Beehive Five

A day you will not soon forget. Here you have a blade of granite containing several distinct peaks jetting out of the beautiful alpine meadows above Harrison Lake and the Beehive Lakes. All in all, you will climb 5 peaks in a day, with the middle peak containing some vertigo inducing exposure. Total distance you'll travel is somewhere between 6 and 8 miles-ish. Hard to say, but you'll be out all day. Note: this climb should only be attempted by experienced parties. I'd also recommend to park at the Harrison Lake parking area (bring your own water).  From there it is recommended that you get an alpine start on this alpine romp.

Walk down the Upper Pack River Rd for about half a mile to an obvious clearing and head towards Beehive Dome, once you've gained the base of the dome there's a bunch of ways up. If you stay on the far left side you will keep it at a 3rd class grade. So now trudge up this beast.  Once you're at the top enjoy the rad views, and continue on up the ridge. This will be a little bit bush-wacky, nothing new for the Northern Idaho climber. Following this you will hit the next peak. There is a third class way and a fourth class way up. Pick your poison.  Once there, you'll start scrambling down and trend to the right.  Your next peak is fairly obvious and goes no harder than third class. Once you top out this peak it is game on and I do mean game on.  The nice wide ridge that you passed before turns into an exhilaratingly thin ridge with sustained 4th class scrambling and at least the way I went, some mild 5th classy terrain.  Do be careful, a bad slip and you'll be in the paper. From here, delicately continue along the ridge until you hit the base of the fin. Most parties will rope up here.  The tricky part of the fin is definitely not the difficulty, 5.6 at most, but rather rope drag.  Lots of windy route finding, so use lots of runners and be sure to protect for your second on some of the traverses.  You'll have hundreds and hundreds of feet of exposure on both sides of you. Epic. Once you top out the fin, your last objective is the obvious peak in front of you. Stash the rack and the rope and cruise it, mild 3rd class on the last peak. Once complete, head down the same way you went up and then make a left turn down to Harrison Lake (you'll have to pop over a little ridge). Once down at the lake take the Harrison Lake trail back to your rig and revel in the awesome day you just pulled off!

There is a great description of this route in the Climber's Guide to North idaho and the Cabinet Wilderness.

Start at the Harrison Lake trailhead.

alpine rack, lots of runners, gear to 3"