(Liberty Bell, Becky Route, July 28, 1994)

Josh Boverman, Tom Unger



I'm sitting on a ledge in a cliff thinking that I should remember this
feeling of fear.  It's a good amount of fear, one which I'm
comfortable with.  It makes my chest hum and my mind sharp, but does
not take the strength from my arms or make my legs shake.  If I fail
to remember, in the future I may do a harder climb which will just
terrify me.

Actually, for where I am, I'm surprisingly calm.  I've just rappeled
half way down the S face of Liberty Bell and am sitting on a ledge
near a belay station, waiting for Josh to join me.  I've spent my time
setting a couple anchors to back up the 5 or six slings that make up
the belay station and I fell pretty secure here.  I'm in the shade,
but the rock is warm from the sun.  Looking down I see the steep gully
we hiked up to start this climb.  Down the gully and out, I see an
alpine basin.  Across the basin some rocky peaks.  And beyond the
rocky peaks are more, glaciate peaks with Glacier peak in the middle.
It's a very airy view and there is a lot of empty space that I'm
looking through, but also very beautiful.

There is a lot of uncertainty in rappeling.  It's one of the few times
in climbing where I depend entirely on the rope and the anchors to
hold me.  At other times the rope is just a safety system.  The old,
weathered slings could break, the tree or rock that the slings are
wrapped around could pull out of the cliff.  The rope could be cut by
a sharp rock.  My rappel device could split.  I could loose my grip on
the rope.  I could rappel right off the end of the rope.  There is a
lot to worry about here.

Of all of these, the most likely and hardest to take precautions
against is that the anchor will fail.  We could back up the anchor
with a bunch of gear, but that that gets expensive.  So we look at the
tree and look at the slings and say "This should hold".  Even so, we
do set up a backup.  If the anchor holds, the last person takes down
the back up and relies on the single anchor.  Only in cases of extreme
nervousness is any gear left behind as a backup.  And then it's always
something that is embarrassing to admit.

What I would really like for an anchor is a 1 inch metal bar set 3
feet into the solid cliff rock.

Josh joins me on the ledge and we start pulling the rope down.
Another thing that can go wrong is that the rope may get stuck
somewhere above us.  This would leave us with several options, none
good.  Josh pulls slowly and steadily and we both hope very hard.  The
rope slips through the anchor above and comes whistling down to us.
Yet another thing that can go wrong is that we could drop the rope down
the cliff.  I'm obsessive about keeping the rope itself clipped into
the anchors.

This rappel anchor is some slings hung over the top of a large rock
that looks to be a solid part of the cliff.  We thread the rope
thought the slings and throw the ends down toward the ground.  Josh
goes first this time.  I set a backup anchor just in case the rock
does pull out of the cliff.  I then set a separate anchor for myself
so that if the rock does pull out of the cliff I'm not attached to it.

I wait and watch over the anchor as Josh descends.  I can hear the
slings creaking but see no problems.  There is a gentle wind that
sometimes makes it into the little recess that I'm in, but it's still
not cold up here.  I can here voices of another party that sound as if
they are just below us, but the anchor that I'm on does not let me
lean that far out.

Finally Josh is off rappel and reports that he is on the ground.  I
get ready and take down the back up.

I really don't like to be the last one down.  For no good reason, I
feel more secure when there is someone above to watch over the anchor.
Keep it company and hold it's hand, so to speak.  The anchor is
responsible for my life.  I guess I feel that is a responsibility best
shared.

I take a last look at the slings and the rock then walk over the edge.