Climb: Big Bear Mountain-West Side
Date of Climb: 4/23/2006
Trip Report: Did someone request a witzelsucht?
An ultracrepidarian I know has opined that I, the grandiloquent one, utilize entirely too many sesquipeds in my excursion reports. Whatever is she grousing about? I comprehend not. This is just how this martext writes. No need for a diaskeuast to meddle with this textual medley, for it be perfection for the polyglot polymaths among us. So, ever one to polylogize and explaterate, here I snoach and bray…
Last Sunday, fourteen of us local yokels shrugged off our slugabed ways and scrieved like scofflaws for a climb of
Big Bear Mountain (5641F, 761P) south of Three Fingers. In the end a dozen of us hammerheads managed to surmount the summit. The emprisers were: Annette D., Dave C., Eric F., Fay P., Jeff R., Julian S., Matt B., Martin S., Mike C., Mike T., Richard B., Stefan F., Paul M., and Paul K. We all croodled our pleasures at the weather and scenic treasures. And not a single drintling turkey could be espied among us.
We drove up FR-4130 off of FR-41 (the road to Tupso Pass) as far as we could (about 1.7 miles) about 1,320 feet before the road splits. There was a washout prior to this wye so we couldn’t have rolled that far anyway. We took the sinister (northerly) road, the one that takes to a dainty declivity to Canyon Creek. We shimmied across the creek on a horizontal xylo-shaft just downstream of the Windy Creek confluence.
Chevalling the nutbuster:
(photo by Julian Simon)
We then took to timber up the north side of the creek to roughly 3,300 ft so we could circumvent precipices on the lower ramparts of Big Bear’s west shoulder. We then booted or snowshoed up abrupt sylvan and sub-sylvan slopes. Psithurism’s serenaded us on our way up to the shoulder, whereupon we geed then beared for the bear’s clavicle, thence its nape.
Big Bear reflected in Martin’s sunglasses (yes the image has been mirrored)
At roughly 5,200 ft we ascertained the one decent place to dismount the ridge and clamber down into the west basin. Our aimed-for acme was now visible. Were we being gregged by it? Would we have to weave through a splenetic, ursine rictus? Would we be repugned by scissoring incisors? No and no; all truculent teeth were evitable; the summit was pervious; and there was nary a stymie. The mountain was all snowy. Moreover, a shiny chignon (a couloir/gully) surrendered the summit to our peakbagging desiderata.
Big Bear from the west shoulder
Do you see a big bear head?(My workmate Harley Clark spotted this suggestive form immediately after I told him the name of the summit.)
We gingerly kicked gelid steps into the basin through a caliginous concavity with extreme run-out that would surely provoke a momentary thanatopsis for the unfortunate blunderer among us, then alternately post-holed and scrooped over to the couloir. Those of us with crampons donned them for the terminating stretch. Those without crampons puckered their buttocks. Being one of the last up the indentation, I put a helmet on my belfry to deflect the frozen chunks careening. One of us was choused into an impromptu ride back down the couloir on belly then back. He was unhurt but gave up on marshaling that subreptitious steepness again. Though not suggilated himself, his galligaskins, on the other hand, were reduced to mere frippery. It was the only wardrobe malfunction on this dance hall day.
Note that Fred Beckey in his CAG asseverates that parties could rappel off the undulating false south summit into the breach to get to the true (north) summit. This seems like it would amount to nothing more than a dreadful eggtaggle. Besides which, it appeared pestilent on this April day. Nearing the summit in the upper couloir
We reached the cruelly corniced summit about 5 hours and 15 minutes after departing the autos. We all were instantly titillated by the scintillating scene. The panoptic views were assuredly an earned theriac for the cubicle stupors several of us had been immersed in during the week. There’s nothing like an officinal mountainous offering. Especially noteworthy from our perspective was the septentrional lion nearby:
Three Fingers with its vaunted lookout apically perched. To gaure at views like this is the quintessence of why we climb (on lambent days, anyhow). I had suggested to Mr. Scurlock that he come flat-hat us with his bombinating yellow submarplane. But he had uxorious plans with his imperative supplementary—i.e., his significant other.
The summit cornice with south summit beyond
A few of us were possessed of a yen to additionally scale
Liberty Mountain to the south but the icy conditions combined with the committing and uncertain state of our planned route up that subsequent peak’s southeast ridge, which we could not descry, had us tucking our scuts under our nugatory butts and funkifying back with the others. There really was no abulia nor querulous discussion on our parts. Besides, if a few of us seize our druthers, we’ll ring that Liberty bell this coming weekend.
Our apposite decision gave us extra time to devour our caloric provenders, beaze our saline backsides, and prance with beeking abandon on the big pilgarlic’s white scalp. And I now had more time to be pixilated at achieving my Roman D’th summit by bloddering the contents of a miniature bottle of champagne into my maw (thanks, Annette!). After this I maundered like a flibbertigibbet while Torok toiled to a sweaty failure attempting to dig 8 feet to the register in a 15-ft cornice. What a galoot! A whiffet or a sprat could conjure a superior intellection!
Klenke bloddering down a little bubbly
Klenke winxing on his 500th distinct summit
Eventually the persiflage, cachinnations, and saltations all surceased for we had to squint our lids and screw our courage to the sticking post for the steep descent down the couloir. This drama fortunately was devoid of disaster.
Our route across the west basin
Once back on the ridge we toasted our erstwhile Ursa with a doch-an-dorris then carried on. Our descent off the shoulder went marvelously due to an incredible 1,000+ ft glissade through coppice and holt and around boscage and chaparral. Most of the slithering ride transpired in an anfractuous ravine. We all jubilated many times with walleyed delight. The snow was just mushy enough to generate a sliding slickness beneath our posteriors. The slush pursued us down the chute and nudged us through the shallows. It was like we were in a gargantuan Slurpee channel carved by a snickersnee. It is amazing how swiftly you can tick off elevation during a glissade. But we still had to deal with the log crossing at the creek and the lackluster logging slog. You can festinate a logging road all you want but it is still going to be a drag, or even a dwale if you’ve had a really long day.
Maybe 9 long-hand clock circles round-trip with 4,000 ft of vertical gain and roughly 58,000 ft of terrain pain.
And so there you have it; read it, trash it, compact it, and never ever smell this nebbish’s rubbish again. Yes, I can feel the sputum from your exsibilations cadenting down this smellfeast’s flushed cheeks. Do as you may, but know that this sui generis fictioneer lies only truths. Ah, don’t worry, the world is safe. For, unlike that President of Iran, this snollygoster does not suffer from empleomania.
Enough.
Gear Notes: sunscreen, else suffer the ruddy raw eschars of summer; ice axe, crampons, snowshoes, guts and glory
Approach Notes: Take FR-41 to FR-4130 just before Canyon Creek. FR-4130 (brush-encroached) can be driven for approx. 1.7 miles to a washout. Continue a quarter-mile to road fork; take left fork for a while. Cross Canyon Creek and go up.
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