[ragman and rodman]

A three bump loop trip on the eastern border of the Teanaway... an area that has been getting a lot of attention lately... especially with the marginal weather on the west side. I did this loop as a winter hike last December with rocman and madman. Today, Denali Girl, Snowdog, robman and Izzy signed on for the mostly brown hike. Reach the trailhead by driving 2 miles north of Mineral Springs on Hwy 97... turn left onto FS9714 and drive ~3 miles to the Iron/Bear Creek Trailhead (3640'). A two mile hike brought us to Iron Bear Pass (~4400')... where the trail junctions with the Teanaway Ridge Trail... which we used for the last mile up to Iron Bear (5489'). Continuing from Iron Bear toward Jester Mountain, we more or less followed the Teanaway Ridge Trail on mostly snow covered ground... eventually finding the sign for the junction with the County Line Trail ~200 feet below the false summit of Jester... where we left the trail and continued on up to Jester's false summit (5510')... then made the short walk north to Jester's true summit (5520+). From Jester we held the high ground as best we could... dealing with several ups and downs along the ridge on the way over to Point 5459... seemingly within spitting distance of the County Line Trail. Leaving Point 5459 we continued a short distance to the SE... where we found an obvious rib that took us down to the trail on very loose terrain... as evidenced by a severely sprained ankle for Denali Girl... an injury that will keep her on the injury list for 5 weeks. ~6 miles roundtrip, gaining ~3000 feet of elevation. Personally I prefer this hike as a winter trip, but if I were to do it as a brown hike again, I would reverse the loop... doing Point 5459 first, then on over to Jester... and finishing up with Iron Bear. Map and photos of our Iron Bear, Jester Mountain and Point 5459 loop trip. ..

[Charlie Hickenbottom]

The thinking in doing this hike/scramble in the other direction when it's mostly snow free (counterclockwise instead of clockwise) is that the rougher cross country portion of the trip from the trailhead to Point 5459' would be done in the uphill direction and going down at the end of the hike would be on much friendlier trail terrain. When I did the loop with ragman and madman last December over snow, our thinking then was to take a straighter, steeper line that would avoid sidehilling while using snowshoes (south rib of Iron Bear) in the uphill direction and descend the slightly less steep way from Point 5459' back down to the Iron Creek Road.

[wildernessed]

I did this peak without ever knowing it. Another one of those highpoints with no name.

[Jack's Mom]

We were there that same day too --- how did we miss you???

[ragman and rodman]

[Jack's Mom]

That explains it, I'm too much of a novice to try the route you guys took. So sorry for Snow Dog that she hurt herself -