[TR] Diamond Peak + Mt. Yoran, OR - 7/28/2008

[Maine-iac]

Trip: Diamond Peak + Mt. Yoran, OR -

 

Date: 7/28/2008

 

Trip Report:

Rocky.joe and I went up to check out Mt. Yoran and DIamond Peak over the weekend. Mt. Yoran is the peak just to the north of Diamond Peak, and it seems to always get over looked, but looks fantastically cool from a distance. After doing some running around getting bug spray (well needed!) and a forest pass, we were on the trail by 830am or so. Made quick time of the 5 miles to the base of Yoran, and stashed our packs. The scramble up Yoran is fairly straight forward. You ascend the gully on the SW side of the mountain, then cross into the SE gully to finish it off. Solid class 4 scrambling with the potential for low class 5 moves. Don't bother bringing ropes and gear as I didn't see any cracks in the rock. Once back down, we climbed up to the base of the ridge that leads away from Yoran and scrambled to the top of that. We latter found out that there is a very easy trail on the back side of that ridge. The way we went up, was straight at the thing, from the trail side. Lots of loose big rocks. Had a few 60 pounders come down on top of me, and as you can imagine diving out of the way of a 60lb rock is not very fun. We then proceeded to go up the North ridge of Diamond Peak. We managed to get right up to the very top of the ridge, where it starts to cliff out at a false summit. By this time it was 5 or 6pm, we couldn't see much because of the clouds and all of the rock crumbled away with the slightest touch. (Some of the worst rock ever!) Found a nice place to bivy, watched a fantastic sunset, saw every single star in the sky, and a beautiful sunrise. On the hike out we saw 2 sets of very fresh bear tracks, but never saw any bears. Back at the car before noon.

 

Photos here.

 

 

 

Gear Notes:

Cold Beer!

An axe might have been nice for the snow section that we backed off on.

 

Approach Notes:

Trail Head off of road #23, snow still on trail but otherwise very fast hiking.