Bear Mountain is a peak that lurks in the minds of many Cascades climbers. Super remote, super rugged, and featuring one of the most inspiring North Walls in the range, this is hallowed ground. The North Buttress was Fred Beckey’s brainchild and took a monumental effort to complete as detailed in his book, Challenge of the North Cascades. The Direct North Buttress is the premier North Face route on the peak with a long history of attempts, failures, epics and glory. Ben Hyver and I intended to climb the Direct North Buttress, but an unstable weather forecast led us to scramble the Northwest Ridge on August 27th 2025.

After 10 brutal hours working on the approach, Ben and I were feeling a bit better. We’d just struggled up a steep, forested hillside filled with blowdowns. Both of us were out of water but managed to sustain ourselves off of an unlimited huckleberry supply along the way. Ruta Lake (really a small pond) provided a spot to reload our water supply which brought both of us back to life. Once we were moving again, a violent lightning storm came in from the North, convincing us to make camp in a somewhat sheltered area along the ridge. Lightning whipped the summit of Bear Mountain. This area has a reputation for feeling quite ominous and the scene lived up to that reputation. Our perfectly clear forecast had fallen apart! A fresh forecast on my inreach showed that another storm would arrive at 7pm the next evening, which was our intended summit day. We might be able to work with that.

The next morning, we left the tent super early and arrived at the notch where we would need to descend to the base of the route. The skies were clear and a glance at my watch showed it was 5am. I updated my forecast again to find that the storm was now predicted to arrive at 4pm – damn it! We had gone through so much pain, frustration and physical effort to get here. In the moment, there was a strong inclination to simply go for it – it was hard to imagine walking away empty-handed, or even worse: having to come all the way back up here again! On the other hand, we still had an hour or two of work to reach the base of the route, a 20 pitch 5.10. I ran the calculations again and again in my mind, weighing them against the reality of the situation and my own motivations. We simply didn’t have the safety margin to climb this route. I have always made risk management decisions based on the idea that I intend to have a very long climbing career, and the only way to achieve that is to stay alive along the way.

Incredibly disappointed, we decided to scramble to the summit via the Northwest Ridge. This was surprisingly fun, with solid rock up to low-fifth class. There’s a knife-edge section right near the summit that reminded me of the West Ridge of Forbidden – juggy, solid and exposed. The summit views offered their own consolation prize and made the epic journey worth it. We descended to camp and hiked out the same day (ouch). Right on time, a massive thunderstorm arrived at 4pm and continued all night, confirming that we made the right call.

Gear Notes

Work gloves, long pants, bear spray, closed toe river shoes. Consider a machete.

Strategy Notes

Do not underestimate the approach – it’s a full day’s work and then some. Don’t make the trek in unless you have a perfect forecast with high confidence.