Overnight to Bean Creek Basin via Beverly Turnpike, Mary's Peak, Bean Peak with Earl Peak on day 2.

This was my first scramble in a long time, and the longest one I've done maybe ever. Luckily my friend was patient and encouraging, and we managed to bag two of the four peaks we'd initially intended on the first day, then finished up the third on the way out.

Beverly Turnpike trail is in fair shape. The crossing of Bean Creek was totally fine -- I did switch into Crocs for it but it wasn't deep or even moving too fast. There are probably 30ish trees to get around, ranging from 4 inches in diameter to maybe 15inches. There are a couple jackstrawed piles of trees but nothing too hard to cut as far as I could tell. 

Fourth Creek is fine, harder to see than Beverly Turnpike and not a well-laid out trail but you can get up it.

We skipped Bill's Peak in the saddle between Bill and Mary because there was snow on the north aspect we weren't sure we'd feel good about and didn't want to expend the effort just to turn around short of the summit.

The way to Mary's was pretty straightforward. You can stay on snow on the northern side (which we did once we got halfway up) or stay mostly on rock on the south side. Snow was solid and the final scramble is easy enough.

Going between Mary's and Bean was the trickiest part. I am not a climber and have scrambled only as much as to the summit of Si or Mount Pugh, so don't have a lot of experience doing extended scrambles. At the top of Marys we evaluated our options, looking for bailout routes if the traverse got too hard or if we weren't going to be able to finish. We also continued to ID bailouts along the way. We ended up heading down below the last couple of rockpiles (I'm positive these have a fancier name but can't remember -- maybe it's gendarmes?) and traversing the ribs below Bean's summit to the notch on the east side of the peak.

Initially we'd wanted to go to Volcanic Neck but after scrambling to Bean I was sort of over getting out to Volcanic Neck. From where we were, we would have had a scree-ey hike or a walk across some steep snow. It was late in the day and my friend was out of water, so we decided to head down into Bean Creek Basin and establish camp, then re-evaluate whether we wanted to hit Earl for the sunset hike.

We decided to do Earl on the way out, since there is a trail to the top from the south side which branches off the Bean Creek trail. This was fun, if pretty steep. I wonder if it was a former lookout trail. There are some steep-ish snow patches just shy of the saddle below the ridge trail to Earl. We wore microspikes on the way down and it made those crossings way easier.

We saw a lot of people on the way out from Earl - maybe 35? I was surprised to see so many but then again it was Saturday and lovely.

kidzwonthike and I hit up the last 2 remaining peaks in the [Mountaineers] Teanaway 20 today, doing the loop described in the trails hiked section of the trip report (so, counterclockwise starting with Bean Creek Basin).

We started around 07:30 and it was in the low 50s. Heading up Bean Creek Basin wasn't difficult, but as expected, the last section before Bean Peak is steep.

We saw a couple marmots hamming it up in the basin in the morning, eating breakfast. Many of the water sources in this section are running lower since they are snow fed and the snow in the basin has almost run its course.

Getting up to the ridge, we knew we'd have to get around or over Bean Peak, so we tried off to the right, but no dice--it was too exposed. I proposed we just scramble up to the summit, so we did--tagging Bean Peak again (me twice in the past year; kidzwonthike three times). It wasn't too bad and was an excellent warmup for Volcanic Neck as it was a nice class 3 scramble.

We walked down the ridge, north, towards Volcanic Neck, following the bootpath right around it. Once we got to the NE end, we did a near 180, then started scrambling up the NE ridge.

This section has a fair amount of loose scree and some larger rock. Helmets are highly advised, as well as mitigating rockfall hazards through clear communication, clearing fall zones, and sticking to larger static boulders.

We did several protected class 2/class 3 moves. It was relatively easy to pick out the path with the discoloration on the rocks. The final move requires crossing a ridge which has a great deal of exposure on both sides (I would say it's a class 4 move because a fall could be fatal), but wasn't particularly technical. One thing to do to minimize falling is to carefully downscramble, leveraging the crack on the east side of the summit block, and testing foot placement before committing 100%.

Downscrambling wasn't bad compared to scrambling. We took our time and made it down carefully.

One thing to note is that the stability of the trees in this section should not be trusted. Many of the trees are extremely dry/alive or dead, and thus wouldn't provide much security if used as veggie belays.

Once down on terra firma, we walked the remainder of the ridge to Devil's Head. It was a nice walkup and the finishing summit for the Teanaway 20 for the both of us (woohoo!!).

