Summit Elevation: 8,461 feet Trailhead Elevation: 5,660 feet Difficulty: Mostly Class 1 hiking, minor Class 3 scrambling to reach summit Distance: 6+ miles round trip (estimate) Elevation Gain: 2,800 to 3,000 feet (estimate) Time: 5 1/2 hours round trip Trip Date: April 4, 1999
On Easter Sunday, my friend Jim Harrington and I met for a hike up Bear Peak in Boulder Mountain Parks This is my favorite foothill above Boulder, because the summit has the feel of a real mountain peak, and I enjoy the rock stairways on the Fern Canyon Trail. As seen from Boulder, Bear Peak is the mountain on the southwest side of town with the visibly pointy summit.
Bear Peak is a very popular hiking destination that is frequently approached from a 6,300 foot trailhead at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), at the west end of Table Mesa Drive. However, I like to do Bear Peak as a training hike for higher, more distant summits, so I prefer to start from lower trailheads.
On this occasion, Jim picked the route. We started our hike around 12:30 pm from the Wildwood Road "Trailhead" at 5,660 feet. To reach this location, take Table Mesa Drive west 0.7 miles from its intersection with South Broadway in Boulder. Turn left on Lehigh Street at the end of the divided parkway. Go 0.15 miles and turn right on Bear Mountain Drive. Follow that for 0.4 miles, then turn right on Wildwood Road. Park on this residential street after 0.1 mile. The trailhead is on the west side of the street between houses numbered 1235 and 1255.
From here, the main trail is a dirt service road blocked by a barrier to keep out vehicles. We walked up this road, slogging through the mud left behind from Friday's rapidly melting snowfall. The dirt road bears left from the trailhead to pass south of Yuri Point, a 5,960 foot hill. (An alternate trail passes the north side of this hill, and south of NCAR.) We followed the dirt road to its junction with the Mesa Trail, the main north-south artery of Boulder Mountain Parks. We turned left on the Mesa Trail and stopped after 100 yards at the mouth of Bear Creek Canyon, where we looked at a trailside directory with a map of the area. Jim decided on the longer, easier Bear Canyon Trail as our ascent route. He led most of the way up, setting a comfortable pace.
From the signpost, we continued south on the Mesa Trail for a third of a mile to the marked Bear Canyon Trail junction, where we turned right. This trail heads north briefly, then west, above the south side of Bear Canyon. The route was more shaded and cooler here, with a thin layer of hard-packed snow and ice remaining. I soon took a break to cover up my shorts with a pair of insulated nylon pants. The Bear Canyon Trail is a pleasant, easy walk, with some nice views of climbing rocks to the north. We hiked 1.6 miles up this route to the Bear Peak West Ridge Trail, where we turned left.
The Bear Peak West Ridge Trail is the easiest route to Bear Peak. It climbs southeast 1.3 miles to the summit from its junction with the Bear Canyon Trail. It involves some minor downhill stretches as well as its not-so-minor uphill stretches, so I would guess that the overall elevation gain on this route is slightly more than on the Fern Canyon Trail. The trail provides some nice views of Bear Peak along the way. The final quarter of a mile is a steep talus hike. Jim suggested that I go ahead at my own pace at this point, and meet him on the summit. As I approached the summit, I reached an unmarked junction where one set of footprints went right, but many footprints went left. I thought I remembered the correct trail going to the right here, but chose the better traveled route to the left instead. This brought me to the summit ridge just north of the summit, so I was certain that I had hiked the other way before. The final short stretch south to the summit involves some minor rock scrambling that could be considered Class 3. It was a little bit slippery in spots due to the remaining ice and snow.
I reached the summit about 15 minutes ahead of Jim, and drank some water. Bear Peak offers an extensive view of Boulder, the Eastern Plains, and the ever-present Brown Cloud. Virtually all of the snow had melted away from the plains and foothill communities. I took the summit register out of its canister. Earlier in the day, someone had signed "Happy Easter" and drew a cross, so I entered my name and wrote "Happy Easter: pagan holiday for Astarte, the goddess of love."
When Jim came up, he found the final stretch to be difficult and a bit scary. I told him we could avoid that part on the way back if he wanted to by descending directly from the summit on the less-traveled path. I took a couple of steps away from the summit to point out this other route, when I unexpectedly slipped and fell onto a big rock below. I banged up my left leg rather badly. Nothing was broken, but I did develop a large, nasty bruise on my hip that would take a long time to clear up. For some reason, Jim said he didn't want to go that way. Instead, we agreed to descend by the Fern Canyon Trail, down the northeast ridge of Bear Peak. Before we left the summit, Jim tried to call his girlfriend on his cell phone, but got the answering machine. I tried to call my wife, but got a busy signal.
We only saw a couple of other hikers on the Bear Canyon and Bear Peak West Ridge trails, but there were many other hikers on the Fern Canyon Trail. Nevertheless, the Fern Canyon Trail was potentially much more hazardous this afternoon. It is a steep route and fairly difficult, as far as trail hikes go. It drops 2,100 feet in 1.3 miles. The descent was complicated by a thin layer of slick, hard-packed snow and spots of ice. I thought it was fun. Jim found it to be slower going. Below the 7,400+ saddle between Bear Peak and the Nebel Horn, there is a series of rock stairways which define this route. The trail passes by a number of large boulders and rock climbing routes. The climbing routes on the northwest side of the trail (including the Goose and Seal Rock flatirons) were closed for the raptor nesting season. The final part of this trail becomes an easy walk before intersecting the Mesa Trail, just 200 yards north of the Bear Canyon Trail.
We turned left on the Mesa Trail, and retraced our earlier route back down to the car. The dirt service road was drier now and most of the mud had cleared up. The entire hike took about 5 1/2 hours, including breaks. I would estimate that the round trip distance was at least six miles, with about 3,000 feet of elevation gain. A hike from this starting point to Bear Peak's summit using Fern Canyon both ways would probably have only 2,800 feet of elevation gain.
Gary Swing