Mt. Princeton

Route: East Slopes
Posted On: 5/22/2016, By: skalalaz
Info: The road is open to the radio towers, there is snow on the road starting just after the towers. Still a lot of good spring snow up there, it started getting soft around 10am. There is no need for snow shoes! If you stick to the regular trail the sidehilling makes snow shoe use terrible. After you get off the road head directly up to the top of the ridgeline and take the ridge to the summit. 

Route: East Slopes
Posted On: 5/14/2016, By: AlexeyD
Info: Photo from near BV. Sorry for so-so quality. 

Route: East Slopes
Posted On: 5/12/2016, By: dweiss2
Info: Road is clear to about 1/4 of a mile above the radio towers. Plenty of snow above timberline, spikes are a must and skis would save you a lot of heartache after noon. Wanted crampons on a few spots, but it's manageable. Snowshoes are pretty useless on the summer trail since the snow is so steep. Might be safer and easier to go straight over tiger peak rather than following the summer route. Evidence of small wet loose slides, and a hard slab underneath a thin layer of wind blown snow in the gullies, so be careful if you take the standard route. Tomorrow, the snow will be horrendous to walk on, but doable with skis. 

Route: East Slopes
Posted On: 4/11/2016, By: JulianSmith
Info: East face of Princeton is in OK shape. Microspikes would be very handy both below and above treeline on a cold morning. Snowshoes are probably not necessary. Skiing from the summit is OK, mostly type 2 fun, with some type 1 once you get down on the apron. A lot of thin spots and too many rocks up high to connect everything together from the summit to the bottom. The road is not quite ready to drive up to the radio towers. Mostly it is in good shape up until the final switchback, where you can still run into some trouble. 

Route: East Slopes
Posted On: 3/20/2016, By: Count40
Info: Just in case you are going up before next week's snow and wind. Usual long walk for our dear underappreciated Princeton, but with a touch. Barebooted from TH to radio towers. Stretches of snow, but nothing more than couple of inches. No need for spikes or gaiters. At towers, snowshoes on, though spikes could do for some before it all softens. About quarter mile from towers, snowdrifts buried the road. That is the touch. Awkward (at least) walking all the way to timberline. And some sections just do not look right, safety-wise. See the photo. Today, it was about 4 inches of powder on top of old frosted layers. If with snowshoes, bushwhack shortcut straight up may seem like better and even safer option. One such shortcut is easy to spot about 200 yards after second switchback going up(counting from towers). Seems that on the way down, somebody (just one set of boot tracks) also continued from that point down to the first switchback, in order to avoid that section shown in photo. Which means that some could as well bushwhack up even from that first switchback, through brush. At timberline, instead of continuing to summer turn-off up the same drifts covered road, see if it is better to go right up the hill (red line) to meet the summer trail on the ridge (see photo). After that, you can see the dry option up the Tigger (which, remember, has a bunch of false summits, so be patient, photo). Just barebooting. Could have taken my summer boots today. Ridge also dry all the way to summit (photo). Alternative is to continue the summer trail, through patches of snow etc. Your choice. 

Route: East Slopes
Posted On: 2/22/2016, By: quinnwolf
Info: Left the lower parking lot around 7am. A snowcat packed down the snow all the way to the radio towers. After that traction is necessary. Snowshoes or at least crampons are necessary. We only had crampons and postholed a little, but if it were much warmer, we would have postholed a lot more. There is no packed down trail above the radio towers. We shortcut one switchback on the road where the road looked unsafe to travel. We left the road for the ridge at tree line. The ridge up Tigger is snow free. We summited Tigger then down to the saddle and rejoined the summer trail. The ridge up to Princeton has a few snow fields that can be avoided by going off trail to steeper and less stable sections of the face, but was easier to putting on and taking off crampons every 200 feet. Absolutely beautiful at the top. We summited at 1:30pm. Sunny, low 30s, only a few high clouds, a calm breeze, and amazing views. We took the summer route on the way down. Do not attempt the summer route without crampons, an ice ax, and avalanche experience as there are about 8 steep snow field crossings. Nice hike down from the ridge and along the road. We got back to the parking lot at 6pm. 

