[ree]

This is my "mountain wall". It has beautiful photos and drawings from friends, and it is right next to my desk. Prominently featured is an original drawing from Dave Fish's "Rambling and Scrambling on the Mountain Loop Highway". It is an excellent book, and more than once, I wished I had it on a trip.

I chose "Bedal Peak" from Dave Fish's portfolio of drawings because I really liked it as a drawing, and I thought it looked like a very interesting route. It is really beautiful, and I feel lucky to have such a fine piece of art. Since the drawing of Bedal looks down on my desk all the time, when Steve suggested we climb Bedal, I was all in. Of course we'd do Dave's route. We did this trip with a hearty, good-natured group of Mountaineers... despite the horrible fire smoke in the air. Scott ably lead us across the Sauk River. It is quite braided with islands of brush in between. Lots of confusing bootpaths, but we kind of stayed left, and made it to the big cedar tree on the other side. There, we picked up the path and made it to the Railroad Grade. See Dave's drawing. We picked up the Sloan Climber's path soon after, and made it to the waterfall, no problem. We thought, only 1.4 miles to the summit, easy peasy.

We headed up the ridge too close to the waterfall initially and got lost in thick brush immediately. We determined if we stayed a little more right, it was a little more open. We soon chose to back track on the trail and climb the ridge further away from the waterfall. It was nothing but a blur of very, very steep duff, trees, bushes, more brush, dead fall, and more brush for another 1,700'. It was unrelenting. Black flies attacked us any time we dared to stop for a rest. I thought for sure, with Dave's drawing being out there in his book and all, there would be at least a suggestion of a bootpath. Nope. I think we saw a faint bit close to 3,600' for maybe 25', but there was really nothing... Someone had left pink flagging here and there, which confirmed to us someone else was crazy enough to climb Bedal this way. All of us were drenched in sweat and started losing mojo when we realized it was getting late and we still had another 1,000' of brush bashing before we got to the slabby stuff. I stopped about 4,400' - 4,600'. I took a pathetic shot of Sloan though the smoke. All I could think about was breaking out of the trees and having to cross the open, baking hot snowfield. When the decision to bail was made, I was all in.

In coming down, we stayed a bit off the ridgeline, to avoid some cliffs and thicker brush. It was also a bit less steep. Still, we had to be really careful coming down. We came upon the climber's path to Sloan quite a bit a ways from the waterfall. The rest of the way was retracing our steps. Despite the bugs constant attack, I had to have a nice dip in the Sauk to get the slimy sweat and needles off my skin. What a relief! I would not recommend this route, unless you start super early and do it on June 21, to maximize daylight. Foolish youth is a plus. I still love Dave's drawing, even if kind of reminds me now of this tormenting trip.

[chefothefuture]

I love Dave's book, but that route didn't make much sense to me when compared to this- https://www.nwhikers.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8018197&highlight=bedal+pk+peak But perhaps Dave is more interested in interesting challenges ... Nice TR.

[daffish]

Hmmm, Well, I must say that I hope people read the disclaimer in the book - "The drawings in this book simply show a route that has been taken which may or may not be the easiest, safest, best, or even the way described by any guidebook." When I first climbed Bedal long ago, this was the route shown to me by my mentors. I didn't even know about the Merrybrook approach back then. I have since gone up the Merrybrook route and also would recommend it nowadays as a better way. And Deb, you know who some of my crazy bushwhacking partners are, so what did you expect?

[chefothefuture]

[OldGoat]

I like Dave's route. It's got a lot going for it, a river crossing, an abandoned trail and some fun forest scrambling. It worked fine for us back in September 1999.

[ree]

[daffish]

Deb, Your report was well written and enjoyable to read and reminds us all that being outside has ups and downs. Not so sure about doing this route earlier in the season. You would really need to take into account how swollen the Sauk is from spring snow melt. I tend to think the water would be higher and faster and crossing more difficult. Otherwise, snow up on the brushy slopes would be preferable.

[ree]

Thanks, Dave. Thank you for the exquisite drawing. I wonder if there's a route to Cougar Lake or if it is a brush bash? There's one way to find out: tell your buddy there's fish in it.

[daffish]