Forum Index > Trip Reports > Three Queens - 10/18/02
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Randy
Cube Rat



Joined: 18 Dec 2001
Posts: 2910 | TRs | Pics
Location: Near the Siamangs
Randy
Cube Rat
PostSun Oct 20, 2002 9:37 pm 
This one starts along the last spur road just before the Mineral Creek trailhead at 2800' or about 200 yards from the main road. Craig came up with the idea to do this one and I was more than willing to skip out of work to run what I consider one of the best high routes around. We tucked in 100' of gain through old clearcut then crossed over to the south side of the outlet for Three Queens Lake. The next 300'-400' were through steep clearcut that made for very tedious travel. At roughly 3200' we angled more to the NW to hook up with the broad, open SE shoulder of Three Queens which we took all the way to Three Queens Lake at 5380'. We lounged at the lake for a bit then headed west up a talus slope and regained our ridge again at 5700'. Continuing NW we worked around a couple high points on the ridge and then rounded Point 6230' to the north. This brought us into a large talus basin and gave us our first views of the north side of the mountain and the NE ridge we would use to gain the summit. We made an easy traverse of the basin and then gained the NE ridge at an obvious bench at 6350'. We dropped unnecessary gear and headed up the first block of rock, about 25' of class 3-4 with moderate exposure, and then worked along a narrow but easy section of class 2 ridge to within 150 vertical feet of the summit. The last one-fifty was generally easy class 3 with a more difficult or exposed move here and there. Craig did a route up a bench system for the last 150' just west of the NE ridge and I believe encountered similar conditions. Views from the summit were impressive and those of Chimney Rock and the Lemah group were probably the best I've ever seen. We could see tiny HiBox Lake across the valley and also Chikamin Lake at the base of Lemah-1. We found a film canister register with no paper or pencil, so we left both and sealed the whole deal in a zip lock bag. After well over an hour on top, we descended the same route and had a fine late afternoon walk down the SE ridge. The last few hundred feet were a bit different than what we had done in the morning and were choked with ugly slide alder and nettles, but we eventually made it back to the truck around 1700.

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Jake Robinson
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Joined: 02 Aug 2016
Posts: 521 | TRs | Pics
Jake Robinson
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PostThu Aug 13, 2020 9:44 am 
Just a little additional information in case anyone is using this description for their climb. We found Randy's report to be very helpful. We ended up crossing the 3QL outlet at about 3200'. Bad brush in this area, but only about 20 minutes of it. We tried to avoid it on the descent but instead got sucked into devil's club and alder, whereas our ascent line was just alder. We are not sure if there is any non-brushy way through this section, but again it is short. The initial class 3/4 section low on the NE ridge is exposed, fun, decent rock. However about 100ft below the summit the rock gets increasingly steep and loose. Can't trust any of your holds. We ended up climbing some steep class 4 stuff on the north side of the ridge. Final moves to the summit are loose class 3. We found a good block for an anchor above the steep class 4 section, and because we had a rope, chose to rappel it. 30m rope was enough to clear most of the difficulties with one exposed class 3 traverse required to get back to the ridge crest after making the rappel. Fun climb overall but we found it was best to check, then double check, all of our holds before committing to them.

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Randy
Cube Rat



Joined: 18 Dec 2001
Posts: 2910 | TRs | Pics
Location: Near the Siamangs
Randy
Cube Rat
PostWed Aug 19, 2020 11:26 am 
Nice, a local fav

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