South Early Winter Spire

September 01, 2025

South Early Winter Spire

South Early Winter Spire - 2384M

207M Prominence

48.51228, -120.65539

September 1, 2025

8H 6M C2C, 7H 15M moving

787M Ascent and descent

11.77KM

After meeting Finn early in the morning in Concrete Washington, we carpooled out toward Washington pass where we would spend the next 3 days climbing some peaks. I met Finn on Facebook a few weeks before and we came up with a plan. I am glad we were able to stick to our plan because this summer was definitely missing some true alpine climbing. After a few hours of driving through some pretty bad patches of wildfire smoke around the Diablo area, we made it to Blue Lake trailhead, where we would start the hike in. Thankfully wildfire smoke here was much much less, and visibility was great. We packed up our bags and started hiking in along the Blue Lake trail. Eventually there is a turn off that takes you to the base of the climbs, and requires some steep hiking up some slabby areas to access the base of the climb. From this area there are many climbs along the Liberty Bell massif, on The various towers such as Liberty Bell itself, Concord Tower, Lexington Tower, and the two Early Winter Spires. We hiked to the Southernmost point of the massif where the route we chose would start. We chose to climb the South Arête as it is the easiest route. There are also some insanely difficult climbs on the East side of the peak and a very popular climb on the South West rib. It was incredibly windy at the base of the climb so we worried a bit about communication, but it turned out to be quite sheltered once we began the climb. I geared up to lead the first pitch and it was actually a bit tricky to find the starting moves. I think in theory the route start with a bit of a finger crack traverse but it was a bit of a daunting move at 5.5, so I opted to use a small tree to the left and use it as a part of the climb to bypass the first move. Soon after that move there is a chance to set up a belay station on a tree, so I set up a station and Finn followed me up. We then got set up for pitch 2 which follows a chimney with the crux of the route at the top of it. The start of the chimney is super straight forward, and then comes the crux move of the day where you need to mantle a chockstone, I managed to place a piece of gear in the chockstone so it felt less sketchy, but a fall would have definitely been a deck. After mantling the chockstone there was just a short while more climbing before I was able to find a convenient spot to set up a belay station. Finn seconded me up and over the chockstone to the belay station, then we un roped for the next part. The next part of the arete is quite simple and mainly class 3 scrambling. We easily navigated up to the obvious "shark fin" feature that gives this route much of it's attention. We decided to pitch this short traverse out again as we don't have any real experience short roping or simul climbing. it is a bit too exposed for my taste to be worth scrambling, and we had lots of time. There is in fact one bolt on the fin itself to clip into. After we had both crossed the fin we stashed the rope nearby and finished off the rest of the scramble up to the summit, following the more solid rock to the right hand side of the gulley. We were not alone on the summit, as a few other people who had climbed the South East Rib joined us at the top. We took in the magnificent views of all the jagged peaks from every angle, then started the descent. The descent involved retracing our way back down the South Arête again, but in a slightly different way. The descent is more easily started by descending the gulley on the skier's right, then making way back over to the fin. At the fin I opted to squeeze under the left hand side of the big boulder and slide my way down under the fin. Soon after the fin and to the skier's left of the climbing route, there are two rappel stations that make the descent simple and keep out of the way of potential climbers on the South Arête. After the few rappels we made it successfully back to the base of the first pitch and started the hike out. I desperately needed a shower after dirtbagging it for the last 5 days, so we hiked over to Blue lake and I had a cold dip in the lake around the tourists. The detour added a few extra kilometers and a bit of extra time to the day so the C2C time is not as accurate. We then rushed back down the trail and to the Truck, so we could drive over Washington Pass summit and make our way down into the small town of Mazama for the night. Mazama was a cool little town although there was not much there. We cooked dinner just outside the small supermarket at the gas station, and the drove to a recreation area a few minutes out of town where we were able to car camp for the night in a big gravel lot.