The route would be to enter West Fork Bear Creek. Again. And to branch off into the ascent gully shortly after its mouth. According to the topos, the slopes should be manageable most of the way, with two questionable areas where the gully narrows and steepens: starting just above the mouth at 2400ft and again, starting at 3200ft. This is good: we'd find out if the route is viable early on. I should also note that for whatever reason, the USGS topos don't show the blue line in this gully above 3000ft. So it's easy to miss for somebody using the topos to plan a route.
We walked up Bear Creek in the morning. Noticeably less water than the last time. If one was really careful it maybe would actually be possible to get to West Fork Bear Creek with dry socks. For me, the very first rock I stepped on at the first crossing gave way, so it wasn't to be.
The gully mouth looks like this:
There's far more water here than I thought there would be. It's flowing really well, which isn't what I wanted to see. True to the topos, a waterfall appears immediately
There's an easy dirt bypass on the left. From above:
This gully is VERY true to the topos: lots of waterfalls one right after the other. And it's a very rocky area, with most of the falls dropping into nice, big pools. This is pretty, but makes bypasses difficult. A series of teacups sits above the first falls. We took a wide bypass on the right. wesweswes disliked it so much that he somehow downclimbed this waterfall face on the return. Between each of the falls is a decent use trail, probably from deer. The bypasses are quite sketchy however. Eventually it became clear that we were making such slow progress that this approach would take forever IF it was even possible: at any point we could hit an un-bypassable waterfall, and there were lots of them ahead. So at only ~2850ft at a questionably-safe traverse we decided to call it. The last two waterfalls:
To underscore the point, at the first traverse on the descent, the slope I was standing on collapsed, and I took an unintended swim. My altimeter didn't make it. Just paid an extra $4 to get a new, waterproof one. To add to the terrain challenges, there's thick poison oak absolutely everywhere, and in the gully you're moving through it constantly. If one is dedicated, this route could work, but it isn't any better an approach than the already-known ones.
We descended back to West Fork Bear Creek, claimed a pickaxe and a pot from the abandoned camp there, and walked out. There are cool flowers all over the gully and Bear Creek:
And there're lots of cool frogs that look exactly like the rocks they sit on
And cool caterpillars
And I saw another Great Blue Heron, I think. If I don't see West Fork Bear Creek again in the near future, that would be just fine.
