bear mountain north butress TR

[Guest]

aug 17-18 approached via chilliwack lake road and then chilliwack lake trail. chilliwack trail is very overgroan and not as straight forward as we thought. look for reflective tabs on the trees and be familiar with a map. some areas of the trail were very close to the river and have collapsed into the river. estimate mileage to bear creek camp ground is 6 miles, not recommed for night travel, eye protection would be nice to have.

 

once at bear creek camp ground take a bearing on the map toward bear mountain and thrash 4000 ft up, starting with old growth trees followed by steep sharp smaller trees to huckelberry bushes to finally heather! very strenous, we found some ancient flagging in huckelberry bushes but it was not any easier travel when we followed it. once in the heather go 600 feet on the heather arm then traverse south east and look for a break in the cliff ban, a cairn marks the spot. traverse more talus and heather to reach the notch at 6200 feet (roughly). nice camping, water available, it is likley you will be the only ones there.

 

Summit day went down the notch and traversed scree and snow, crampons used. found the third buttress to be the north buttress and went up to the small pocket glacier. crevasse jumping and low angle ice climbing encounterd to gain access to the upper glacier. we climbed loose wet rock that felt like 5.6 at times to get to the upper bench and traversed to the base of the rock climbing portion of the n buttress. first pitch was steep corner that felt like leavenworth 5.8 the longest pitch route. the second pitch was a nice clean 5.7 start followed by low 5th class climbing. the third pitch had crumbly steep slanting cracks that felt like 5.7. the offwidth of the fourth pitch was very protectable with small cracks inside the 6 inch gap. the bolt is unnessary half way up this pitch. this is a short pitch and we easily hauled the seconds pack. a short exposed 5.7 on the ridge took us to the 5.9 or the 5.7 right traverse. we attempted the 5.9 and found it to dirty and unprotected to risk a leg breaking fall on a ledge. it would have been nice to put that bolt here on the 6th pitch instead of the offwidth section on the 4th. we traversed down and right and climbed the surprising solid gully 4th class 250 feet to get back on the ridge. the last pich of low 5th class took us to the top of the buttress. exposed scrambling encounted to reach the true summit and the descent was really an hour (like Nelson said).

 

it was a painfull thrash fest from camp back to the car and we ran out of daylight 4 miles from the end of chilliwack trail and lost the trail several times. got home this morning at 1:00 a.m. and my feet look like they have been experimented on by dow chemical and my legs whipped by a pissed off slave owner. my face took three bad hits from vegtebles, i would normally eat a beaver to save a tree, but after this trip, cut them all down! if your looking for remote adventure, look no further than bear mountain.

[robertm]

Nice going CM3... that has been on my list for awhile. How long in total was your approach the first day?

[Guest]

9 hours on the first day from the car to the notch