Little Bear Peak

Route: West Ridge and Hourglass
Posted On: 9/12/2024, By: crowdsurf
Info: Conditions in the Hourglass were as good as could be on this day. It still seems to be getting warm enough during the day that the small amount of water running down the gully is not completely freezing yet. It is getting cold at night so this will likely change soon. No verglas during our climb but the peaks are getting snow up high as was evident in the shaded sections that do not see much sun. My tent at Lake Como had interesting ice formations on 2 of the 3 nights I was there. There is a new blue rope in addition to the green rope that has isolation knots. It is a little longer and likely 70m. As always, do not rely on it even though it appears to be new. Rain and graupel were visible in the Hourglass after exiting on this day. Please remember to be responsible with your waste. Poor backcountry etiquette was visible at the campsites east of the lake. 

Route: West Ridge and Hourglass
Posted On: 9/3/2024, By: caesarsalad
Info: Perfect weather for climbing - sunny, low wind, no storms. Gotta love September! Hourglass has a steady trickle in the center, but pretty easily avoidable. Bright green rope is still in great condition and we used it as a sanity hold on the way down. Going right of anchor is definitely loose - had some people knock sizeable rocks down toward us from there, would heartily recommend going left of the anchor. It's fairly well cairned. 

Route: West Ridge Indirect
Posted On: 9/3/2024, By: sean23
Info: We climbed LB via the Indirect Route that daway posted to the forum. The route seems much safer to us than the hourglass, and we plan to post a trip report soon. Conditions on the route were solid. No precip to contend with on the ridge 

Route: LB to Blanca to Ellingwood
Posted On: 9/3/2024, By: ballardwf04
Info: Drove up the road around 9PM Friday night. We made it to 9500' in a first gen stock Honda Pilot. Could have gone higher, but honestly it wasn't worth the pain of hearing more rocks hit our undercarriage. As mentioned in other reports, if you can make it up the steep and rocky 200' section near the national forest boundary, you can make it to at least 9500, if not 9800. I would strongly recommend skid plates for this road. We didn't have any, and it was truly awful. Keep in mind the drive down will be worse. We made it to the lake around midnight, slept from 12-6 (missed alarm), then cranked out LB. 2:30 to the summit, no one in the Hourglass. I found LB comparable to the Red Gully on Crestone Peak, but then again no one else was in the Hourglass and we didn't have to downclimb. The traverse took about three hours. I did the Bells traverse a few weeks prior, and this is a completely different beast. The exposure is massive and sustained, and the whole thing is just so dang long. The crux for us was a highly exposed move left of the first tower encountered on the downclimb. Apparently others have climbed up and over the tower, which would probably be better. Bivwacko was chill. Catwalk is spicy but short. All in all a great time, but close to my limit of what I'd want to do. Blanca to Ellingwood went quick. It looks much longer than it is. A storm rolled in over Lindsey and we had some light graupel, but were blessed with no storm. Such is the consequence of a summit at 2PM. Made it back to camp around 4, and back to the car by 5:30. As mentioned, the drive down the road will be worse. Keep that in mind. In summary, a great and heinous day. Go get these ugly beasts before the snow falls! 

Route: West Ridge and Hourglass
Posted On: 8/25/2024, By: swilson753
Info: Hiked into the lake on Sat afternoon in a thunderstorm. We had a couple additional showers before midnight as well. We debated whether we'd stick with the original plan to do Little Bear or pivot to Blanca/Ellingwood. We decided to take our chances and go for Little Bear. It wound up being the right choice - the route was mostly dry except for water in the middle of the Hourglass. We were one of four parties on LB today. One guy soloed the traverse, the other two parties just did LB. At least one other group we talked to made the switch to B/E instead of attempting LB due to the rain. One interesting fact we learned today is that there's actually two sets of fixed lines. The first one (currently neon green, with an orange rope tied up at the anchor) is the one shown in the route description and goes through the choke. The second (currently blue) is above to the climber's right of the first. We found both ropes and anchors to be in good condition (albeit wet) and used them for arm-wrap rappels on the descent. We found this to be very helpful for our group. I didn't touch the ropes until I or my partners fully inspected them top to bottom. While they might be in good condition today, that might not be true in a week. Use your best mountaineering judgment to evaluate the system. Doing an actual rappel with an ATC/rap device and harness would be a nightmare due to knots in the lines. We had the Hourglass to ourselves for most of the climb. As others have said, it's 100% possible to ascend and descend without kicking down any rocks. We ascended left of the water and the first anchor. We ended up descending climbers' right of the first anchor because it was less steep, but had lots of loose rocks. We found descending the first gully to be the worst part of the climb. It's loose and tedious. It's not as bad as descending Challenger or South Maroon, but it's definitely not one of my favorite gullies. This one lives up to the hype. It's a challenging climb. If you've done other class 4 climbs and can tread lightly, you can do this one. I really enjoyed the challenge, but I'm not in a hurry to repeat it due to the objective hazard and tedious road walk and first gully. 

