[Dave Creeden]

On the beautiful day of June 6th, I set off at dawn with the ambitious goal of climbing Hall Peak and Big Four Mountain via the NW Ridge in a day. I hiked the Big Four Ice Caves trail to its end, then contoured at about 2,000 feet in a clockwise direction northward beneath the steep east flank of Hall Peak. I managed to find a route which avoided most of the brush, bypassing the ascend route Justin used in 2007, continuing towards the dry stream bed Matt and company had used in 2014. Instead of using their ascent route by beginning up the dry stream bed, I crossed the dry stream bed and made a beeline for tall timber on the north side. With little effort, I crossed through a thin blind of brush which hadn't leafed out yet, thankfully. I quickly latched onto a wildlife trail and milked the intermittent path for all it was worth, avoiding some of the brush. I climbed steep duff, hitting the first patches of snow at about 2,900 feet. I encountered the first sustained patches of snow when I popped up on to the flatter terrain at 3,200 feet. I then veered leftward, with the aim of getting onto the crest of a rib. I found a spot at 3,400 feet to work up some steep snow, cross a moat, then a I hoisted myself onto the crest of the rib via some green belays. There was continuous snow on the rib crest until about 3,800 feet, where the rib became more narrowly defined, next to a deep snow filled gully. Scrambling up the rib involved some class 3 moves, along with climbing through and over small trees. At about 4,000 feet I began to attempt to work up and leftward, with the goal of crossing above a waterfall. The terrain got steeper and the snow wasn’t continuous. I strapped on crampons to ascent several bulges of snow, 70 to 80 degrees in sections, for up to 20 to 30 feet. The crampons also helped climb and traverse bare batches of duff. I eventually worked my way across the stream above the waterfall, which was the most awkward section of the climb of Hall Peak. One across the stream I could press the accelerator pedal down and crampon my way to the southeast ridge line of Hall at about 4,900 feet. I briefly thought about making an attempt on Big Four first, but reckoned I better bag a sure thing first. I hung a right turn and climbed the remain 500 plus feet to the summit of Hall Peak, arriving 4 hours and 45 minutes after I left.

Summit of Hall Peak

Unfortunately, the last climbers to ascent Hall Peak, left the summit register bottle with the cap end up. When I opened the bottle, I poured a container full of water out. The register had an old film canister and a zip lock bag, each with sheets of paper to sign in on. Both were soaked and are probably un-salvageable. I ate my sandwich, then used the zip lock bag to replace the existing bag in the summit register. I carefully placed all the contents back in the summit register. I then inserted the summit register bottle inside a quart size zip lock bag I had brought. Then placed the summit register with bottle upside down, underneath the small cairn.

L to R: Big Bear Mountain, Three Fingers & Mount Bullon

Big Bear Mountain

Three Fingers

Whitehorse Mountain

Devils Peak in the foreground, Jumbo Mountain in the middle ground & Mt Baker in the background.

Big Four in the foreground with Vesper Peak in the background

West Ridge of Vesper Peak

View down Williamson Creek drainage to Spada Lake.

Phlox

Closeup view of NW Ridge of Big Four.

After about 30 minutes on the summit, enjoying the views scoping out the NW ridge of Big Four, I made hast for the 4,480 ft saddle between the peaks. The initial 500 feet or so of elevation gain went easily, working through tall timber and patches of snow and on a wildlife trail in the bare patches. The NW ridge became more narrowly defined at about 5,000 feet, at which point I had to plow through smaller scrub trees. A couple of hundred feet up, I hit a decent size snow patch and I had to strap on my crampons to work up the hard snow. This was followed by combinations of bashing through small trees and scrambling on class 3 rock. Next, I hit a series of down sloping slabs, with lichen and moss, which would require about an 80 foot traverse rightward. This wasn’t my first choice, so I stuck my head around the left side of the ridge and didn’t like the steep terrain with exposure either. I nearly decided to call it day, but I retreated beneath the slabs and moved to the right and I managed to find route through the scrub trees. I had to do a vertical bushwhack to ascent about 30 feet onto a rock ledge at one point. At about 5,500 feet I hit another series of down sloping slabs with patches of moss and lichen. Again, I worked slightly to left and I could see the steep, exposed terrain, that led to the ridge line beyond point 5800. No thanks. The terrain upward or to the right for the next 100 feet or so, involved exposed class 3 scrambling on a series of down sloping slabs. I decided to humbly to call it a day.

The rest of the day involved me retracing my route back to the car. Next time I’ll try the Dry Creek Route (East Face) on Big Four.

[ozzy]

Damn you covered some pretty gnarly terrain! Nice trip, nice attempt on Big Four as well! Big Four and Monte Cristo Pk are ones I want bad. Thanks for the beta, cheers!

[Matt]

Well at least you got quite a bit higher on Big Four than we did when we tried the same thing.

yellow arrow marks where we stopped

[Schroder]

Very similar to one trip I did on Big 4 in 1970. We headed for Big 4 first and backtracked to the saddle and on to Hall. We tried to go from there to Marble Peak but couldn't get over the final gulch to the Marble saddle. We heard some people heading down into Williamson Creek from Marble so we rappelled down to the 45 mine and scrambled down to the creek and fortunately got a ride out with them. A memorable adventure.

[Stefan]

Good on you for getting Hall! and good effort on Big 4!

[Justus S.]

Nice job! Big Four from that side sounds like a real challenge.

[puzzlr]

That entire west ridge of Big 4 looks way harder than I expected. Thanks for the interesting report. If I ever climb Big 4 it's likely to be an overnight from south -- via that ridge from the Sperry/Vesper saddle.