Climbed Eagle Rock with Greg Slayden today. Very short hike with minimal brush and one crux cliff band. The east side approach road is rough with several washouts. No problem for a Subaru with good tires. But most would probably prefer a jeep or truck for this road, seriously.
We started at the end of the road at 4100' where a bear was eaiting berries. A use trail can be picked up immediately to take you the 300' up to open talus. Ascending traverse on mossy talus below cliffs, bearing northwest to cross over the north ridge at 4840 feet.
open talus
traverse
Just west of the north ridge is a gully visible on the map. Crux area at 4880 feet is a slabby weakness in the persistent cliff band. Class 3 options, but very mossy and treacherous when wet. It was wet for us and the best line we could find had a few spicy 4th class moves, covered in sopping wet moss.
Greg exploring mossy slabs
Greg tops out on the slabs
When we left the car, I remembered that I had a single harness and rope hidden in the spare tire. We took that out as an after thought and carried it with us. We were fortunate we did that because I wanted a belay and we would both want to rappel on the way down.
Greg had no trouble with the scramble. I was surprised by the difficulty of the hardest move, which would actually be quite easy if it was dry. Above the slabs we traversed some nice benches until we were north of the summit and then went directly south for the final 600 feet.
This peak has fantastic views, but the clouds hid everything. We waited 40 minutes for it to clear and I joked that it would open up as soon as we were on the way down. Sure enough, that's what happened.
summit views
Mount Baring, Merchant Peak, Mount Townsend
nice bench
Back above the cliff, we scrambled carefully down wet heather and mud to the lowest tree we could find above the slabs. We left my green sling and the 30 meter rope had only a few spare feet. I tied my harness to the rope and Greg hauled it back up for his turn.
I'm glad to see a current TR for this peak. I was impressed by how it looked when viewed from road/approach to Sunrise/Scorpian. I wondered about that clearly visible cliff bad. And I never bothered to look into what the access via road was like, so this is helpful.
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