Bearcat Ridge (7,960ft) and Little Gem (8,023ft)
Highpoint for the bike at 6,600ft
Sept 1, 2021, 6:30am – 6:30pm
29 miles, 8,300ft gain
I’ve been resting for a few weeks after climbing Pik Pobeda in Kyrgyzstan and figured I was finally recovered enough to try a top 200 peak in washington. I wanted to avoid snow (my fingers aren’t completely recovered), but maybe involve some scrambling and ideally involve my mountain bike for added fun. Bearcat Ridge fit the requirements nicely. Thanks to excellent beta from Milda T, Fletcher, and Brian H I knew there was a fun scramble route up from the southeast.
The trails south of Bearcat Ridge are in non-wilderness areas and open to mountain biking. In 2017 I’d mountain biked up from the north fork entiat trailhead on trail 1437 to climb cardinal peak, so I knew that trail would be fun and bikeable for the approach. The Okanogan national forest website said the trail had just been logged Aug 2, and was outside the fire closure zone for the 25 mile fire.
The route
Tuesday night I drove up towards the North Fork Entiat trailhead but was stopped about 3 miles before the trailhead by a 2ft diameter tree across the road. It was impossible to drive around and looked like quite a project to remove with my ax. It was 11pm by then, and I debated spending an hour or more trying to remove it. But I figured I had my bike, so I could just bike around it in the morning and go to sleep instead. There may have been more blowdowns around the corner anyways, I reasoned. The area burned a few years ago and the road is lined with lots of stags waiting to fall.
Wednesday morning I was up and moving by 6:30am. Indeed, there was one more blowdown farther up the road that would have been time consuming with the ax, but easy to bike around. I soon hit the trail and the fun mountain biking began. There was often dense growth hanging into the trail but there were hardly any blowdowns. The trail is gradual enough for the first seven miles that I could generally ride the whole way with minimal pushing. The last mile up to the Pyramid trail 1433 intersection was steep enough to require pushing, though.
Bearcat Ridge summit
I managed to bike all the way to a point just below the Emerald-Little Gem col by 10:30am, then stopped for a food break. I locked my bike to a tree there and stashed my helmet in an ursack. I’ve had too many helmets nibbled on by critters in the woods that I always store them in critter-proof bags now.
Travel was easy through mostly open meadows and scree slopes up to the pass. From there I traversed to the ridge northwest of Emerald. I followed the ridge to 7200ft, then traversed talus slopes and scrambled to col 7316 southwest of the summit. From the col I scrambled northeast, generally staying just south of the ridgecrest but occasionally venturing onto the crest. By 1:30pm I wrapped around to the north side and made the final 3rd class scramble to the summit.
Biking back out
I hung out for half an hour, watching the huge mushroom cloud south of me from the 25 mile fire. To descend I dropped down the slightly easier south side, then regained my route. To return I avoided the tedious talus traverse by dropping all the way to the flat basin at 6618ft. I then filled my water bottles and followed the ridge back to the Emerald-Little Gem col. On the way I spotted one yellow larch, though all the others were still green.
I was a bit ahead of schedule, so decided to turn one more red dot green. I scrambled southeast along the ridge, over some fun rock outcrops, and tagged Little Gem, an unranked 8000ft peak. From there I took a shortcut back down and soon reached my bike. Luckily no critters had managed to nibble on anything.
The bike ride out was fast and fun. There were some technical sections dropping down from the Pyramid Mountain trail, but the majority was smooth cruising. I noticed one new set of bike tracks near the trailhead, but didn’t see anyone else sign in at the trailhead. By 6:30pm I was back at the car and soon driving home.
© 2021, egilbert@alum.mit.edu. All rights reserved.
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