After hiking the Hoodoo Canyon trail last weekend and seeing all the nice rock up above the trail, I enlisted the help of Brain and Carl to do some more exploration. We decided to bring a rope and small rack just-in-case but I didn't expect to do much more than some stiff scrambling on this trip. We had several options for the approach and decided that we'd try the long ridge run from the east. According to the topo, there looked like a few steep sections and alot of open rock.
We left Spokane at 6 and found a parking spot somewhere east of Bisbee Mountain about 8:30. Finding our way around the north side of Bisbee took quite a bit of bush whacking and when we reached its rounded summit, we were surprised to see much more brush ahead of us. The terrain undulated up and down the semi gentle high spots in the ridge with some sections of steeper rocky areas to play on. After a mile, the ridge mostly opened up and the hiking was on granite steps all the way to point 4892 with some small sections that required hands. From 4892, the line to Hoodoo Mountain was blocked by a 60 foot cliff. We found a way through it to the NW but getting up the other side required some exposed moves up a wet and mossy section. That was the worst of the climbing and it was only about 30 feet of exposed stuff. The summit of Hoodoo kept retreating from us but in time we finally made it then took a short lunch out of the wind. The return trip was much faster. We had used lots of flagging through the brush around Bisbee and we gathered these up on the way back. This was a much more difficult hike than I'd expected but was still rewarding....even with the bush whacking. As far as technical rock opportunitied, the steep stuff is on the SW side - we'll try over there next time (Pictures)
It looks like a nice little scramble there.
Here's the completely useless Ferry County trivia question for the day: What are the five most prominent mtns in Ferry County? Scroll down for the answer.
And the answer is:
1)Copper Butte
2)White Mtn
3)Whitestone Ridge
4)Bodie Mtn
5)Hoodoo Mtn
Intersting trivia. I'll have to check out a few of those.
As far as the scrambling, it wasn't too bad. There was usually some solid rock to choose from and cracks or chicken heads when you most needed them. I think the SW side looks very promising though. The pictures don't show it as spectacular as it was because of the haze, but the larch were everywhere. During the bushwhacking we'd come into an area where the ground would be covered thick in larch needles - it's weird the way the brightness would cheer ya up. Too much brush to call it a good ridge run.
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