RT Length: 6.87 miles
Elevation Gain: 2945’
I made it to the Bandora Mine the day before, and spent the day scouting potential routes.
In the evening I did a little catch and release fishing, the beavers came out of their lodges, and I saw one tail flip a coyote who got too close.
Beaver and Coyote:
Then a bull moose came strolling around, and I went to bed. I was on the trail at 6:30am the next morning. I took the trail to Lake Hope, which started just to the south of the parking area.
I took this class 1 trail southwest for about .8 miles.
At around 11160’ of elevation I left the trail, and turned right. If you get to the Big Three Mine you’ve gone too far. I placed a cairn here, and headed north.
I bushwhacked north up the mountainside to treeline
I was headed here, which included some willow navigation. I found if I stayed high I could follow game trails.
Once I could see this ridge I turned left and headed northeast to a basin
I kept heading northeast, as the tundra changed over to talus
Now in the upper basin, I aimed for the Beattie/Fuller Saddle.
I stayed to the left of the snow, and found the talus was surprisingly stable.
Once at the saddle, I turned left and followed the class 2 ridge to Beattie Peak
I summited Beattie Peak at 8:45am
Beattie Peak:
I could see PT 13302 to the southwest.
Now is a good time to put your helmet on. This is a class 3 ridge, but starts out as class 2. This is the overall route I took to get there, taking the ridge to a gully.
The initial descent of the ridge is class 2
But quickly becomes narrow, sustained class 3 with exposure. The ridge proper goes at class 3, but twice I dipped down to the left to avoid the exposure involved. Here are some pictures of the ridge
I was now at the base of the gully. Microspikes helped here.
This is the route I took
And some pictures of the gully
At the top of the gully I went right
And then I could see the final approach to the summit
This is the overall route I took to the summit
There were two summit cairns, each about 15 feet apart. They looked to be of equal height.
I summited PT 13302 at 10am
PT 13302:
I know the traditional way to descend from PT 13302 is to head southwest and down to the V9/PT 13302 saddle, but I’d been there the day before, and did not want to descend that way. Instead, I headed southwest towards a small saddle, then turned left and scree-surfed south.
This route brought me back to the Lake Hope Trail.
Here’s looking up at the route I scree-surfed down
And here’s an overall view of the route I took
Back on the Lake Hope trail, I followed it east back to Bandora Mine
I made it back to Bandora Mine at 11:45am, making this a 6.87 mile hike with 2945’ of elevation gain in 5 hours, 15 minutes.
On to the next trailhead!
Wild Wanderer 