Liberty Crack and the Legend of the Benito Bonito

It wasn’t going to be an easy sell. I’m far from a sales person and I could tell Pete wasn’t convinced we should go climb Liberty Crack instead of going to crag for the day in Tieton, Washington. I’ve got nothing against Tieton. The columns of ancient lava make for great traditional crack climbing. But I had been there the week before and by 11am it was so sun baked my underroos were soggy and I was panting like a taxed pup.

Spruce Climbing in Tieton

At Tieton I desperately tried to neglect the sun leading old school cracks with slippery beads of sweat rolling down my arms. The climbing was shut down by the afternoon’s solar flare. My partner Spruce and I ran down the trail skipping over Rattle Snakes for the refuge of the cold river water below

Pete and I had just gotten done guiding a 3 day trip with Alpine Ascent International on Mt. Rainier. It was the last trip I was going to guide for the season. I had three days left in Washington State before it was back to wiping butt and filling water pitchers as a registered nurse, blaaa.

Alpine Ascent group nearing Camp Sherman

 Liberty Crack had gotten on my radar 10 years ago when Bob Rinker described it to me as a must do. I had been guiding for Alpine Ascents for most of the summer and before the season had set an ambitious goal for myself. My goal was to climb all The Pacific Northwest’s 50 classic climbs on my days off. They include:

1. Mount Rainier, Liberty Ridge

2. Forbidden Peak, West Ridge

3. Mount Shuksan, Price Glacier

4. Slesse Mountain, Northeast Buttress

5. Mount Stuart, North Ridge

6. Liberty Bell Mountain, Liberty Crack

Spruce Climbing Forbidden Peak

Without a car and consistent climbing partner it was a goal that went unachieved. But I did manage to get three objectives done. Earlier in the season Terray Sylvester and I had climbed Liberty Ridge and a few weeks earlier Spruce, Ben and I had a successful trip to Forbidden Peak.

 I was stuck at the Ashford guide house, 6 hours from the North Cascades and at Pete’s mercy. It was looking doubtful we were going to go climb Liberty Crack with just a few days before I flew home to Colorado.

Pete Lardy was the only guide in the Ashford Guide house with me. He’s a stand up guy, trustworthy and talked about climbs he had done on the Diamond on Longs Peak. Pete was the obvious most likely victim to coerce into climbing Liberty Crack. I also thought he would make a great partner since we both seemed to have a love of Gun’s n Rose’s Appetite for Destruction.

My wife always tells me, “You’re a Lion take what’s yours,” a marvelous piece of inspiration from Jack Donaghy on the TV series 30 Rock.

I was the lion and Pete was starting to look like a Thompson Gazelle. Lardy would not be easy to take down. Things were not looking good. By 6pm he would only agree to go climbing in Tieton the next day.

Understandable he had another trip in a few days. Liberty Crack was 6 hours away, thirteen pitches, a few A2+ and we didn’t even have any proper aid gear. But thank the heavens Pete has a religious understanding of the term “classic route.” And the more I talked about Liberty Crack I think the more he realized this would be his one chance this summer to send it.

By 8pm he still wasn’t all that convinced we should go for it but I sensed the tables were starting to turn. I needed help, a persuader of sorts, a form of liquid courage. So I walked over to the general store and purchased a 6 pack of Black Butte Porter. By 9pm thing were looking better. Pete was starting to get more excited about Liberty Crack. By 10pm all plans of cragging in Tieton had faded to black and we had plans to leave at 6am the next morning to make our pilgrimage to the North Cascades.

Pete at the base of Liberty Dome

The plan was as follows. Leave at 6 am from Ashford, Wa. As soon as the Alpine Ascents office opened we would call and see if we could borrow any much needed aid gear like Etriers, ascenders, and hooks. We were driving two cars. Pete would go pick up the gear from the office and I would go to REI and Feathered Friends and see if they had any off set nuts which were highly recommended for the route. Several of the comments about the climb suggested offset nuts and a hook were mandatory. We came up with everything but a set of offset nuts and a hook. This made me a little nervous about the climb especially since Pete had never aid climbed before and I would be leading all the aid pitches but courage pushed us forward. Worse case scenario we rap down and try the route next season.

We arrived at the pull off for Liberty Crack late in the afternoon. We shouldered heavy packs and started hiking up towards the base of Liberty Dome. A small snowfield guarded the base of the cliff. We were in approach shoes without ice axes so used rocks and sticks to hack steps and gain the base of the cliff. There was a large gap between the base of the cliff and snow field. In some places the gap was half a foot and in other spots several feet. As we geared up for the climb I strattled one of the large gaps and took a leak looking into the void that narrowed to a tight chock of ice and rock 10 feet bellow.

Up and left of Pete is where I found Benito Bonito's treasure of offset nuts.

As I whized I noticed something shiny in the trench below. The magpie in me drew me towards the possible booty (free dropped, left, lost gear). I stemmed the ice and rock until I could reach down for the lost treasure. I wrapped my fingers around a carabiner and pulled. Attached to the carabiner was a dozen or so nuts.

I looked closer at the grand prize. Booty to climbers is like a pirate stumbling upon the infamous Benito Bonito treasure by accident. This wasn’t any set of nuts, a handful of the nuts were offsets. Exactly what we needed! My slight pessimism of actually getting up this climb vanished into the dark hole below me. I climbed out of the tomb towards the light of optimism. I looked at Pete, “no flipping way,” I said “there are offset nuts in this set.”  I let out a massive Homer Simpson “woohoo.”

That evening we fixed lines on the first two pitched through the “Lithuanian Roof.” Several times when the leading was feeling desperate a found offset nut came to my rescue.  As dark crawled in we rapped down. We had wanted to fix the first three pitches but the moon was rising and the “crux” A2+ pitch would have to wait until morning. I tossed and turned like a Mexican jumping bean in my sleeping bag all night excited about the next day.

The Lithuanian Roof

The next morning we jugged the lines to our high point. Jugging was new to Pete and it left his biceps in a sore spasm. But his motivation was still there and he continued on. I lead through a few copper heads with fraying wire ancient fixed pieces of protection. At some points too nervous to breath. I then arrived at the infamous hook placement. I knew I was hookless but searched my rack desperately wishing one would magically appear.

Old Hardware

It turns out the move is not all that bad without a hook. I stood as high as I could in the Etriers, put my index finger in the hole as a make shift hook and was able to reach up to a descent gear placement. The crux was done! I felt relaxation overtake my being.  We still had 10 pitches of climbing to go. But from here on out no more aid climbing just enjoyable free climbing.

Like clockwork soggy clouds were forming above us. Small cells passed overhead from the West. Every now and then a patch of grey would roll in directly over head and a few drops of rain would fall teasing us and testing our nerves. Several times I though we were going to have to bail leaving tons of gear behind as we rapped down. But we pushed on finally reaching lower angle climbing.

A few pitches of easy scrambling lead to the Summit of Liberty Dome. I looked around proud at the glorious North Cascade views. It had been a wonderful summer in Washington and this was the perfect way to end it.  

Pete scrambling to the summit

View from the Descent Trail