Intermediate Alpine Climb - Vesper Peak/North Face

Road: Forest road 4065 is passable to the trailhead, unless your vehicle is pretty wide or has low clearance. (There were a couple sedans at the trailhead when we got back.) We left a car parked along the highway and only took one car to the trailhead. The car along the highway got broken into.  You've been warned.

Approach: Only a couple small snow patches until Vesper Lake, then lots of snow. We didn't like the look of the approach ridge described on Mountain Project, so we opted to go closer to Vesper lake then head for the Vesper/Sperry col. But on the descent, the ridge turned out to be fine. We had to kick steps up several hundred feet of snow, so boots are recommended until more melts out.

We intended to do the alternate start for Ragged Edge, but we ended up too high. If you want to do the alternate start, stay low.

The approach took 3 hours.

Ragged Edge route: No snow on route, fortunately. Everything matched the Mountain Project description, so be sure to have that handy. We used .4 and .5 cams on every pitch, so definitely have doubles of those. We didn't place the 3 we brought.

Descent: Lots of snow, so bring boots and ice axes up and over. You can see the outlet of Vesper Lake from the top, so just follow the ridge down in that direction. Trail will appear when the snow ends.  The walkoff and hike out took 2.5 hours.