Hi, I am planning on possibly dayhiking University Peak this summer, and in my research for the various routes, I came across this entry from another website:
I believe this may be the fastest route for dayhikers wanting to bag this peak. It lacks some of the tedious and time consuming boulder hopping associated with the route over University Pass and it is technically much easier than the listed "North Face" route. The route is as follows: From Bench Lake go south and ascend a broad scree and talus chute to a gap in (or a shoulder on) the northwest ridge. This chute reaches the ridgecrest above the point where the ridge of the Kearsarge Pinnacles and the Sierran crest meet. One can then follow the northwest ridge, staying south and below the ridgetop cliffs to minimize the difficulties. As one nears the summit, it may be possible to circle all the way around to the southeastern flank of the summit rocks to keep difficulties at strictly 2nd class. When we climbed the summit rocks we ended up doing the final approach approximately from the south and we encountered a few low 3rd class moves on very large talus and slabs.
I am intrigued by this possibility, because from what I'm reading, the Robinson Lake/University Pass route seems like talus hell, and I'm not sure I'd be comfortable on the last part of the North Face route (class 3/4?). I'm kind of a chicken, and don't want to get all the way up that route to find the last bit too much for me...
So has anyone seen, know of, or done this route? You can kind of see it on Google Earth, it also looks like it may be a slog, and quite steep at that. Also, because of the aspect of that chute, I don't know if it will hold snow/ice late into the summer.
