Bear Creek Spire (via North East Ridge)
Yelly: We woke up late off the Saddlebag Lake Road. We were exhausted from Conness the night before, and we took the opportunity to sleep in. From there, we went to the Mobil in Lee Vining to use the facilities, and then went to one of the hot springs by Mammoth. After a quick dip in the hot springs we drove to Mammoth to have a big, well-deserved breakfast at a cafe in town. We had a bunch of errands to run in Mammoth so we got coffee from a local coffee shop and then stopped by Schaat’s Bakery to get lunch for that day and the next. We thought we might be too exhausted to do anything, given the 17 hour day we’d had the day before, but we still had enough energy to do the hike in for a climb.
Leo: We drove over to the permit office in Mammoth to pick up our permit for Bear Creek Spire. After waiting a while to talk to the permit officer we chatted with her as she printed out our Bear Creek Spire permit. We also learned that we could pick up any permits up to 2 days in advance, meaning that we could pick up our Clyde Minaret permit at the same time. The permit officer gave us a bemused look as we picked up two permits back to back for mountains deep in the backcountry.
Starting the hike through the gorgeous Little Lakes Valley.
Leo: Having finished all of our errands, we then drove down to Tom’s Place to the Mosquito Flat trailhead. I had never been to the end of the Mosquito Flat trailhead road, and it continued quite a bit further than I had expected. I was surprised to see how many cars were already parked at the trailhead – we had to find a parking spot half a mile down the road from the trailhead because all of the trailhead parking spots were already taken. As we got ready to go with all of our gear, we talked about the weather and what we should do the next day on Bear Creek Spire.
Leo: The forecast for Bear Creek Spire was not perfect – there was a 20% chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon for the day of our climb. There are two main climbing routes up Bear Creek Spire, and the first is called the North Arete, which was our original plan. The arete goes at 5.8 and it follows the striking ridgeline all the way to the top of the mountain. The other climbing route up the mountain is called the North East Ridge, a mostly fourth and and low fifth class scramble all the way to the top. While this wasn't our original plan, we soon decided to climb the North East Ridge instead in order to make sure that we would get off the mountain as early as possible that morning.
Lakes forever in Little Lakes Valley. (Photo by Leo).
Yelly: After about an hour of packing, we were finally ready to go. We started down the trail and the views just got better and better. Little Lakes Valley is definitely correctly named, and the views do not disappoint. We saw tons of people on the trail – evidently this area is very popular for fishing with the numerous gorgeous lakes. The trail meandered up and down, which I was not looking forward to on the way back, trying to keep track of the number of uphills we’d have to do so that there would be no surprises.
Talus forever. (Photo by Leo).
Yelly: After about three and a half miles, we finally reached Gem Lakes. From here we would leave the trail to head towards Dade Lake, the lake we would camp at below Bear Creek Spire. The route description mention that there would be a talus field after Gem Lakes, and we did indeed see it and head up it. It was quite steep at the beginning, so we thought we only needed to head up one hill and be done with it. To our dismay, it never ended after that until we got to camp. It was a whole 2.5 mi of talus misery. Thankfully, when we got to Dade Lake, there were a bunch of beautiful campsites with incredible views at the base of the lake. Each site had its own wind shelter built up from rocks. We were the only ones there, and we had our pick of all the sites. Leo got pretty into picking the best site, and took a lot of care in picking out the best one. We were both very happy with the site we got, and it even had its own little seating area outside the wind shelter. Pretty cushy.
Pretty excited about this awesome campsite. (Photo by Leo).
Camp all set up, with Bear Creek Spire in the background.
Leo: After spending an hour or so setting up camp, we had time to wander around and explore the beautiful area around Dade Lake. (Yelly: I just napped in the tent until dinner). The only thing on the agenda was to make dinner and get to bed early so we could wake up for a long day on Bear Creek Spire.
Incredible views of Bear Creek Spire from Dade Lake. (Photo by Leo).
Filling water at Dade Lake.
Self-timer photo at camp.
Leo: Having gone to bed around 8pm, it wasn't crazy to wake up by 5am. We knew we had a non trivial approach – we could to see the talus field that we would have to cross to get to the base of the climb. We woke up, got ready, and started heading to the base in the dark. After skirting the east side of the lake we rose through the talus fields until we reached the base of the ridge. Since most of the North East Ridge is fourth class, with some occasional fifth class sections, I decided to keep my approach shoes on as they were way more comfortable.
Incredible morning light. (Photo by Leo).
Leo right before we started up the ridge.