Backtracking, we decided to go down Hardscrabble Creek/Fourth Creek/Beverly Turnpike back to the trailhead. This was a fun change of scenery (I'm super bored of Bean Creek Basin) and going down here provided excellent views of some of the Enchantments Peaks, as well as some protection from the hot sun with the forest. An added bonus is that this section has a large number of running water sources and an excellent variety of vegetation. Downside? There are quite a few blowdowns in this section (about 10~15). They were all easy to circumvent/get over, but it may prove an annoyance for some. There was also some mud in this section as well.

The rest of the conditions were basically the same as what I reported in my Bill's Peak TR, but some volunteers have cleared blowdowns blocking the Beverly Turnpike Trail, the Beverly Creek crossing was easier, the wildflowers in bloom are different, and there is absolutely no snow.

It was a fun hike and an accomplishment well-achieved: ~20 summits in the past year and a half for both of us, closing out the Mountaineers Teanaway 20 list.

Ngie and I got started at 7:40 am this morning from the Beverley Turnpike/ Bean Creek Basin trailhead. The crossing of Bean creek on the Beverly Turnpike trail was pretty straight forward as the creek has lowered quite a bit from when we were there last, when it was raging. Care still needs to taken as some of the rocks were submerged by maybe a inch.

Beverly Turnpike trail has 10+ blowdowns on it. Most were pretty easy to go over, except for one, where we were wishing we had brought a saw. Trail is snow free to where we turned on Fourth Creek trail. Fourth Creek trail is also snow free all the way to the saddle where the Hardscrabble Creek is and then it was mostly snow from there. First time for me on the Beverly Turnpike trail. This trail around where it intersects the Fourth Creek trail is quite beautiful. Nice alpine forest with quite a few wildflowers blooming, along with fantastic views of Iron, Teanaway(Gene's), and Bill's Peaks, all with snow on them.

When we arrived at the saddle where the Hardscrabble Creek intersects the Fourth Creek trail, we hung a left and headed up toward Bill's Peak. We tried to find a trail, but could not find one. We tried to stay on dirt and rocks to minimize trampling on any vegetation. We ended up going straight up the  super steep scree trying to hit good rock to scramble up. It was hit or miss with the good rock. We both put on helmets here in case one of us kicked down a rock.

Once we got up to about 6200 ft we ran into a lot of snow. Ngie went straight up a steep col in the snow to get to the summit and I went more to the right getting on some rock to scramble and finding more of a gentle snow slope to the summit coming in from the NE. We took this way on the way down and even were able to boot ski all the way down to 6000 ft. Beware of changing snow conditions with the snow melt. I post holed once up to my waist!

Summit views from Bill's are fantastic. Awesome 360 degree views, with Mt Stuart front and center. Our original plan was to go over to Volcanic Neck and Devils Head, but with the snow conditions on the Hardscrabble Trail over to Volcanic Neck, we decided to save it for another trip, as it would of made for a super long day.

We finished at 2 pm. We only saw two other hikers all day. The were coming back from backpacking as we were going up Beverly Turnpike trail in the morning. They gave us some beta on Bill's peak the previous day and we were able to pick up their boot prints on occasion. With the rising temps they melt out and don't last long. Fun trip on a beautiful day. 8 miles RT with 3300 ft gain

kidzwonthike and I originally were hoping to do Bill's/Volcanic Neck/Devil's Head in a single day, but settled for just Bill's because of time/energy. Bill's was an awesome choice, nonetheless: a fun type 1 class 3 scramble with fantastic views :).

Road Conditions

Obviously the road to Beverly Turnpike TH still has issues: the dips that were there after turning off to the trailhead are still there. High clearance is recommended, but you can push to just before that with a low clearance vehicle, saving a mile, or just use another adjacent trailhead (Stafford Creek TH, Iron Peak TH, etc).

Trail Conditions

Beverly Turnpike

The creek crossing was a bit high, but it's still early season. You can keep your feet dry, but probably not with trail runners. Sandals or high tops are a good idea and trekking poles are wise for stability.

After this, there are probably about 20 blowdowns over the trail of various sizes. Some seem to have been around for a while, but all are before the Alpine Lake Wilderness boundary, so they can be easily dispatched with a chainsaw when chainsaw use is permitted (burn bans don't allow them right now), crosscut saw, or axe (if the user knows how to buck). The largest diameter tree was <1.5' IIRC.

We ran into 2 backpackers/scramblers on their way down; they'd spent 3 days scrambling around Volcanic Neck/Bill's/Iron Peak and were giving us plenty of summit stoke :).

The trail has a stream running across it in areas, so it's pretty muddy right now. Wearing sandals or trail runners probably isn't the best idea for this section :D.

There's a low impact camp area at the junction with Fourth Creek Trail with water nearby from Beverly Creek. There's a brown sign which says Fourth Creek Trail to looker's right going north.

