South Early Winters Spire via "SW Rib," 5.8
and Concord & Lexington Towers via North faces, 5.8
July 13 & 14, 2024
On another sunny Friday afternoon, with my bags packed the exact same way as they had been the previous two weekends, I made the drive back down to Washington pass- this time in Nicole’s car. Although it seems silly to spend 3 weekends in a row in the same area, there really is endless climbing in Washington pass, and so many towers I still haven’t been up. The drive was not any less beautiful than the times before, and we even sweetened it up by stopping for Mexican at one of my favourite places in Sedro-Wooley: Lorenzo’s!
I was happy to finally have a chance to sleep enough since the past week at work had really worn me down, and despite Nicole waking up around 4am, she graciously let me sleep until my alarm at 6:30. We made breakfast in the Blue Lake parking lot, and then set off for our main objective: the SW rib of South Early Winters Spire.
The trail was splendidly fast as always in this area, and we were soon in the alpine walking towards the base of the climb, which on this particular day was guarded by a family of three goats. There was one little baby goat that was especially cute and fluffy, with its mum and maybe an older teenager goat. As always they are pretty unafraid of people, and as we walked closer to them along the path I discovered (maybe as expected?) that baby goats make REALLY cute little noises! I was totally thrilled by this discovery.
Nicole at Lorenzo’s with our Enchiladas! Yum!!
A screenshot of a very cute video of the fluffy goat running. I hope you can see his speed- he was zooming! 😀
The climbing started out quite easy, and then quickly steepened into a few cruxy 5.8 moves. Nicole had the first lead since she was super keen on taking the 10b pitch, which meant I would get all the “famous” pitches on the climb: the wavy crack, “nervous nelly,” and the “bear hug” pitch. I greatly looked forward to each one.
The wavy crack was easier than it looked from the ground. We’d only brought cams up to #3 which is not exactly recommended for this route, but I found that you could avoid any larger off-width sections by wrapping around the face outside the wavy crack.
On the 10b pitch, Nicole committed HARD to her lead, and despite taking a surprise whipper near the start of the finger moves, cruised up the rest with beautiful form. I followed up and spent a few minutes jimmying with the cam she’d whipped on, before finally freeing it from the crack and continuing upwards. For the rest of the pitch I yelled up little screams of joy as I sunk my fingers into perfect constrictions and amazing thin hands splitters. I loved every move on this one and if I ever come back I would be so thrilled to lead it.
I linked the next two of my leads in one long pitch of rope drag from hell. I admit to being miss nervous nelly on those slabs, the runout is pretty big! But I got my nerves back before tackling the Bear Hug pitch. I’d mistakenly forgotten my #4 cam so I was somewhat on my own for this pitch, but I actually laughed to myself when I saw it. Mountain project WAY over-hyped it: the actual wide section is only a couple meters long. I was able to place a #3 waayyyy in the back at the bottom, then blast through the upper section with a mix of laybacking and solid knee lock-offs.
After bringing Nicole up the pitch, she took off on pretty blank slabs, up an arete and then some low angle slabs. We skipped the “bunny ears” rappel as described in the route, and instead downclimbed a short face to the gully. Looking up at the last pitch, we saw just a few more easy moves to the summit, and decided to put the rope away rather than re-flake it.
Nicole starting up the first pitch
Nicole leading the 10b fingers pitch. I gave a pretty blind belay with the sun DIRECTLY in my eyes as you can see!
Now looking up at that fingers pitch
Nicole standing above the short downclimb we did
Nicole soloing up the final SEWS pitch behind me
The summit was beautiful, and as Nicole ate her lunch, we gazed over at the other spires. After 5 previous trips to the area, I was able to name every notable peak in sight, and pointed out to Nicole all of the little points I’d stood on top of. We made a point to stand on the true summit boulder, and then began our descent down the South Ridge.
