Western Front on Mount Russell

With an iffy forecast for the Cascades and Dale needing to get back to Mammoth, we hatched a plan late on Thursday night to fly down for a 3-day weekend. We arrived at LAX around 10:30pm and got a one-way rental car, which we drove straight to the Alabama Hills to get a few hours of sleep. We awoke around 5am, drove up to the Whitney Portal, and were moving by 6am.

Dale on Pitch 4 before the sustained corner

Dale and I had previously done the Fishhook Arete, Mithral Dihedral, and Star Trekkin, so the Western Front was our last classic line to hit on Russell. When we eventually got to the Whitney-Russell Col, the face was still in the shade, so we took a nap. Charging up there from sea level was starting to hit me in the frontal lobe, so it felt good to drop my heart rate for a bit.

After our nap, we headed over to the route, figured out which line to climb, and started our way up. The crux felt pretty hard to both of us with a blind reach from an undercling to a less-than-awesome layback crack. The arete pitch was quite fun and surprisingly engaging despite being covered with cracks—everything felt slightly off and jams were hard to come by.

I belayed Dale from the arete as he stepped into the second crux sustained dihedral. No one move was terribly hard, but there weren't many rests until higher up and we both felt worked. The rest of the climb and scramble to the summit went smoothly. I fought off nausea for much of the climb, summit, and East Ridge descent, which detracted from the fun of the day a bit. It was a long slog out from Upper Boyscout, but worth it for a great day in the mountains.

North Face on Lexington Tower

Kelsey on the Stegosaurus pitch

We had ambition to get on a longer, classic line in the afternoon on Sunday, but it was far from warm and the routes we had our eye on were NW-facing, so we decided to start with an easy warmup route. The North Face of Lexington seemed like a good option, even knowing that it would be cold for the first two pitches.

The approach was straightforward, branching right where Concord tower met the normal Liberty Bell approach from Blue Lake. We traversed underneath Concord and then headed up the loose, steep gully to its highest point. It was much colder on Sunday than Saturday and we ended up climbing in all of the layers we'd brought and were still shaking uncontrollably at times.

The first pitch had some fun moves, especially just below the belay in a notch. The second pitch rambled a bit over some mossy terrain. I briefly checked out the steep corner on the right before deciding that it wasn't wise to pull the much-harder-than-standard moves there with my frozen hands. I traversed back left to the correct line and wove my way up to the ridge. The final "stegosaurus" pitch was great, with awesome views all around and some fun, exposed moves on the ridge

We celebrated briefly in the sun, down-climbed the final pitch, and then made two raps down to the col before scooting down out of the wind to enjoy lunch. That added up to my last summit in the Liberty Bell group and was lots of fun despite being a bit cold.

North Face on Concord Tower

Kelsey following pitch 2

This was a quick, straightforward route starting from the Concord-Liberty Bell notch. We chose it as a fun afternoon jaunt after driving up to the pass from Seattle in the morning. The sun had swung around enough to warm the route up despite being north-facing and we had a great time chatting up a party ahead of us.

Pitch 1 is very short and leads to a nice ledge. Pitch 2 had some fun moves and jams leading to a few pockets and huecos through a thinner crux. From there, Pitch 3 traversed out left and up some really fun terrain to a final tricky move right at the summit block. Three short raps straight down the face got us back to the col and a view of an exceptionally regal-looking goat. Win.