Bear Creek - Northeast Ridge

Thankfully, Greg did not notice that he carried most of the camp up by himself...

Rock Creek is a small, off-the-beaten-path campground.  A deep glacial lake surrounded by simple sites, bear boxes, and scattered white bark pine, western white pine, and mountain hemlock. We arrived tired.  Our time in Mammoth dealing with groceries, deferred back country passes, and logistics did not create much excitement.  But once we drove in the mood picked up.  It was a simple and beautiful spot to transition into Little Lakes Valley and climb Bear Creek Spire.

Vaughn made easy work of the scree fields...

The beginning of the hike was casual and the trail well travelled.  Once we broke off onto the climbers trail the terrain grew steep and the scree fields long.  But we were now all used to the altitude and we had all been gathering strength over the past week.  The air was cool and the sun was hot.  Other then the thickening smoke from a far away fire the day was perfect.  Within a few hours we were at Dade Lake setting up camp.

It was as cold as they look...

When we gathered for breakfast it was below 40 degrees.  We talked little and left one at a time to begin the approach around the lake and through the scree field.  I arrived after Greg and waited only a few minutes before Vaughn arrived.  There was no rush and we stared out into the valleys more then we spoke.  The smoke had not yet moved into the valley so the sky and air was still clear.

Beautiful rock and varied terrain...

We had decided the day before that we were going to free solo the climb, but brought a rope to repel and as a back up if we changed our minds.  We climbed cautiously so as not to knock rocks down onto each other and the wide terrain offered plenty of room to spread out.  Other then a couple of steep and gravelly sections the climbing was superb and we moved quickly up through the technical terrain.  Just before the summit was some scrambling across class four ridge until we reached the last technical pitch.  Once we reached the summit we took turns scaling the summit which was a 5.6 R boulder problem that would have pretty serious consequences if any climber was to blow the move.  

Amazing Granite

After the summit we sat and enjoyed the sun and view.  A solo climber, that came up across the East Ridge, joined us thirty minutes later.  He described the East Ridge as 5.6 S - the S standing for shitty and scary.  He had settled in the area several years ago and was able to provide us with all kinds of information about other climbs in the area.  He also provided us with a pretty good laugh once he left - he had a large rip in the front of his pants and was not wearing any underwear.  As he stood above me it was all I could do to not break out laughing (sorry, no picture).  Luckily, the view did not last...

Alpine ecstasy achieved...

The final "boulderish" move to the summit...  A non fall zone...

The descent was as smooth as the climb and soon we were at the bottom of the repel and heading down into the valley below.  Vaughn continued west across another ridge line and joined us a camp a few hours later after a relatively sketchy descent through some pretty scary terrain.  I knew that this might be the last alpine climb of my trip.  Time was running out and my hip, that had held up pretty well though out the summer, needed a bit of a break…

Bear Creek sits above camp catching the last of the afternoon sun...