Babcock Peak

Route: Boren Basin ascent, ridge to Spiller
Posted On: 7/8/2024, By: VeraUndertow
Info: The road is as advertised, narrow and rough, switchbacks are very tight. Not the worst road I've seen, but maybe it makes more sense to walk it. Climbing up the dry couloir on the right of Babcock was decent if you stayed in the medium sized rocks, the smaller talus was very loose as we ascended. Made it to the scrambling to middle Babcock and that was all dry. The hardest bit of scrambling was gaining the ridge from this couloir and that may have been c4. An easier weakness in the summit block was just higher but you would have had to walk up a little bit of lingering snow to access it. Scramble around the summit block toward the west, instead of gaining the ridge and heading up right away, as this will take you to the false summit and the ridge doesn't easily go directly the whole way, so you will have to drop down to bypass it. From middle Babcock (true summit) you need to head over to west Babcock to gain access to the ridge to Spiller if that is your goal. Scramble back down middle Babcock to where you gained access to the summit block from the east couloir. Look for another couloir that cuts horizontally east to west just below the summit block, this is the bypass that is mentioned in trip reports and gets you into the west couloir. Heading down into the bypass skips the C4 scrambling from the east couloir. There is one section of hard C4 down climbing that is 4-5 feet high with no real exposure to get into the bypass but otherwise it's not hard terrain. Heading up the west couloir we hung to the dry rock on the right hand side as long as possible since this whole west couloir was filled with snow still. We ran out of dry rock about 100 ft up and needed to cross to the left hand side to gain west Babcock anyways, so we donned micro spikes, and carefully crossed this steep snow to gain access to a weakness in the west summit block. It went at loose C3 or maybe easy C4 in spots, as I was trying to scramble the more solid rocks. About 100 vertical feet and the pitch mellows out to easy C3 to the west summit. It looked like there was a really easy gully you could use higher up at basically the very top of the couloir, but that would have meant climbing even more steep snow with just micro spikes, so the loose rock was preferred for us. From the west summit we headed on the very cool ridge toward Spiller, it is called a knife ridge, but for the east half it is mostly pretty mild exposure and scrambling wise. Closer to Spiller the exposure increases and the scrambling gets a little more challenging. We found some C4 but there were usually bypasses available dropping to the north side to keep it C3 if desired. At the end of the ridge, you come to a large notch with a lot of loose yellow/gold chossy rock in it. Here we dropped 100ft or so to an obvious climbers trail and scrambled up the ~300 ft to the summit of Spiller. The middle of this gully was looser again so I tried to stay to the sides, but it stayed C3 the whole way up and was pretty fun scrambling. From Spiller summit we went down the south ridge which has a great climbers trail and is mostly class 2 with a little bit of class 3 on some interesting junky rock towers in the middle section. After coming around the towers you get to a wide and obvious gully with a set of rock walls halfway down making a giant gate, there is a slight climbers trail on skiers right hand side for the top 200 feet. Then we were able to scree/choss ski down a good amount of vert before talus/choss hopping our way back to the road. 

Route: from Boren creek
Posted On: 9/6/2023, By: SnowAlien
Info: There's still some snow in the gullies, which presented a bit of a challenge, but we were able to scramble up on rock to the side. Both northern and southern gullies have some snow, since they are so deeply inset. One of the most beautiful couloirs I've ever been too, may have to bring skis next time. Do not recommend our ascent route (rock was terrible and Class 4+), but we wised up for the descent and downclimbed the standard chossy gully described in Cooper book apparently. Climbed up the rest of the couloir, climbed out of it to reach the Western subsummit (almost the same height as the Main one). Continued to Spiller via the fun ridge. The register needs more paper. 

Route: North Couloir from Tomahawk Basin
Posted On: 5/23/2022, By: supranihilest
Info: From the upper reaches of Tomahawk Basin there are several couloirs that go between each of Babcock's three (or four, depending) summits. You want a much higher, western couloir (just west of the huge, middle summit). Climb this to a dry saddle on good, moderate snow between middle and west summits. Descend about 200 feet south on steeper snow. We passed a couple of obviously very difficult gullies, and a narrow one that looked to be about Class 4 to get up into. Ours was wider, snowier, and had a huge, lichen-covered sheer wall on it. This wall makes for an obvious, colorful landmark. I do not know if this gully goes without snow, so buyer beware! We climbed up this gully (Class 3, Steep Snow) to a flat spot where we left crampons and axes, then launched up the sustained Class 3/Class 3+ scramble to the summit. Exposure is pretty high and also sustained. Lots of route finding involved. Many potential options, too many to describe, but two things to keep in mind: 1) the ridge proper higher up is a lot more difficult and super exposed, and 2) don't drop too far down before reaching your ascent gully, staying higher/middle of the road elevation wise seems best. Rock is generally solid but plenty of loose stuff, test every hold. We had a bit of powder snow and much water and mud to contend with. Microspikes were used on the descent to our gear to combat the copious mud. Switched back to crampons and climbed back up the couloir and down into Tomahawk Basin. Many options for descending the basin, choose whatever suits you. Gear: ice axe and crampons mandatory for the steep, icy, suncupped couloir (whether coming from Tomahawk Basin or Boren Creek). Microspikes were useful descending the upper scramble but by no means necessary, just use extra care. Helmet strongly recommended, there's tons of loose rock in the La Plata. 

Route: Boren Creek
Posted On: 8/18/2021, By: tdawg012
Info: I found Chicagotransplant's report to be most helpful. I did a class 4 route from the saddle between east/central summits to the top and found the class 2+ route on the descent back to saddle. No snow in the couloir north into tomahawk basin so I took that hoping to get to Diorite peak but got stormed out halfway 

Route: Tomahawk Basin
Posted On: 7/7/2016, By: mattpayne11
Info: Road up to Tomahawk clear all the way. Quite bumpy but we did it in a stock Tacoma. Route has nice snow all the way up to the east ridge. Dicey climb but fun! 

Route: Boren Creek/South Slopes
Posted On: 9/5/2014, By: TravelingMatt
Info: A large boulder blocks the Boren Creek Road just past the creek crossing. ATVs, but not road vehicles, can get through. Highest parking and turnaround area below the boulder is about 1/4 mile in from CR 124, where there are open areas on each side of the road that can fit two vehicles. I summited via the gully marked "YES" in the picture. Not sure which gully Dave Cooper recommends in his book, but I went most of the way up both gullies marked "Maybe" and couldn't find a good way from either to the summit. From the "YES" gully I stayed left where it forks, then went almost all the way to the top before turning back around to the left (west) to begin Class 3 climbing towards the summit. Rock is decently stable once leaving the gully. All the gullies are crap. God I hated this mountain.