Morning views back down on Little Lakes Valley.
Leo: After scrambling up fourth class for a while we decided to rope up and continue by simul climbing the rest of the route. We stretched the pitches out since the easy terrain meant that I didn't have to place very much gear for protection. The book says that although the ridge is rated fourth class, they don't know of anybody that has managed to do it without encountering at least a little bit of fifth class on the route. We were no different and found a couple of sections of easy fifth class to overcome. Since we were simuling, we made very good time, and before we knew it we were near the summit ridge at about 10 a.m. We thought this meant that we were going to be at the summit block shortly so we quickly continued along of the ridge, hoping to get to the base of the summit block.
Leo: From this point we decided to pitch out the last pitch...which turned out to be the third or fourth to last pitch, as we continued to traverse, hoping to reach the summit block. Eventually, we made our way around and saw the summit block looming above us. We continued up to the the base and built one last anchor right below the block.
Leo at the final anchor with the summit block to the right.
Yelly: While we had thought it would only take us another 15 mins to reach the summit block, it had actually taken us closer to an hour. The summit block is a 5.6 mantle that cannot be protected. Thankfully, Leo is a strong climber, and this ended up not being a problem for him. This was the only point in the climb that he actually even put on his climbing shoes. I, on the other hand, had happily been wearing mine ever since we had roped up. Leo was able to put in one small piece just below the summit block, for a worst case scenario if he were to fall off the mountain. But from there, he did a simple step up and was on the summit.
Yelly: I wasn't sure if I should attempt the summit block. Sure, I can typically climb 5.6, but this is such a no fall scenario that it definitely scared me. Leo said it really wasn't bad, and he was even able to get three fairly solid pieces in on top, so there wasn't really any reason not to go for it. I was still pretty nervous, and ended up “aiding” on Leo, pulling on his outstretched hand to get me on top of the summit block. The thing was barely big enough for the two of us to sit there, and I still felt nervous even sitting. We took some quick selfies, and then I decided I needed to get off that thing. Leo couldn't really lower me, since he had set up a top belay, so I actually ended up down climbing after he put some slack in the system.
Selfie while sitting on the small summit block. Incredible views in every direction.
Yelly: From there, I put Leo back on belay, and he down climbed as well. The summit register had been nestled between some rocks below the summit, so we spent some time snacking and reading through it. Between the two of us, we must have known at least eight or nine of the people who had signed in. The weather was calm and gorgeous, and I felt no need to rush down, but we knew that could change, so we finally got going.
Leo: After coming down off the summit block we made one rappel to get nearer the notch that merge with the plateau just off the summit. We knew from reading the topo that we were going to be headed towards a gully -- not the nearest gully, which cliffed out, but a gully further down the ridge. After scrambling down some sandy slopes and slabs to get to the plateau, we headed to the edge of the ridge to find the right gully to scramble down. We found a cairn marking one of the drops in the ridge and we started to make our way down loose sand and steep third class.
Leo rappelling down from the top to the gully below.
Leo: After a while, we encountered the talus field once again and gingerly made our way down the loose talus back to the lake and our tent. We had made good time, and it was only around 2pm when we arrived at our camp. After giving our printed topo for the NE ridge to some friendly scottish climbers we ran across (they had planned on doing the North Arete but changed their minds due to weather, yet hadn’t brought that topo), we asked them to take a photo of us and then packed up our gear for the hike out.
Victory photo taken back at camp.
Yelly: The clouds had started to come in on our descent, and by the time we finished slogging back over the talus to the trail, it even started to drizzle a little. Thankfully, it never started coming down more than that. But, it was still good incentive to keep moving back towards the trailhead. It also validated our decision to opt for the easier route. Hiking down the trail with our large packs, and our helmets and the rope visible, a lot of people were interested and asked us what we had been up to. The trail sadly has a number of uphill sections on the return, and I despaired over each and every one of them. But, finally, we were back at the trailhead! We made great time on our return trip of 6mi, finishing it only about 2.5 hours. We finished the walk back down the road to our car which was parked a bit far, and we were thrilled to finally drop our packs for the last time.
Yelly: From there, we drove up to Mammoth to soak our muscles in the hot springs before going to dinner in town. It was the Friday before Burning Man, and over the course of the hour we spent at the hot springs, about ten people showed up – all en route to Burning Man, which Leo and I found very amusing. Eventually our hunger got the better of us, so we went to town and grabbed some food at Roberto’s before finding a spot to sleep in the truck in the forest. Another great peak down.
