[ragman and rodman]

The road to the Beverly Creek/Bean Creek trailhead (3600') is snow-free. Bean Creek was roaring... and being uncomfortable with trying to cross it, we left the trail and made a gradual upward traverse for ~.75 miles... with the snow being very consolidated, we gave up the traverse and decided to go straight uphill where we reached the ridge south of Earl Peak at 5850'. From the ridge entry point we contoured around two large bumps and made our way over to the saddle (6200') that separates the Bean Creek drainage and the Standup Creek drainage... the last 800 feet of elevation gain to the Earl Peak summit (7036') was the easiest part of the trip since we left the trail at the Bean Creek crossing. Including 30 minutes of breaks, it took us 4.5 hours to reach the summit... where we spent 30 minutes taking photos and soaking up the views. On the return trip we decided to follow the summer trail route straight down towards Bean Creek... and then stayed two or three hundred feet above Bean Creek as we followed it back to where we originally left the trail in the morning. From the Earl Peak summit it took us three hours to get back to the car... if we had it to do over again, we would have also used our return route on the way up. 6.3 miles roundtrip... gaining 3407 feet of elevation. I would highly recommend an ice ax for this trip... where I needed to use mine twice to self-arrest. Before leaving the area we decided to see how far we could drive up the North Fork Teanaway road... with my high-clearance vehicle it was easy to drive to within .1 miles of the road end... with a low-clearance vehicle you might need to walk a half-mile to reach the road end. GPS route and photos of our Earl Peak hike. ..

[wildernessed]

Nice. Earl is on my list of hopefuls this year along with Hawkins and Teanaway Peak.

[payton]

Thanks for the TR and road conditions update. Where'd you need to self-arrest?

[ragman and rodman]

payton... it was on the summer trail route, coming down from the 6200' saddle towards Bean Creek... probably due to a combination of being lazy and a little tired... I don't think I would have died without self-arresting, but trees can cause some serious damage.

[rossb]

I think I saw your footprints (I was up there on Saturday). We went up via Stafford Creek. It might have made an interesting loop (with a little bike) to go up Stafford and down either Bean or Standup Creek (although route finding is a bunch easier if you try and retrace your steps).