Bear Mountain
- Bear Mountain
- 2115 m
- Primary factor 801 m
- California, USA.
- Location: North 35.20646, West 118.63961 (GPS on the summit.)
- Difficulty: YDS class 3 (only last boulder)
- Climbed September 15. 2018
Bear Mountain
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How to get there:
Locate the small village Tehachapi on Hwy. 58 running south-east from
Bakersfield to Mojave. Go a few blocks south in Tehachapi, locate Hwy. 202
running west. Just as the road enters a large flat agriculture area, turn right (north)
on Bear Valley Road. Shortly, you will arrive at a gate. The entire area above is called
Bear Valley Spings, this is a "gated community", having restricted access. You may / must
have a valid reason to visit.
Assuming that you have passed the gate, drive into the area and locate a road going right
that will climb the hillside on your right hand side, this iks shortly after a
Chevron gas station. Follow this winding road as
it gradually turns towards the mountain.
The road dead ends at a locked gate, one can likely leave a car there for a short time (I did).
This location is at N35.19849, W118.62259, elevation about 1950 meter.
Route description:
Cross the gate and follow the dirt road to the main crest where it meets another road
coming from your right. Ignore many smaller side-roads. Turn left and follow the road
to the summit area. The road stays pretty much on the ridge all the way.
At the summit area, you will (surprise!) see that there are two large boulders that
form the two highest points.
The boulder to the left is clearly highest. To climb this
one direct does not look easy. Walk around and discover a weakness, where one may ascend
between the big boulder and the part immediately left. There is an old log there
that further facilitates the climb. This is still a few meter of (YDS) class 3. As you
get up on this, you can touch the highest point with your hand or even drag yourself
up to the very top (class 4 move).
Comments:
I ended up climbing this mountain despite my plan was to make an attempt the following
week. With limited navigational tools, no map, I was actually searching for a road that
would get me west towards the Central Valley / Bakersfield area. Suddenly, I came to
the gate where they check your authorization to proceed. I understood that I had
arrived at the base of Bear Mountain by pure accident.
Being there, it made sense to check if I could get in. I parked my jeep and walked across
to the lady in the booth. I told her, that I came from Norway and had heard about this
place and that it would be very nice if I could enter and look around a bit.
She nodded and said that this was OK, reminding me that I would have to exit
back out at this location. I thanked her and was on my way!
It was easy to drive as high as the paved road went. The locked gate and signs with
No Trespassing could not apply to people that had been granted access to the general
area, so I ignored them and walked to the summit area in about 30 minutes.
Interesting enough, the summit had two very
large boulders and the biggest one defines
the summit. This hike went from class 1 to what looked like a short, but hard climb?
Upon further investigation, there was a weakness.
An old log had been placed there
as well, to further facilitate the final climb. This was still class 3 to a point where
one could touch the top with a hand. To haul oneselves up there is also possible,
but this is not an easy move. I spent almost 15 minutes, then returned with an easy
downhill jogging, - 15 minutes back to the car.
Returning to my original objective of driving west, led me to a long and somewhat narrow
dirt road with 3 gates that
had to be opened and closed. I did get across and down into the
large flat valley that connects to Bakersfield.
Highway 58 would have saved me at least one hour, but it was fun to succeed connecting
across where I did. I did not meet a single car along this road, it is obviously
(and for good reason) almost never used.
