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Trip Report    

Alpine Scramble - Mount Baring/Northwest Ridge

Unpleasant class 3+ dirt and ash wallowing leads to an iconic summit

Jacob Ward Jacob Ward
August 05, 2025
  • Road rough but passable

  • Steep class 3+ dirt in places. The forest fire charred most of the land, leading to lots of ash, downed logs, and a messed up trail. Bring a GPX, but it's possible to navigate using the cairns on ribbons on route if you're careful. Be prepared to get very dirty. No water on route.

Stats: 6.7 miles, 4.6k gain, 9 hours car to car. (1 hr lost due to losing trail)

GPX: https://www.peakbagger.com/climber/ascent.aspx?aid=2920589

One and done. Beautiful iconic peak with stunning views from the summit, but the most unpleasant climb I've ever done. Class 3+ dirt and ash climbing for the first 2k feet, followed by a brief nice ridge walk through the burned forest, until you get to more steep class 2 dirt, a long boulder field, more steep class 2+ dirt, and finally a little bit of decent scrambling on solid rock and some boulders. If there was a nicer trail up the steep dirt, maybe a switchback or two, the rest of the climb was actually pretty nice. The boulder field was actually quite easy and somewhat fun to navigate with mostly flat and solid stepping points. But the hours of 45 degree dirt, loose rock and veggie belays suck the life out of your soul. Going down was better than up, but it still sucked.

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A lot of the trail up to the ridge looked like this

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Pleasant ridge walking

The route mostly follows the Gaia unmaintained track, though it's a bit more direct. The cairns and ribbons throughout the climb were VERY helpful for route finding. We only got significantly off route at one point where it appeared the obvious route went back up to the ridge where most of the trail had been, but it traps you into very steep loose terrain. We attempted to down scramble, but it was very sketchy and decided to bail back to the trail, wasting a full hour on this ordeal. I added some gps waypoints of this area, and also tried adding a couple cairns near here since there was no flagging to be seen.

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The gully boulder field

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Atop the gully, looking SE

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Summit view looking at the NW Ridge and Index

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Summit view looking at Gunn and Merchant

  • Timeline: 
    • Trailhead Start: 10am
    • Ascent to ridge: 1.5h
    • Ridge to boulders: 2h (1 hour lost due to losing trail)
    • Boulder to summit: 1.5h
    • Summit break: 30m
    • Summit to boulders: 1h 15m
    • Boulders to ridge: 1h
    • Ridge to trailhead: 1h 15m
    • Trailhead End: 7pm
    • Total time 9h