Route: Lake Como Approach
Posted On: 8/24/2024, By: buckfina
Info: The summer monsoons are here and first night camping it rained all night so we waived off LB and did Blanca and Ellingwood. A few short rains the evening of 8/21 did not add much water and about 4 groups climbed LB on 8/22. Much has been said about how difficult LB is, some hyperbole and some downplayed. It is a physically taxing climb d/t in part the hike in, as well as the steep gully and hourglass combined w the most loose rock I've encountered in 44 climbs. Lake Como is great camping w/ plenty of water so hydration is good. The hourglass has a small amount of water in the center which you can avoid by staying left, or use the decent rope to help steady yourself, but don't "rappel" on the rope - its deteriorating every day. The downclimb was tougher for me and ruined a good pair of pants. Agree w/ other comments about the gully - go left or right and use the wall to steady yourself as the rock is super loose. Give yourself time - the weather can change quickly due to monsoons and by noon it was clouding and by 2P there was minor rain. One group climbed the gully in the dark - not for me - but you could get there at sunrise about 6A if you feel the same way. Enjoyable climb but may not repeat as that hike in is an effort. 

Route: Lake Como Approach
Posted On: 8/19/2024, By: turbocat
Info: Road still sucks, equally bad in both directions, but thankfully I will never have to walk it again. Little Bear Peak is in summer form. West Ridge gully is a loose mess but stick to a side and it goes quick. We went up the left and down the right. Lots of loose junk but for the most part it did not travel very far. Helmet for sure. Water in the center of the hourglass, can be mostly avoided to the left. Hourglass had a decent "newish" green single rope, at least 1-2 rock shots on it and running through the water, probably only 45m because of knots and loops in it, but it starts at the crux. Anchor is solid above. There is what looks like a brand new pink 7mm tied and bundled at the anchor. I brought twin 60m 7mm and tied together got us safely through to the bottom of the steep slabs. Above the hourglass is steep and exposed with lots of loose crap that will funnel down the hourglass if dislodged, so tread lightly. Route finding was time consuming to the summit, and just as slow coming down. This is an epic peak and will hold your entire attention. I am glad to have it off the list. 

Route: West Ridge and Hourglass
Posted On: 8/17/2024, By: cyrrus
Info: Climbed standard route 8/16. Significant water in the hourglass made climbing very challenging. Apparently huge rainstorm night of 8/14. So much water in basin had to ford the river on lake como road and take off shoes. As a consequence of the water, we used the rope up and down. Was just a stream flowing but everything was wet. Would have been super sketchy without the rope which was in good condition. Went up about 11 oclock above the rappel station, lots of loose rock there. Down climbed as far left (from below) as possible and rock was very stable. Quite a breeze. 

Route: Lake Como Approach
Posted On: 7/31/2024, By: DorothyK
Info: Perfect conditions to hike Little Bear. Just a tiny trickle of water in the Hourglass. Brand new rope and anchor just put in, so you can trust it for now. Be super careful on the initial gully (just after turn off from main trail by Lake Como).. that's where some serious rockfall happens (we heard a huge rock avalanche the night prior in one of the gulleys). 

