My First Time Climbing in Washington Pass - Climbing the Beckey Route

This past weekend I went to Washington Pass with Preston to do some climbing. Our main goal was the Southeast Rib of South Early Winter Spire, a classic 5.8 alpine route with a 5.10b fingercrack variation. 

We left midday on Saturday, the plan was to drive to Mazama and do some cragging before getting to bed early to get an alpine start on Sunday. As we drove to the pass though, the weather was looking less than ideal. We drove through light rain and as we reached the pass we drove into thick fog. We tried to stay optimistic as we drove to Mazama, but if I'm being honest my stoke wasn't super high. We stopped at Fun Rocks in Mazama and hang-dogged a short, crimpy 5.11c before driving to the sno-park where we were camping. 

We organized our rack for the next day, still planning on attempting the SE Rib, but also thinking about backup options. The mosquitoes were incredibly dense and as soon as we finished dinner we crawled into the tent to escape them. I forgot a sleeping pad so it wasn't the greatest night of sleep, but honestly not bad. Because of the weather we adjusted our wake-up time to 5:45, hoping that would give the rock some time to dry before we got there. As we drove to the pass it was looking a lot better than the day before, we could actually see the peaks.

We arrived at the Blue Lake Trailhead at 7:00 and ran into another pair of climbers planning on climbing the SE Rib. We hoped that the weather would at least deter some of the weekend crowds. The approach was fairly chill, the first half was a gentle incline up the trail. It steepened after we broke off onto the climbers' trail, but at that point it wasn't very far to the base of the route. As we got closer we decided to bail on our main objective. The rock was looking pretty wet and the clouds had started moving in. We chose the Beckey Route on Liberty Bell as a good alternative. At only 5.6 it should be climbable even if it's wet. It's also a classic route to a great summit, so neither of us were too disappointed. 

We put helmets on once we reached the gully below Liberty Bell and scrambled up to the notch between Liberty Bell and Concord Tower to where the Beckey route begins. When we got there we unfortunately found a big party of 8 climbers just starting the route. As we racked up and waited for them to get up pitch one we discussed whether we should try to pass them since they were moving pretty slowly.

Eventually it was our turn and Preston cruised up the first pitch to a large belay ledge with a tree anchor and I followed him up the damp face climbing pitch. When I reached the belay ledge there were 6 climbers from the group ahead of us there with Preston. He told me they wanted to let us climb pitch two first, to show them how to climb it. The pitch starts with a short chimney and I could understand the other group's apprehension, it was wet and looked slightly tricky to protect, not the most inviting feature. I passed off the backpack to Preston and squeezed into the chimney. Although it was a bit wet and a bit tricky, it was well protected and secure climbing. After I climbed past the chimney I followed a wide crack with lots of chockstones to another large belay ledge with a tree for an anchor.

There was a bit of rope drag belaying Preston up to me, but I had extended almost all of my placements so it wasn't too bad. Preston was leading the next pitch, so after we traded the backpack again he set off up the slab above. After some scrambling he reached a bulge with a short hand/fist crack. This lead to a cool slab traverse on a hand/finger crack to a stance where he built a gear anchor. After I reached the anchor we unroped so we could scramble to the summit.

The rest of the climbing to the summit was mostly 3rd class with one cool 10ft V0 slab.

When we reached the summit the clouds had slightly cleared and we got great views of the North Cascades. After eating some snacks, finishing the water we had brought up the route, and taking a summit photo we scrambled down to the first rappel anchor. It took three rappels to reach the ground. When we reached the base we discussed climbing the SE Rib but ultimately decided to call it a day.

This trip was a great intro to climbing in the Liberty Bell group and I can't wait to go back and climb the SE Rib and some of the other amazing routes up there (hopefully in slightly better conditions).