Bearpaw Mountain
September 22, 2026
1863m
Mt. Baker Highway, WA
Bearpaw Mtn. is a rugged looking tower accessed from Canyon Creek Road, a relatively major side road off Mt. Baker Highway. It does not boast over 100 m prominence to qualify as an independent summit but does have an official name. The access is straightforward via Church Lake providing one owns a reliable off-roading vehicle and the scramble is exposed 3rd class. I had on purposely reserved this objective as a “before work trip” since I don’t start working until 3 pm in the afternoon, and fall would be the ideal timing as well.
This past Tuesday was the last day of a prolonged sunny stretch before a series of storms coming in so I was desperate to get out despite having 5 hours of work booked in the afternoon and evening. I convinced Kate to come along at the very last minute and as usual, we would leave White Rock the night before to sleep at the trail-head. Both of our vehicles are Subaru Foresters so it didn’t really matter who drove, and since I’m more experienced in off-roading I decided to drive. It turned out that the FSR combined with Canyon Creek Road took an hour each way. The roughness was sustained but there’s no single obstacle that could stop an AWD “crossover” from reaching the trail-head. We got there minutes before midnight and the alarms were set at 7 am. I had no idea how long the scramble would take but figured that would give us sufficient time to get back by “early afternoon” and I was correct.
