BCC Baring Mountain 4.15.12
For THE Objective Hazards experience climb we chose Baring Mountain, something none of us had done. It'd be a challenge starting at about 2200' and reaching the summit at 6125', almost 4000' of elevation gain. The most elevation gain we had on a climb so far was under 2500'. We met at the little general store along highway 2 across from forest service road 6024 and then started up the road. Team 3 had attempted Baring two weeks prior and were not able to make much progress up the road, so we were hoping a bit of snow had melted out since then. Team 5, The Post Hole Service, was parked and getting ready when we reached them and the snow on the road. They were climbing Merchant Peak, just across Barclay Lake from Baring. We started out about 7AM and followed the road for just under a mile to the trailhead. From there we continued up the road a little farther, getting a few peaks through the clouds at the peaks across the way.
Peak at a peak across the way
The students were deciding where they wanted to start up to the ridge. The route up Baring was to take the trail, head up the slope on a climbers trail to the ridge, traverse the ridge occasionally dropping down on the south side to get around some cliffs, and then take the gully up to the saddle between the north and south summit, finally heading up to the north (true) summit.
Students navigating, deciding where to leave the trail and head up
Unknowingly we had passed by the piece of ribbon denoting the climbers trail and started up a little beyond that. The snowy trail soon gave way to a dirt/mud hillside. It was interesting to literally be kicking steps up in the mud. The hillside was fairly steep with trees abound. Trying to get purchase in the mud mixed with pine needles while stepping over fallen trees proved interesting at some points. Tony decided it was bushwhacking level 1, or BW1.
Heading up the tree filled slope to reach the ridge
We came to a large rock and grouped up to make a navigational decision. We could try to go up the rock, go climbers right and hope we could get around it, or cross the gully climbers left. The team decided to cross the gully and keep heading up. The students got to use a little high dagger with their ice axes in the dirt to get down the side of the gully to cross it.
Crossing the gully to continue heading up the slope
We found magical pizza trees on Baring - how delicious!
We continued heading up, finding every patch of snow we could.
Kicking steps in snow and in mud
Finally, two hours in and 1000' up we hit snow and started flying. We climbed the remaining 1000' to the ridge in an hour and started our traverse.
Walking the ridge
In between the trees we caught glimpses of the mountains surrounding us along highway 2.
Peak of the peaks across highway 2 to the south of us
We soon came to the cliff band and started down on the south side of Baring just slightly to get below them. We continued traversing over and found remnants of ski tracks, steps, and glissade chutes along the way. Finally we were heading back up and soon popped out of the trees near the base of the gully between the two summits.
Bryan and Matt heading up the last stretch to reach the base of the gully between the summits
Gully heading up to the north (left) and south (right) summits of Baring
The summit of Baring looked awesome, I was excited. Everyone took a quick break to eat some food and put on sunscreen now that we were out from under the trees. After looking at the gully for a bit, we decided to start up. We were below some big rocks and decided to vote on what we wanted to do. We would most likely not have enough time to make the summit so we could either continue up and see how close we could get, or head up the side of the gully and play on the rocks. The team decided to scrap our summit attempt and go for the rocks.
Our new target of the day, climbing on those rocks up the side of the gully from us
Kicking steps up to the rock
We kicked steps up the steep gully side and reached the rock. I got the opportunity to lead a little pitch up to the top of the rock, our local summit. I slung a few trees and met the other instructors who had just kicked steps up the other side. We got the rope anchored in while Josh set about building an anchor for a rappel. A few students had gone up the steps so they were the first to do the rappel.
Tony sitting at the top of the rappel to check students as they got into the system
We had three students attempt the little climbing route following me, although the snow was getting kicked off the rock which made the start tricky. Vitaly, Kerstin, and Jaime made it up and then got to rappel down.
Jaime rappelling down the climb she just came up
Once we had all the students get a rappel in, Matt helped me break down the anchors and we rappelled down to join the team. We had hoped to start down about 2:30PM but it wasn't until after 3:30PM that we started down. Heading back across the base of the gully the team decided to try to find a different route down the northside, hoping to find a bit more snow to speed our descent instead of traversing the ridge again. We started down, making some great glissade chutes as we went. There was one main gully we were shooting for on the map but overshot it. After taking some time for Devin to arm rappel down to see if he could find a route that would go, as a few of us also poked around, we finally decided we were cliffed out and headed back up. We had about 700' to back track up but the team ascended quickly and we were back on the ridge in no time.
Bryan taking a break from kicking steps back up to the ridge
We cut down from the ridge a little earlier than where we came up. We glissaded until we ran out of snow, at least getting to drop some elevation quickly. Then it was back on the steep mud slope littered with pine needles and broken branches. We picked our way down as the sun was setting and made it to the road about sunset. We had a little longer road hike than in the morning, but at least we were on the road as the sunlight was waning. We could just barely make out the cars when we finally arrived at 8:45PM. It was a long day but we were back and on our way home. Despite not making the summit, it turned out to be a nice day in the mountains and we were treated with some great mountain views in the sun.
View of Gunn and Merchant from our local rock summit
View of Mount Index from our local rock summit
View BCC Baring Mountain 4.15.12 in a larger map
Climbing along highway 2 by Baring
Our trail from the road, up to the ridge, along the ridge, and sidetracked from the gully
Trail up Baring
Near the summits, our little side trip to the rock
The progress down we made before having to head back up and traverse the ridge