Peak Condition Update | Little Bear Peak

Peak:	Little Bear Peak
Route:	Southwest Ridge
Range:	Sangre de Cristo
Posted By:	doggler
Date of Info:	3/15/2015
Date Posted:	3/17/2015

Details
In short, not-so-wintery conditions. The "Trailhead" is just the corner of a N/S "road" and an E/W "road". The E/W road is much smoother - a stock Liberty had no problem getting there from the west. I took the N/S road out of there and it was quite a bit rougher. Floatation was only used between 11,000 and 11,700, but with a little more snowmelt could probably be skipped altogether. Half of our party didn't use any sort of traction, but I would recommend bringing it. Axes came in handy on parts of the upper ridge. Mama Bear traverse was slower but doable, we chose not to use traction or axes as scrambling was easier unencumbered. Started at 1:15AM. S. Little Bear at 7:15AM. Started traverse at 8:15AM. Little Bear at 9:30AM. Started back at 9:45AM. Back to S. Little Bear at 10:15AM. Back to TH at 4:15PM. In other words, up to S. LB took about as long as back down. This is due to the enormous amount of talus one must negotiate for nearly the entire route.

Details

In short, not-so-wintery conditions.

The "Trailhead" is just the corner of a N/S "road" and an E/W "road". The E/W road is much smoother - a stock Liberty had no problem getting there from the west. I took the N/S road out of there and it was quite a bit rougher.

Floatation was only used between 11,000 and 11,700, but with a little more snowmelt could probably be skipped altogether. Half of our party didn't use any sort of traction, but I would recommend bringing it. Axes came in handy on parts of the upper ridge. Mama Bear traverse was slower but doable, we chose not to use traction or axes as scrambling was easier unencumbered.

Started at 1:15AM.
S. Little Bear at 7:15AM.
Started traverse at 8:15AM.
Little Bear at 9:30AM.
Started back at 9:45AM.
Back to S. Little Bear at 10:15AM.
Back to TH at 4:15PM.

In other words, up to S. LB took about as long as back down. This is due to the enormous amount of talus one must negotiate for nearly the entire route.

Comments or Questions

trsippel

Thanks for the update!
3/22/2015 9:30pm

Nice work on a demanding route! I was hoping to head down to LB and ski it in a few weeks... The "not–so–wintery" condition update has me a little concerned though. Were you able to get a look at the hourglass and the west gully leading to the ridge? Were they still holding a lot of snow or not so much?

14ers.com

Social

Mobile App