Route: West Ridge and Hourglass
Posted On: 7/28/2024, By: ICantHearYou
Info: Not sure if it warrants a report, but it looks like there's a new rope up. Water is still running down the gully, so the rope was soaking wet. You probably would freeze your hands off if you use the rope. We went up left of the rope to mitigate rockfall risk, and never really went close to the rope. Didn't downclimb the gully, so I can't say how useful it would be, but my guess would be not useful at all. 

Route: Lake Como Approach
Posted On: 7/28/2024, By: b_moar
Info: Summer conditions overall! Ascended the standard route on Friday, 7/26 with a group of 3 other climbers. The gulley up to the ridge was easy enough to follow, as was the ridge leading up to the hourglass. There was a hailstorm the previous night so the middle of the hourglass had running water and small pools of hailstones. As stated in a previously entered condition report, there is a brand new rope that has been fixed into place with all older ropes being removed. I didn't bother to utilize this going up or down, and opted to stay to the left side of the hourglass. Only a couple other groups were in front of and behind us. Near the summit, I noticed another group below us accidentally letting loose a few torso-sized meteors into the hourglass. I swear I saw the rocks fly over the heads of a few other climbers before shooting out of sight. Fortunately, nobody was hurt. Regardless, it only made me respect and fear this mountain more seeing the danger firsthand. 

Route: West Ridge and Hourglass
Posted On: 7/25/2024, By: 9patrickmurphy
Info: The hourglass has a steady trickle down the middle as usual. The ropes in the hourglass were in horrible shape, knots all over the place, sheath hits galore, several spots of full desheathing. My party cut the ropes down and packed them out. The ropes would not have been helpful even if they were in good shape as they went right down the middle where all the rock was covered in water. I dont really understand why ropes get left up here, ropes are expensive and their service life in such a rockfall-ridden gully cant be reasonably more than a few days. The anchor, however, is in excellent shape. We brought our own 60m rope and a fiddlestick to single-strand rappel the hourglass, which got us well below the worst difficulties. As for the climbing, my group agreed that the rock was all much more solid than we were expecting. The scrambling was fun, the only dangerous rockfall area is the hourglass, which deserves the hype. We were glad to be the first ones up and we only had one other party above us as we were descending, who was nice enough to let us get out before they came down. 

Route: West Ridge and Hourglass
Posted On: 7/21/2024, By: backcountrybrodes
Info: Parked at 8,700ft - me and a friend logged 13.01 miles and 5,958ft in 10h 42m. Full summer conditions until the first snow comes in a couple months. Be wary of wet rock during monsoon season - i.e. if it rained hard the night before maybe give the whole summit gully a little time to warm up in the morning while still watching for afternoon storms. Definitely try to time it to where no one is above you in the final gully, and on the flip side try to find the solid rock stretches on the way down because EVERYTHING funnels into the hourglass. Happy summit sending! 

Route: West Ridge and Hourglass
Posted On: 7/17/2024, By: wahpaha
Info: Summer conditions! 

Route: West Ridge Variant
Posted On: 7/13/2024, By: Joey_parm
Info: Similar to the 6/29 report by user dfeezell, myself and two others also summited LB via CaptainSuburbia's TR (https://www.14ers.com/php14ers/tripreport.php?trip=21616). They may also post conditions, or even a TR of their own, so from my perspective: The photos in CaptainSuburbia's TR were very helpful in gaining the ridge from the standard. The crux, for me, was definitely Class 4 and a little awkward going up; very awkward coming down it. And you can't afford to mess up here. Luckily the rock is very solid, as is the case on the remainder of the ridge, with a few wobblers - so don't let your guard down. It took us a minute to find the correct set of ledges and portion thereafter to get to the southwest face - we took a path that lead to a short class 3 climb over a small chock stone and then continued climbing up from there. Route finding on the way back down was challenging in some places, and there is much loose rock to contend with descending from the ridge back to the standard. This can be alleviated with good line selection, but not eliminated. Much care needs to be taken in this regard because the standard route runs right below this. The same applies when you are gaining the ridge from the standard on the way up. If you have major concerns about the hourglass, give this route a go. Keep in mind, you are trading a relatively straightforward standard route and the dangers of the hourglass for a route that will likely take much longer / entail more route finding and have you on more loose rock when you ascend and descend the west ridge.