Bear Mountain, DNB

[Climzalot]

I am looking for information on all aspects of the Direct North Buttress Route. Approach (time & distance), route, descent, etc. All of the guides I have referenced have been pretty vague as far as the approach and descent details. Personal experiences and thoughts would be appreciated as well.

Thanks

[Mr._Blister]

Get a copy of the new book called, I think, Alpine Select. Canadian author. Just released. Great book, and will tell you everything you need to know about that route, a few others in WA (Slesse, Shuksan, etc.), and many in Canada. I found a copy at Marmot in Bellevue a few weeks back the day it arrived. Dumb luck!

John Sharp

 

[Alex]

I believe that is Kevin McLane's new guide to SW BC. Very well done...

Alex

[Mr._Blister]

You're right, Alex. I forgot his name.

[Climzalot]

I've had a copy of the new book for a little while and you right it is well done. It has kind of bummed me out at the same time though. It is responsible for significantly increasing the size of my tick list. So many cool mountains, so little time.

[philfort]

The book's photographs, especially, are excellent.

[Dru]

Thanks

[DonnV]

Haven't done the full direct route, but did the route via the hanging snowfield. For what it's worth, it took us 7 hours to reach high camp, and a complete day to do the route and get back to high camp. There was a party of 2 that was one day ahead of us and did the direct route. They also took 7 hours to get in to high camp, and took a VERY long day to do the route (they returned to high camp via headlamp). The descent is trivial and non-technical from the top of the route. The technical climbing ends on the ridge well below the summit. Neither we nor the other party went up to the summit, which would add probably 2 more hours to your day. Plenty of water at high camp and good spots to sleep.

[W]

The approach took us five hours. We did the Direct route, which took us about 16 hours camp to camp (camp being at the standard col before you drop off into the north side cirque...). We counted 22 pitches, 17 of which were 5th class. The lower route has some loose rock, especially at the belay atop the pitch rated "5.9+", which felt harder than that. Two belays in fact were less than inspiring, but adequate. Unlike many alpine climbs, many of the harder pitches seemed quite sustained instead of one or two moves of 5.9 or 10 sandwiched around 150 feet of 5.6, and bear in mind that after 15 or 20 pitches, the 5.9's start feeling pretty stiff. You might want to bring a #3.5 or #4 camalot, there are some wider cracks as I remember. A #3 at least is needed. If you overlap the topos in Beckey's guide, there is at least one pitch missing on the Direct topo. The offwidth high on the route is easy to bypass by stepping out right after 10 feet, and it's likely you will want to by that time. Also, when we reached the Beckey penji points at pitch 20, the "5.9" pitch on the crest listed in Nelson's book was a runout slab climb and maybe sandbagged a bit. Being fatigued, the penjies to the 4th class gully are an easy out. That's what we did of course. Finally, the "3rd and 4th class" section involved climbing through a cascading waterfall from runoff from a melting snowpatch on the huge ledge above it. There also was virtually no protection here and the water made things quite serious. That was in August. I'd recommend going late for this route for this reason.

Enjoy. I think this is, all things considered, the best route I've done in the N. Cascades.

[forrest_m]

hey "W" - what are you doing posting on CC? does this mean that it's raining in the kichatnas? or are you guys all quokka-enabled and shit?