Favorite Route on Little Bear

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justiner
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Re: Favorite Route on Little Bear

Post by justiner »

Thanks for confirming that, CaptainSuburbia! That chimney looks gnarly from that angle. Certainly was hard to get into.
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Re: Favorite Route on Little Bear

Post by Wentzl »

Hey NatDog. How was your Little Bear trip?
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Re: Favorite Route on Little Bear

Post by NatDog »

Wentzl wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 9:28 am Hey NatDog. How was your Little Bear trip?
Headed there tonight! Likely going for the W Right Direct in the morning.
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Re: Favorite Route on Little Bear

Post by Monster5 »

Agree fully with Wentzl here. For OP criteria, WRD -> traverse is great. Couldn't care less about the bypass options, but they're there if you want them. Ring the cirque and descend Ellingwood SW Ridge for a good day.

I've done the other options and don't care much for them. The highlight of the NW face is the ridge, and that's encountered on the traverse anyways. NW face is efficient though. SW Ridge is nothing special.
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Re: Favorite Route on Little Bear

Post by CaptainSuburbia »

Monster5 wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 5:10 pm SW Ridge is nothing special.
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Re: Favorite Route on Little Bear

Post by Gene913 »

perhaps too late since the decision has been made, but the NW face route would get my vote.
Disclaimer - have not done the W ridge route or the SW ridge route. But never had any issues with rock or route finding on the NW face route. It was an exquisite day. Everything went right.
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Re: Favorite Route on Little Bear

Post by Mountainsroam_2012 »

I've been up the hour glass route 2 times, 1 back down hourglass. 1 traverse to Blanca down. Special place with little room for error. Might have to go back and attempt the ridge routes. My vote is hour glass ⌛ route up, traverse to Blanca down. My favorite route of all time..

PS, Make sure to add South Little bear if u take NW ridge or hour glass, great add on..
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Re: Favorite Route on Little Bear

Post by Mountainsroam_2012 »

CaptainSuburbia wrote: Tue Sep 21, 2021 6:10 pm
Wentzl wrote: Tue Sep 21, 2021 5:42 pm CaptainSuburbia, just when I was feeling an affinity.

SW Ridge is EASIEST, but not the most fun.

Also perhaps "best" if your vehicle can not get you past 10,800'.
I wasn't factoring in difficulty, but if you do SLB to LB direct and not the ledges it's probably more difficult than the hourglass.

After beating up my truck once again this past weekend getting to 10,000 I think the bushwack is preferable to driving that road.

I would like to try out your west ridge direct route instead of my variation. Just not sure about the class 5 moves.

But what could be more fun than this?
Screenshot_20210921-180012_Instagram.jpg
I did some ledges on traverse to S Little Bear, fun warm up for traverse exposure. This was pretty fun also haha
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Re: Favorite Route on Little Bear

Post by Will_E »

CaptainSuburbia wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 5:29 pm
Monster5 wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 5:10 pm SW Ridge is nothing special.
Let’s be real here. It’s a pile o’ junk that only dreams of being the 2800’ of greatness.
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Re: Favorite Route on Little Bear

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Re: Favorite Route on Little Bear

Post by ClimberSkierDave64 »

Wouldn't know about the Northwest Face, but the West Ridge was very solid and if you use the ledge bypass that CaptainSuburbia's report describes right below the cruxes, I think the most difficult move is only high class 4 or maybe one exposed easy class 5 move. It was a lot of fun and we descended the West Ridge Direct as well, which honestly wasn't bad at all!
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Re: Favorite Route on Little Bear

Post by NatDog »

Wentzl wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 9:28 am Hey NatDog. How was your Little Bear trip?
noob_hiker and I ascended the W Ridge direct on Saturday and though it was a fantastic route. The most difficult scrambling I had done up this point was the Bells Traverse S>N and I thought a few moves on the W Ridge were definitely trickier than anything on the Bells or LB-B traverses. We did swing around and descend Ellingwood's SW ridge after the LB-B traverse - a great day of scrambling. A few thoughts on the route:

1. We stayed ridge direct from the notch at 12,600' to the summit. Route-finding was incredibly straightforward and no moves exceeded easy 5. It was a bit slow going though. It took us almost 2 hours to ascend from the notch to the summit.
2. We thought the sketchiest section was about 5 minutes before the first chimney. It was fairly loose ridgeline with a small ledge on climber's left. We used the ridgecrest as handholds.
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3. First chimney was exposed but easy, as others have mentioned.
4. Crux for us was a 10'-15' face at ~13,900'. I'm not sure if this was the 5.2 slab or not. It wasn't too exposed but had to rely on some loose blocks at the top. I think we did see workarounds but neither seemed much easier than going over the top.
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