[TR] Alpine Lakes - Bears Breast & Summit Chief -enchainment attempt 8/15/2011

[Kyle_Flick]

Trip: Alpine Lakes - Bears Breast & Summit Chief -enchainment attempt

 

Date: 8/15/2011

 

Trip Report:

Four of us headed from Salmon La Sac 15 miles to Lake Ivanhoe and Dutch Miller Gap on Sunday August 14 with a forecast of 60% chance of rain that never materialized. We entertained high hopes of a week's worth peak bagging via a north to south enchainment to include Bears Breast, Summit Chief, Overcoat and Chimney Rock. The reality of the terrain served up a healthy dose of humble pie.

On day two, three of us climbed over 2000' of supposed 3rd class (reality: loose 4th and low 5th class scrambling) to the summit block of Bears Breast. Here we clustered the route finding and turned back 200' from the summit. We did eventually locate the route, but it looked runout and sketchy for pro. Purportedly it only goes at 5.6, but if the scrambling below was any indication (it barely warranted a footnote in Beckey's guide), we were a tad unnerved. We spent several hours downclimbing and did two raps before we could relax and do some sight seeing. We took a side trip and visited some beautiful tarns that we spotted from high on the route. The area around Lake Ivanhoe is very steep walled and cliffy; so we were fortunate to locate a cairned gully to Dutch Miller Gap and catch the trail back to camp at the lake.

The next day (day 3) we broke camp, and hiked cross country from below the outlet of the lake. With the aid of vegetable belays we attained the crest of the ridge that wound to the south. Climbing up the ridge allowed us to drop off at about 5300' to the basin east of Summit Chief. We traversed south below the summits of Summit Chief and ultimately set up camp at 6000', about 1000' below the main peak.

We had deluded ourselves that the next day (day 4) we could cross a ridge above us, run over to Overcoat Peak,return and knock off Summit Chief and back to our high camp--all in an easy day. But we should have known better. From the vantage of Tank Lakes to the west, where we had camped a couple years before, and a cursory view of the topo map, all would have revealed that at the ridge that we crossed at 7000' we would encounter an unsavory 900' chasm to the 6120+' pass below. In fact a whole hanging valley that dropped off to the east put the kabash on any plans of an enchainment.

We set our sights on salvaging the trip by trying at least to summit one peak before pulling the plug and heading home. But even that was proving difficult. After several false starts and as a last ditch effort, we located the route on the west side of the upper most ridge (vs. Beckey's description of the north side) and reached the top of Summit Chief. We were beginning to think we were going to denounce our trip--"The Cirque of the Lowlying Unclimbables".

Sorry no pix to supplement this TR as my climbing buddies had the cameras and haven't sent me any of their photos yet.

 

Gear Notes:

Rope, small rack, crampons, ice ax

 

Approach Notes:

From Bears Breast, one gets a good view of the proper ridge to climb to traverse into the basin above Summit Chief Lake. Descent from Summit Chief Lake to the Pacific Crest Trail is straightforward. If you want to take a "shortcut" to Pete Lake, head north on the PCT and drop off the steep forested slope to Escondido Lake. Catch the trail from the outlet to Pete Lake.

[Stefan]

Here is some info on Bears Breast for you (approaching from the east/Shovel Lake is mucho easier):

http://www.nwhikers.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=7983868&highlight=bears+breast

 

Here is some info on Overcoat for you:

http://www.nwhikers.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=7993524

 

 

Beautiful area you were in!

 

[Matt B]

I like your "Circque of the LowLying Unclimables" title. There's a lot of terrain out there that's cliffier than it looks on the map.

 

Thanks for your tracks high on Summit Chief. We followed them to the ridge crossing the next weekend.

[Kyle_Flick]

I'm glad our tracks helped. Since we left tracks all over the upper part of the mountain trying to find a way up, I'm surprised you were able to locate the right ones to the summit. Nice work.

[cfire]