This is a report for getting up to Box Ridge East Peak, which mostly is off trail, and involves some bushwacking to get up onto the ridge. Ngie and I started at the Rachel Lake trailhead at 10:50am. At the first switchback we took an offshoot trail for a short bit, before heading up into the forest. It is better to just head straight up at the switchback up some moss/grass covered rock slabs. After this it is mostly all forest avoiding the thickest of the brush. The brush was not that bad. The hardest part was getting around numerous rock faces. Some of the gaps were quite steep, and were hard to find coming down. We were helped navigating up the steep slope by some nice game trails, some of which could of been an old trail of some sort.
Up around 4900ft we veered left and hit the ridge up at 5000ft. We followed the ridge north for a while through some nice flowered meadows. At around 5200 we ran into a huge gendarme. Here we skirted around a huge rock face on the west side. After getting past this rock wall, we headed straight up again and caught the ridge. After a short bit on the ridge we caught our first glimpse of the summit. The summit looked impossible with all the exposure, and it was for me, as I didn't scramble up there. I stopped 46ft vertical from summit as the scramble up was too spicy for me with the downward sloping rock with the exposure below it. Ngie made it up to the top, but didn’t really enjoy it. I tried dropping down 80 ft to the east and traversing to that side, but after scrambling up that way, bailed on it as there was too much loose rock and dirt with a super bad run out. There was a rappel sling over on that side.
Some sweet views from near the peak, especially looking over to Lobox, Mossy Slab, and down to Hibox Lake. We pretty much took the same way down, making it back to the car at the Rachel Lake Trailhead at 5pm. 4.8 miles with 3073ft gain which includes about 200ft of added gain exploring an alternative route around the east side of the exposed summit block
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