Bear mountain

[freak]

Would it be better to approach from chilliwack or North cascades? Any particular route betta would be cool. okay bye

[Dru]

Approach takes ~1 day from end of road via Chilliwack. I think you're talking about another day each way coming up from the south. SO, you make the call. Approach via US means trip takes 2 days more (1 day in and 1 day out)? I think most parties go in via Chilliwack Lake.

[W]

Yo freak:

We approached by Chilliwack Lake- a longer drive but much shorter hike. We reached the col bivi in five hours, most of which was spent climbing through the old growth, and up higher, hateful berry bushes, on a faint but reasonable path.

I assume you are talking about doing the north buttress. We did the entire buttress direct (Kearney/Knight, 1980) from it's toe. This way involved a total of 22 pitches, 17 of which were fifth class, 8 of which were 5.8 or harder, and 2 at 5.10. Most of the harder pitches were encountered below the Beckey route. Until merging with the Beckey route, there was a fair amount of loose rock along with some outstanding rock. The climbing on the Beckey portion is phenomenol! the routefinding is easy. the chimney/ow kind of sucks but part way up just step out to the right around the corner to 5.8 cracks bypassing the worst of it.

We did the entire route in a single push which took us about 14 hours. At the place where Beckey made two penjies right, the pitch above is 5.9 face climbing on lichened rock with little or no protection for a long ways. We both tried to lead it but backed off- after 20 pitches of climbing on the day we found it too hard and runout to do safely. The penji points are fixed and you need to gain a chossy gully 100' right, most of which is 4th class; climb this for 1-2 rope lengths (possibly wet) then regain the ridgecrest in one 5.7 pitch to the top. the summit is a short distance left, or like us, go find your bivy with what little light remains.

Bear in mind two things if you decide to tackle the entire buttress: the Beckey topo is good however there is are two pitches missing in the "overlap" between the topos for the direct and the Beckey route, and go late in the summer. There is a huge ledge about 1/2 way up which holds snow that melts and runs down the "easy" part of the route. We were there in an August and the "300-400 feet of 3rd and 4th" was absolutely terrifying: unbelayed, and completely unprotectable climbing on wet rock with running water on terrain that if dry would have been a walk. We originally thought about bivying on route but changed our mind the night before, however, there are plenty of places to bivy all the way up. The approach glacier for the Beckey route has icefall danger down low and rockfall danger up higher- the upper sanctum below the Diamond looks like an unpleasant, dangerous place to be and made doing the entire buttress seem that much wiser a decision. Very aesthetic. Enjoy!

[freak]

thanks folks. cheers. nic, aka freak