We downclimbed every rappel until the last two, where we ran into the party ahead of us who’d rappelled the whole ridge. They very kindly offered to let us use their rope rather than getting ours out again, so we happily sped down the mountain alongside them.
Once back on solid ground, we were both pretty heat exhausted. Although it was only 2pm and we easily could have done Concord and Lexington spires as well, we decided to enjoy a more relaxing day and head over to check out Blue Lake. Most tourists come to this trailhead specifically to see the lake, and after seeing it from the top of the spire we could see why.
Summit views towards Tower Mountain!
The famous “au cheval” of the south ridge which is really just a large triangular boulder (lol)
Looking back up at the South Ridge raps
Nicole coming back down the trail – on our way to Blue Lake
This wonderful lake (which is indeed very blue) is only another 700m down the trail from the turnoff to the climbing routes, making it a very worthwhile detour for us! We hiked alongside the lake for a bit to distance ourselves from tourists, then stripped down for an amazing skinny dip plunge into cold water. It was so hot that within 10 minutes my hair was dry again, and I opted for a second dip! It felt so amazing to finally cool down and feel clean after all the sweat and dust from the day. The water wasn’t even too cold, and is surprisingly warmer than the river in Mazama by a large margin.
Blue lake – a very nice turqouise!
The same colour as my shirt!
After another very nice and restful sleep, we found ourselves eating more oatmeal in the Blue Lake parking lot. For our Sunday mission, we wanted to do Concord and Lexington towers. I would have also repeated Liberty Bell again for Nicole, but I wasn’t feeling keen on wasting hours waiting for rappels on that popular route.
The enjoyable thing about being on the North faces of these two towers, is that despite the heat wave, we were actually cold. We began our route shivering a little in fleece jackets all the way until Concord summit where the sun finally shone on us. I found this route a little confusing, and although there were some fun moves interspersed, it didn’t seem to have the same traffic that other towers do, and was in places loose or dirty. I actually think my favourite part about Concord tower was the raps off the South Face, which were pure vertical fun!!
Nicole starting up Concord Tower
On Concord summit!
A cool .5 zoom my phone was able to capture with Concord south face, Lexington, and North early winters spire all in one
The very fun and very vertical rappels off Concord
Thrilled at the exposure hehe
Nicole coming down the second rap
From the Concord/Lexington col, we carried the rope a few steps over and began one long pitch up Lexington. Nicole was able to link the entire North face with our 70m rope, and then we scrambled up to the true summit itself. This summit was much more rewarding, being a gorgeous pinnacle with excellent views on all sides. It was still super early in the day, so we hung out with snacks for awhile, taking in the beauty around us. I will say that one extra nice thing about Concord & Lexington towers is that they are so much less popular than the other towers that it seems unlikely you’d be sharing the summit, even on a warm Sunday like this one.
The raps down Lexington seemed much less travelled, but we’d run into a party doing the Liberty traverse on Saturday so we knew they had been recently used. We backed up both of them for safety, but ultimately the existing webbing looked and seemed almost brand new and we had no issues. The advantage of going down this way was that we could come down the much easier path under North Early Winters Spire, AND that we got to see the cute goat mama and baby again, resting in the shade during the mid day heat!
Overall we had a wonderful type 1 kinda weekend, and even so I recognize that my body is TIRED and I still really need rest. I made myself a promise despite how much fun it had been, that I would not go back to Washington for a fourth weekend in a row…… even though the temptation of hanging and climbing with my best friend was very enticing. Rest rest rest! THEN more fun. 🙂
Me sitting on the Lexington summit pinnacle. I was not brave enough to stand up this time!
Nicole on the Lexington sub-summit
Walking to the second rappel towards north early winters spire
Mama and baby goat having a warm nap!
Even more goats that we saw on the hike out!
I can’t get enough. How adorable.
Gear
- 70m rope
- Double rack of cams, .3-3
- Small set of offset nuts
- 9 alpine draws, & a 5m cord each for anchors