Intermediate Alpine Climb - Lexington Tower/North Face and Concord Tower/North and South Faces

Recent intermittent road closures and concerns about wildfire smoke kept crowds to a minimum this weekend.  We left the Blue Lake TH at 7 am and climbed to the notch between Lexington and Concord in about 2 hours.  We followed an approach trail that hugged the base of the South face of Concord, which had much less loose rock than the standard trail down the middle of the gulley.  The seasonal water source where the climbers trail branches off from the Blue Lake trail is dry and there is no water in the upper basin.  Smoke was minimal from the nearby Easy Pass fire throughout the day and visibility was great.  After gearing up, we climbed the North face of Lexington in 3 pitches, then down led pitch 3 and made 2 single rope rappels back to the notch.  The crux of the climb is the first right leaning crack off the ground.

Next we climbed the South face of Concord Tower.  The first pitch is on the far east side of the south face and consists of a full rope length of climbing, following a flake about 2/3 of the way up the face to a tree belay with rap tat.  The second pitch climbs the face to the ridge and then traverses west to the base of the shark fin feature with another tree belay.  The third pitch climbs up and over the shark fin to the base of the summit block.  For the final short climb to the summit, we climbed the Patriot crack finish but you can traverse around and climb the Bear Hug finish on the North face route.

  Since we had plenty of day light left, we made 3 single rope rappels down the north face of Concord and climbed the North face route in 3 pitches back to the summit.  The crux is a short, poorly protected leftward traverse to finish the second pitch.  From the summit, we made one double rope rappel down the south face back to the notch and our packs.  There are rappel chains midway down the south face, so you could do two single rope rappels if you only had a single rope.  At the summit, there are sets of rappel chains for rappelling down either the North or South faces.   We descended the loose, kitty litter Lexington gulley back to the climbers trail and down to the TH. 

After a great day out, we camped nearby and led a basic climb of SEWS - South Arete the next day with an awesome group of participants.  Overall, a fantastic weekend at Washington Pass!