Sneffles route question

[davebks]

Successful trip! That place is beautiful although the lower lake was pretty packed with people.
I will try and post a trip report later but thanks for the beta. Helped a lot.

[Alliesoto44]

The gully still has snow at the top (summited July 28th). We saw some hikers descending the left ridge to avoid the snow altogether and they suggested it would be easier and safer. All the route descriptions I've found are of the v notch at the top of the gully, but don't include alternative routes like the one we took. It was a steep scramble on an exposed slope to the left of the gully with sparse cairns and sections I was straight up rock climbing. My question is this: what difficulty is this approach if it's rated based on the 1-5 scale? This is only my 3rd 14er and I'd like to continue attempting more challenging summits in the future. It would be helpful to have a better reference of difficulty when reading route descriptions and ratings on this website to better prepare myself.

[highpilgrim]

It was a steep scramble on an exposed slope to the left of the gully with sparse cairns and sections I was straight up rock climbing.

I've done that route. If you take the easiest way, it was third class and not hard.

[DeTour]

It was a steep scramble on an exposed slope to the left of the gully with sparse cairns and sections I was straight up rock climbing. My question is this: what difficulty is this approach if it's rated based on the 1-5 scale?

As highpilgrim suggested, difficulty of the "ridge" to climber's left of the gully depends on your route, especially where you exit the gully. Sounds like you exited fairly high and consequently encountered some spicy climbing. My group descended a similar route after ascending via the southwest ridge, except we descended quite a ways, almost to the saddle, before we dropped into the gully. I don't recall anything difficult or exposed on the descent the way we went. Might have been a bit of class 3 on the final drop into the gully, but minimal.

Roach describes a route that sounds a lot like the descent we took, and rates it as class 2+. He describes the place to exit the gully when ascending as 1/3 of the way up, 300' below the v-notch.

I wouldn't call this alternate a "ridge." It uses the ridge along the gully some, but isn't a distinct ridge route. I called it "south face" when I posted about it in this thread from 2010: http://www.14ers.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... te#p290181

[Alliesoto44]

Thanks for the reply! You are correct in that we exited in an unideal spot because it was easily a good 20 feet of down climbing. The amount of exposure and the loose terrain I found to be rather unpleasant, but better than a rockfall I suppose. Class 3 is no joke! I have done plenty of multi pitch climbing (on ropes of course). I enjoy confronting my fear of heights on most occasions, but Sneffels definitely got the best of me this time around!