Bedal Peak — Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026

Day hike of Bedal Peak on 2.11.26

ROAD: Mt Loop Hwy was fine for a regular car with a few potholes to avoid. Oddly enough, there was a massive car-sized pile of garbage bags smack in the middle of one of the lanes when we drove in, but it had been cleared by the time we left.

FS 4096 (Lower Bedal Road) was rough, but a SUV could make it to the trail start shortly after the fourth switchback. There was enough room for a few cars to park. We just opted to walk most of the forest road.

FOREST: I'd recommend downloading gpx tracks for guidance, which made life a lot easier.

There was a climber's bootpath that we followed until we hit snow. It was flagged relatively frequently, although it petered in and out and we lost it briefly a few times. Overall it was a fairly rugged trail but manageable. There were brushy sections, and quite a few fallen trees to get over or under. 

The first boulder field at about 3,700' had just a couple inches of snow and frozen moss on it which made scrambling up it kind of awkward. The second boulder field was much more snow-covered, and we breezed through that one.

I put on microspikes below the second boulder field, as snow coverage became more consistent after that point. We eventually put on crampons. The snow was very firm with an inch or two of powder at this point.

We opted to tackle the cliff band crossing at 48.07962, -121.36013 per Derrick's trip report, which went without issue. Past that, it was a long slog up a snowy gully to gain the upper slopes.

UPPER SLOPES: Snow conditions up higher were variable, with some supportive sections, sections of powder, and other areas of wind-affected snow with small windslab having formed. We eventually switched to snowshoes on our traverse across the upper slopes, as the post-holing became pretty bad. 

We gained the NE ridge that led us to the summit, picking a much-too-steep spot to climb it on the way up - I switched back to crampons very awkwardly mid-steep slope at this point - but we found a much gentler route on the way down. The final ridge push was in good shape, and took bucket steps well.

It was a beautiful, sunny and calm day, and we enjoyed the amazing in-your-face views of Sloan, Glacier Peak, and the rest of the Mountain Loop peaks right before us. I could have sat up there for a long time just enjoying the views, but time was a-ticking and we had a long way down to go.

We decided to just keep crampons on for the descent until we got past the cliff-band crossing. Shortly after that, we swapped for microspikes, which I kept on until we got back to the road, as they were helpful even in the steep dirt and duff.

The sun went down on us as we were still in the forest, and navigating out by headlamp made for some extra fun. We lost the bootpath a couple of times in the dark, but were always able to get back to it.

All in all, a solid adventure and a little bit of type 2 fun!

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More Information on this Trip Report

• https://www.instagram.com/p/DUqpjNPD-Ga/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==