Liberty Bell Mountain

September 03, 2025

Liberty Bell Mountain

Liberty Bell Mountain - 2362M

114M Prominence

48.51546, -120.65837

September 3, 2025

6H 53M C2C, 6H 30M moving

715M Ascent and descent

9.33KM

Liberty Bell is an iconic mountain in the Washington North Cascades and is clearly seen while driving up Washington Pass. It is the North peak on the Liberty bell group, a group of striking spires. Liberty Bell's North face has some challenging and long multi pitch climbs, but the route Finn and I came to climb is the classic Beckey Route. 2 days ago we had done the North Early Winter Spire on the South side of the Liberty Bell group, which required basically the same approach, so we already were familiar with the area. We parked on the side of the highway at Blue Lake Trailhead and started hiking the approach. The approach only takes about an hour and 20 minutes and is on a well guided trail, so we felt a bit spoiled. It is almost like hiking in to a normal crag. At about 1860 meters on the Blue Lake trail there is a turn off up an eroded patch that takes you to the start of the climbs. We continued hiking up the eroded bouldery area until we had sight of the gulley that separates Liberty Bell and Concord tower. We began hiking towards the gulley, and eventually we were in the gulley. As many others have noted it is very loose and there is lots of consistent rock fall, so we were thankful to be doing this on a Wednesday when it was slightly less busy. Near the top of the gulley but not at the col yet, there is a ledge where the first belay station is. This was extremely easy to find as there was one other group ahead of us and a man was belaying. We had to wait a little bit, so we got racked up and ready to climb. I left some of my stuff at the bottom but took my pack up with me. Finn led the first pitch 5.3 up the face which is more of a scramble and leads to a tree for a belay. I then led the second pitch which is probably the most tricky if not just the most awkward pitch of the lot. On pitch 2 you continue up a chimney which is full of strange chockstones that you have to mantle and work around. I was able to continue yet again to a tree to set up a belay. Once Finn joined me at the top of Pitch 2 we swapped gear and he took the lead on pitch 3. Pitch three is the 5.6 pitch, but is not sustained at all. The start of the pitch is just a stroll up some easy fourth class terrain. There then is a fun but slightly tricky traverse along a 6 foot long finger crack that opens up to some more fun crack climbing above. Once we had both made it up to the top of pitch three we decided to rope up for one final pitch. Some might just opt to solo this part as there is only really one very small boulder problem that might cause some stress. I led the boulder problem which is really unprotectable anyway in reality and is very short. I then scrambled up a bit further to make sure there was no more climbing to be done and then set up a gear anchor to belay Finn up. From here we coiled up the rope and continued on to the summit as it is a simple scramble. The Beckey Route was definitely a more enjoyable route than the route we had done on the South Early Winter spire and I would recommend it. After some summit shots we started the descent. The descent is completely different than the ascent route and there is three rappel stations set up to the climbers right of the route. A single 60M rope did the job. We descended a short way off the summit and found the first set of rings. At the bottom of the first rappel we had to scramble down a bit further to find the next set of rings, but the next station was easy to find, and it took us all the way down to gulley where we had started the route. We packed up our gear and comfortably hiked back out to the highway where we had parked in the morning. It was a brutally hot day in full sun so we were happy to be done the climb by 2 and hiking back out in the shade of the forest back to the truck where we could get some water. There is no water to be found anywhere here as it is basically a desert. Especially in the late season when all the snow has melted off.

Liberty Bell group from the highway, Liberty Bell on the Right (photo by Finn Nguyen)

Signage for Liberty Bell Access

Hiking up the trail after turning off Blue Lake trail

In the loose gulley

Pitch 1 belay station

Cleaning up pitch 1

Me climbing above the awkward chockstones on pitch 2
(Photo by Finn Nguyen)

Views from the top of pitch 2

looking down the fun crack on pitch 3

Looking down the boulder problem after leading pitch 4

Liberty Bell Mountain summit

Liberty Bell summit with Early winters spires behind (photo by Finn Nguyen)

Rappelling off the first rappel. Concord Tower, Lexington Tower, North
Early Winters Spire, South Early Winters Spire (Front to back)
(Photo by Finn Nguyen)