Liberty Bell Group Trip Report
by Brad Monrad

The weekend of June 7th and 8th was the final class outing.  It was the students choice of where to go and they chose to return to the Liberty Bell Group, as we were weathered out of the original trip up there. We were scheduled to meet in the parking lot sat. morning at 7am. Rick Rogers and I arrived at 6:45. It was just a short drive from Lone Fir campground, where Rick and Beth and Kathy and I had camped the night before. The parking lot was real active with climbers and skiers getting ready, we suspected some of the people were part of our group, but there was no one that we knew there yet. Exactly at 7 Dawn Lambert pulled in, she made it on time. A few minutes later Thad Hink pulled in with Jim Lapp.  Then came Paal Haddal, this made up our group. Some of the other people planning to come had things come up and that messed up the car-pool plan.

We made some decisions on who was going to spend the night and who would carry what. Up onto the snow and away we go heading up to the base of these great rocks. We did the approximately 1600 feet of elevation then stopped to lighten our loads and bury our gear then prepare for the climb. Rick had a hole dug in the snow before the rest of us even had our day packs organized. He is definitely a good example of climbing efficiency. After we got everything buried in plastic bags to keep the ravens from raiding our stuff, we broke down into groups and the students chose the routes they wanted to do. 

Rick, Thad and Jim headed for the arete on South Early Winter Spire. Thad and Jim were both interested in practicing some leading and the arete is good for that and also a lot of rope management practice. They also had in mind that maybe they could do that route and one other if things went well.

Brad, Dawn and Paal headed for the Beckey Route on Liberty Bell. All three of us were interested in doing this route and I was to lead the route because no other more experienced leaders showed up. I have done that route a number of times and have led it but I definitely felt a higher degree of responsibility this time. We left the camp area and headed up the couliour. We were able to stay ahead of the group coming from below us and arrived near the top of the couliour where you change you shoes, put harnesses on and flake ropes.  There were two guys starting the route ahead of us, we moved in behind them and started the route. I was using all the correct climbing skills I could think of like always being on belay or anchored. Up we went, the first two pitches went real well, with a few challenging moves. I led on two half ropes and belayed Paal and Dawn at the same time about 20 feet apart, which worked really good on the first two pitches but on the third pitch the lead went fine but I picked up a lot of rope drag before getting to the bomber belay anchor, the nice solid pine tree, and I had incredible rope drag in belaying them up.  We made it even though the ropes had crossed and fallen in a crack, no wonder it was so hard! Lesson learned, belay the third pitch one climber at a time. From there we coiled one rope, left the rack and scrambled to the summit. It was good weather on top and real warm. We enjoyed the summit for over 1/2 hour.

I could see down to our camp where Kathy and Beth had arrived and found the buried gear marked with wands and Rick's skis. They had dug platforms and pitched the tents and made camp. We could also see four yellow dogs running around down there, our two Golden Retrievers and Rick and Beth's two yellow labs.  We had beautiful views of the mountains with just a few scattered clouds. Looking south we could the other group waving and hollering on the summit of South Early Winter Spire.

We started our decent by doing a short rap partway down, then down the friction slab, down climbing to where we left the pro and other rope.  Continuing to down climb on some snow with our rock shoes on we were now looking across to where the rappel anchors are. Organizing ropes and protecting the short traverse to the anchor bolts. We were all anchored in and at the rappel bolts. Ropes flaked and thrown we did the last rap and arrived back down to the top of the couliour. We even pulled the rope without getting it hung. Paal and Dawn commented that they had felt safe and that the climb had gone real good. Hooray! Hooray! 

About an hour later we were back at camp. Rick and his group arrived a few minutes ahead of us. Their climb up South Early Winter Spire had gone well with Jim and Thad leading most of it. They had time to get off of their first climb and head for the Concord/Lexington couliour. They considered climbing but ran out of time and headed back to camp.

Part of the group headed down and the rest of us, Rick, Beth, Brad, Kathy and Paal spent the night at snow camp. We were excited to spot and watch a goat up toward the base of South Early Winter Spire that evening then a couple more goats up on the ridge. It was the perfect end to a great day in the mountains.

The next morning Rick was feeling pretty bad because of a cold and they decided to leave. Rick practiced skiing on the way down with the first load, he survived and came back up for another load from camp because there was extra STUFF to carry. 

Paal and I climbed the arete on South Early Winter Spire on Sunday, while Kathy stayed back at camp with the dogs and her book. We had a good trip up the rock and were back down in no time to load up and head for the parking lot and home. On to our next adventure!