic mockery of bright sunshine as we drove
into Seattle, and brightened only slightly by Rob's visionary idea that we
kidnap all of the local T.V. weather personalities and place them in a
torture chamber designed to rain 24 hours a day.
July 4th, 3:45 a.m.. I am simultaneously awakened by my clock radio, my
dog barking furiously, and Rob hammering on my bedroom window. Time,
according to Rob, is of the essence.
The drive into the predawn hours of the North Cascades National Park is
filled with a steady stream of thinly veiled doubts and anxieties about
the weather and our gear still being in place and intact. My attempts at
completely waking fail, so I amuse myself by listening to Rob's usual
monotribe though a sleepy haze. His uncharacteristically fast, erratic
driving gets us to our parking spot of three days previous in Rob's
allotted three hours.
Peeking through a cloud of mosquitoes trying to feast on my tired blood,
I turn at Rob's comment to see two guys walking out of the woods. They are
Brits who bivied below the face. They don't like the looks of the weather,
they say, so are moving on to Mt. Slesse or the Bugaboos. As a friend
later stated, they made the mistake of biviing below such a large face,
and coming from a land not noted for it's Grade V alpine rock climbs,
probably came down with a bad case of scale-induced lassitude. We consider
it our good fortune that two fixed ropes did not impair their
intrepidations, as the sky is showing blue and we are to be the only ones
on the Liberty Crack today.
We reach the base of the wall at Rob's allotted time of 8 a.m.. I
immediately drop our food into the bergshrund. I desperately worm my way
down into the deep-freeze setting in an attempt to rescue the grub. With
my body jammed head-down, I am just able to tickle the food bag with the
tips of my fingers. It responds by coyly dropping out of sight. Needless
to say, it is not retrievable. Rob, obviously trying to handicap himself
on the 4th class section leading to the bottom of the fixed ropes,
attempts the moves with a wad of jumar and aider in each fist. Result: One
jumar and one aider in the bergshrund. He repeats the ice worm
impersonation, and to our good fortune, it is retrievable. Without further
incident, we're soon jugging to our high point.
I go first and as I pass through the crux section on the third pitch, an
irresistible urge strikes me. I lift ever so slightly on the "full-view
copperhead" and much to my surprise it pops out of it's niche with a force
usually reserved for flicking a light switch. "Oops." I say out loud as I
search in vain for the sight of the copperhead placement. I pocket it and
continue to the top of the fixed lines. As Rob nears the anchors, I ask,
"Notice anything different about that pitch?". He looks down, "No.". "That
copperhead's gone.". "No it's not.", he insists. I casually persuade him
that, yes, indeed, that copperhead is gone. He surmises that it was
probably washed away by the rain. I counter with the theory that maybe the
wind was the culprit. He shrugs, mutters something unintelligible, and
continues up to where I'm standing in the sun.
The first pitch of the day is pretty straightforward except for the
sporadic layer of rain washed fecal matter and toilet paper perched on a
small, crucial shelf just below the belay. A difficult variation gets me
past this 'objective' danger, and Rob is soon moving. He reaches the last
move before the belay. "Watch out for those turds.". "Where?". "Six inches
in front of your nose.". "Oh GAWD!", he fairly shrieks. He doesn't see my
variation so he precariously makes the testy feces move using thin nubbins
protruding through the patina of shit on the shelf.
The next pitch is a long, wide corner crack. Following it under the
weight of the pack it seems like a series of squat thrusts interspersed
with a good fist jam every other one. The belay is reached under the added
weight of Rob's meandering conjecture about the next pitch. I look up to
see what appears to be a casual romp up a relatively low-angle corner. Rob
remembers reading somewhere about loose blocks and pleads with me to tread
lightly, as he is trussed into the belay standing chest high and helpless
in the fall line.
Several moves into the bass-sounding, decomposing blocks, I look down to
see Rob's face looking quite similar to my dog's when she happens to leave
malodorous things where she shouldn't. I lieback a flake that makes an
ominous grating noise as I pull on it, make four aid moves past a VW sized
block the consistency of blown acoustical ceiling, and plop down on a
sitting belay complete with a nasty ridge that digs deeply into the backs
of my legs. Before I can even begin clipping the bolts, I hear a distant,
"That's me!".
Anxious to be away from me, the bad rock below, or maybe the smell of
fear that still lingers around him, Rob quickly aids through some leaning
squeeze thing and out of sight. After several silent moments and telltale
jerks on the rope, I hear a very subdued, "Off belay, Scott.". As I reach
the belay, an agitated Rob fairly yells, "Would you look at those
bolts?!". We come to a rare agreement that in our 30 odd years of
collective climbing experience, those are, without a doubt, the two
saddest looking, mankiest belay bolts we have ever seen. Coupled with our
exposed position directly above the black hole that is the Concord
Tower/Liberty Bell coulior and the ensuing, wildly exposed damp hand
traverse leading off the belay, our situation causes Rob to literally
bark, "Get going!!". "Rob, I'm just hanging here. Relax.". "I don't like
these bolts!", he shouts. "Neither do I.", I reply in my best soothing,
kindly-psychiatrist voice. His nervous fidgeting and mumbling speeds me
off the manky belay and past an equally manky fixed pin. The soggy nature
of the hand traverse is such that I shamelessly aid the first placement,
grab a long-dead tree, and scoot up easier ground, clipping into a virtual
museum of antique fixed hardware as I go. Rob gets to the belay out of
breath and very relieved to be away from the bolts of doom.
The exposure of the lower pitches is replaced by the relaxed atmosphere
of the tree-dotted ramp system above. As I follow the next pitch, the pack
fits into the musty chimney with a tolerance that would make any Incan
stone mason really proud. In fact, it fits so well that with every piece
of pro I remove, I cut loose with my hands and feet and hang from it to
rest and rack the gear. The next three pitches that Mr. Beckey describes
as "not noteworthy" end up being some of the most enjoyable on the route,
and are quickly disposed.
At a little after 3 p.m. we're standing on the class 2 ledges leading to
the rappel anchors above the notch. We quickly scramble to the summit to
behold a beautiful, clear view across both sides of the North Cascades.
Cheesy summit photos, a quick down climb, stuck ropes on both rappels, and
we are at last making our way down the rubble-strewn gully leading to the
snow and, finally, the trail. We reach the road via the circuitous trail
at Rob's allotted 6 p.m.. By 7 p.m. we are at the car drinking a
celebratory warm beer and gazing with tired contentment at what Roper and
Steck appropriately designated a classic; the Liberty Crack route on
Liberty Bell Mountain.
As of this writing, Rob still doesn't know the true reason for the
disappearance of his nemesis A3 copperhead. I almost showed it to him on
the walk up the road to the car, but I didn't. He'll figure it out when he
receives an envelope in the mail with nothing in it but a "full-view
copperhead with a horsehair-size cable that's frayed.".

I also want to apologize to those that passed through the A3 section
after we did. I really didn't intend to clean that copperhead. Really I
didn't.