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Trip Report    

Alpine Scramble - Breccia Peak

Late summer ascent of Breccia Peak via Lost Creek Ridge Trail

  • Road suitable for all vehicles
  • Forest Road 49 was rougher than expected. All three sedans in our group made it to the TH just fine, but it was difficult at times (including a rocky washout where 4WD would have helped).

    Route was snow-free, with an easy approach trail and mostly-straightforward scrambling. Lots of route options, most probably class 2 on meadows and talus.

Past reports on the Mountaineers page seem to have all been in snow, so this might be helpful for other summer trips. The trail is good up to the fork for Round Lake at 5500'. The unmaintained trail is quite decent most of the way to the fork for Sunup Lake. There is an obvious trail up to Sunup Lake.

We stopped by the lake and looked north to consider our options for gaining the summit ridge. The large slope had a few gullies in a mix of meadows and talus. We chose a path on climber's right, crossing some low-angle talus, then increasingly steep but dry heather (no recent rainfall/dew). It ended with a couple of easy class 3 moves leading to an upper boulder field. We found an easier alternative to this section on our way down (described below).

From there we ascended trending left towards the saddle point (as far as we could tell). A wall of trees cover the saddle itself but slightly left of a small boulder outcrop were some boot paths converging on a narrow, steep, overgrown trail that took us up to the ridge. We emerged from the tree wall to find ourselves on the north side of the ridge with clear views of Breccia and Zi-Iob Peaks. From there on, a trail is visible almost the entire way to Breccia. We saw no obvious path to get to Zi-Iob without a lot of tough scrambling. It seemed like it would require snow to traverse smoothly along the north side of the ridge, so in the summer it would probably be easier to go back to the trail. We decided not to add in all that distance and settled for just Breccia.

On the way down we found a more gentle route between the upper boulder field and Sunup Lake. It was simply a couple hundred feet climber's right of and parallel to our ascent path. It followed a spur connecting the upper boulder field to the lake. If we had continued straight on our ascent instead of turning to the lake we would have found this route then.

Start: 7:15 AM

Summit: 12 PM

End: 4:20 PM

GPX track: https://www.peakbagger.com/climber/ascent.aspx?aid=2652239