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Date |
Ascent Time |
Descent Time |
| 1st Time |
22 Jun 02 |
6:06 |
3:52 |
22 Jun 02 - This is Mt. Bell as seen from Hwy 1 just east of Castle Junction. You can approach
this mountain from either this side (the Taylor Lake approach) or from the back side (the Boom Lake
approach). Given the amount of snow, we thought it would be easier to approach from the Boom Lake side.
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22 Jun 02 - After an hour into the journey, you arrive at Boom Lake and you're ready to start going up.
As you hike around Boom Lake (counter-clockwise), you'll see avalanche gullies that lead to the summit ridge.
Ideally, you'll pick one the leads to the notch described in Kane's book, but we picked one just east of the notch.
It wasn't a big deal though. They all will work.
(Click here to enlarge)
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22 Jun 02 - This shows the summit of Mt. Bell in the back distance. At the bottom of the picture, you can
see the avalanche gully that we took to the summit ridge. When you get to the ridge, you turn left and pretty
much follow the ridge to the summit. There are only minor detours..
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22 Jun 02 - Here we see Jim coming up behind me. We were suppose to climb Sir Douglas this weekend,
however, the trip was cancelled, and Jim forgot to take out the heavy stuff from his pack. That slowed him down
a little. Behind Jim, you can see Boom Lake, slowly getting further and further below you.
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22 Jun 02 - A little bit further along the trail, we see Jim still going up that hill. I felt sorry for the
amount of stuff Jim was carrying, but not sorry enough that I was going to carry it :-)
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22 Jun 02 - Eventually, we arrived at the summit ridge. As I mentioned before, we ended up one notch
east of where Kane suggests going. As a result, we had to lose about 100ft of elevation gain. The final summit
ridge involved some steep snow climbing and snow traversing. Nothing too difficult though.
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22 Jun 02 - This is looking down from "the notch" toward O'Brian Lake. As you can see, there was still a
lot of snow on this side. We made the right choice by going up the Boom Lake side.
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22 Jun 02 - Here is one of the many snow slopes we had to cross to get to the summit. Under dry conditions,
none of this would be a problem.
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22 Jun 02 - Here we see the summit cairn with Castle Mtn in the background.
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22 Jun 02 - This is Jim sitting at the summit over looking the summit ridge. Lots of cornices along the way.
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22 Jun 02 - This is more of the summit ridge. The right snow gully rising to the ridge is where Kane
suggests going. We ended up on the notch where the left snow gully meets the ridge. In the background, you can see
Storm Mtn, Mt. Ball and Stanley Peak.
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22 Jun 02 - This is a closer look at the two snow gullies and the approach from Taylor/O'Brian Lakes.
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22 Jun 02 - Here is a zoomed in picture of Stanley Peak with Mt. Ball in the left background.
(Click here to enlarge)
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