The Fourth Creek Trail is a bit hard to spot, but not impossible.

Fourth Creek

This trail is blowdown free up to the Hardscrabble Creek Trail junction, but muddy in areas with a stream running down the trail :).

Bill's Peak

Disclaimer: this is a technical scramble which should be considered a beginner alpine scramble.

There isn't really a trail at all: one just needs to be careful and find low impact paths. I was paying a lot of attention to my footing because there was a lot of potentially fragile vegetation to negotiate. However, a good strategy many have used on Peakbagger.com, is to stick to the trees on the SE arête by the Fourth Creek drainage, instead of climbing up the loose scree field in the S. This seemed really good LNT wise and comfort wise on the way down.

kidzwonthike and I went separately up to the S scree field until we got to lower impact surfaces to better uphold LNT principles.

The first couple hundred feet was [generally speaking] loose scree and was a low class 3 scree scramble for us. There is an easier route to the right or various arms using stable rock, but one needs to test it before committing to it; there were some larger boulders that I thought were static, but were not stable. We put on our climbing helmets because some of the smaller boulders were getting accidentally kicked down and bouncing off other rocks and tried to avoid overlapping our ascent paths to mitigate kicking down loose scree.

Once we got off the scree, we climbed more stable rock up to some trees on the south side. We stuck to the trees as best possible, then transitioned onto snow for LNT reasons and comfort reasons (well, I did at least.. kidzwonthike stuck more to rock/scree further up).

I climbed up a steep (50°+) snow col, jumped over the moat at the summit pyramid. There were some postholing concerns in areas, as well as surface level issues with the snow (wet loose, small/localized wet slab) up the col. I then did some class 3 moves on rock to get to the summit proper by smearing with my feet on the semi-smooth granite and jamming my fingers in some cracks, but there are other final moves up that might be easier than what I did :).

From the top we could see pretty much all of the Teanaway/Stuart Range/The Enchantments, large portions of higher peaks in Salmon la Sac and Snoqualmie Pass, a peekaboo view of Dakobed (Glacier), a hazy view of Koma Kulshan (Baker), Pahto (Adams), and Tahoma (Rainier)... and also how far it was to Volcanic Neck/Devil's Head and how much snow there was between us and the ridge (hence, we called it early to avoid getting back before dark :P..).

On the way down we used microspikes and I did some light boot skiing on snow, zig zagging down and traversing to better runout to avoid uncontrolled falls, since the runout was kind of bad in areas (rocks or trees) and we were postholing later on in the day.

We stuck more to the snowy ridge (east) than scree/rock by Fourth Creek, for comfort, but also LNT and safety reasons.

Once we got off the snow, I stuck to scree and carefully watched my step because of vegetation impact concerns.

Gear Used

• Climbing helmet
• Microspikes
• Trekking poles (summer snow baskets)

An ice axe would have made my life a lot easier (at least) for the ascent/descent over snow, especially up the snow.

Other Notes

The GPS Track is attached to my Peakbagger trip report.

Please remember not to blindly follow the GPS track up Bill's, but instead use your best judgment, appropriate surfaces/skills to find a safe way up and down the peak.

There are plenty of ways where one can easily get into class 3/4+ territory if not being careful with no good way to get down.

A weekend of smoke and then rain pushed our annual fall trip out a few weeks.  Wow, we are glad it did. Perfect fall weather weekend.

Left a car at Bean Creek/Beverly Creek trailhead Friday morning.  Road a little rough but made it in minivan going slow.  Drove second car to Lake Ingalls trailhead. Parking lot full and cars about quarter mile down the road, about what we expected for larch madness and covid non carpooling.

Started out Friday around 11:30am from Lake Ingalls trailhead which seemed to be after the day trippers and before after work backpackers. Everybody   was super respectful and masked up on the trail. Also no trash on trail, which was amazing.  Trail in great condition and larches are out.  Took the path around basin (saw mountain goats) and on up to the lake.  Last bit of scramble a little tough with heavy packs.  Navigated around rocks on the side of lake to the outlet.  Headed down Ingalls lake backdoor trail (keep far left for better trail) to Ingalls creek basin. Camped  at meadow camp with Stuart out one door and Ingalls peak out the other.  Amazing stars and moon. Next day headed down Ingalls creeks trail  to Fourth Creek turnoff.  Trail in beautiful shape, great work  WTA.  After Creek crossing ( half of group took off shoes to cross, others did a rock hop). Fourth Creek to intersection with hard Scrabble trail and set up camp with an amazing view of Stuart range.  Only passed 9 people all day.  Morning walk for a bit down hard Scrabble to see some more larches, then packed up and headed out Beverly Creek trail to the car. Very few people and only a few blow downs on trail.