Route: East Slopes
Posted On: 2/10/2016, By: RWSchaffer
Info: The road is closed at the parking lot. There is bootpack trench to the radio towers and snowshoe trench to timberline. I climbed the east ridge, which is sufficiently wind-scoured that snow can be avoided (Photo 1). It was also very windy, so I descended the summer route which looks clean from the summit ridge (Photo 2) but actually crosses several fresh windslabs (ex. Photo 3). 

Route: East Slopes
Posted On: 1/1/2016, By: SarahT
Info: Mt. Princeton road is tracked. We did the winter variation up and over Tigger, used snowshoes a bit but probably could have done without. Standard route looks safe at the moment as well. 

Route: East Slopes
Posted On: 10/25/2015, By: dirtbagdame
Info: The access road is now closed to cars. The trail has lots of snow. The snow starts well before the radio tower. From the towers it‘s fairly manageable, but when you cut off onto the actual Princeton trail it gets significantly deeper. I post holed my way up the last mile / mile and a half and don‘t think I would have made it had it not been for my microspikes. I was able to follow footprints most of the way, but lost the trail about .5 mi away from the summit. Slow going. 

Route: East Slopes
Posted On: 10/19/2015, By: Kaydubs17
Info: Started on the trail at 11,600ft just before 8am. The road to get to the top trailhead is pretty brutal if you don‘t have high clearance. We heard some rocks hitting metal far too many times so be cautious. It was snowing once we were at about 12,500ft onward and the peak was completely engulfed in clouds. Passing the sign where the woman was struck and killed by lightening was quite humbling and scary. Made it to the summit around 11:30am (though everyone else on the trail was far faster than us) and back at the car around 3pm. Long day for weak knees and scrambling over boulders the majority of the time. Snow is not yet sticking so may have a little more time to hike without extra gear. 

Route: East Slopes
Posted On: 10/20/2015, By: lostparts
Info: The drive to the upper trail head in my stock Honda Element was trying. We clipped more than a few rocks as there are sections of the road that are potholed and rugged. The trail itself was dry, and no snow had stuck despite random flurries throughout the day. With these good conditions the trail was strenuous. 

Route: East Slopes
Posted On: 10/12/2015, By: jwgrosser
Info: Route is dry and clear of snow from top to bottom. Saw some small patches of snow/hail/ice on the north side of Tigger but they were easy to avoid and are probably gone by this point. At least until the next storm this one is prime real estate for a beautiful fall hike. 

Route: East Slopes
Posted On: 9/14/2015, By: joyfulwriter
Info: Beautiful day to be out - no clouds, lots of sun and great views all along the route, including aspen changing color. Made it past the radio tower (parking there was close to full) in my RAV4 & found parking a bit up the road at a small camp site. Much of the route is over talus which made for a long day for me, but no issues on the trail and - a pleasant surprise - almost no trash, no litter, and no leftover signs at the summit. For a Saturday there were not a lot of people out - in total we saw maybe 20 - 25 all day. 

Route: East Slopes
Posted On: 8/17/2015, By: kristine-l
Info: Hiked Mt. Princeton on 8/15. We started from the cell-tower lot around 6 am. We missed the turn-off from the main road at 11,200‘ (we were talking and distracted - so pay attention!!) and had to backtrack when we relalized we missed it. The trail was easy to follow until we hit the rocks - in that area we just followed what we thought was a good path and probably were off-trail slightly a lot of it. There were lots of people out and on the summit when we arrived around 10 am (we were moving slowly because I wasn‘t feeling great). As always, coming down was tough on the knees - especially in some of the loose rock areas and coming down the road was a bit challenging because of the loose gravel. Great hike and we loved the views of the Buena Vista valley and of Mt. Antero. 

Route: East Slopes
Posted On: 8/15/2015, By: Sunshineof1985
Info: *This is my 23rd peak I‘ve climbed this summer. Read more about this hike and others I‘ve done on my blog sunshineof1985.com :) Time started: 6:00pm End time: 10:50pm Time to Summit: 2 hours and 30 minutes Time to Descent: 2 hours and 20 minutes Overall Pace: 1.7 miles per hour *GEAR (to bring): GPS, extra socks, phone, SPOT Satellite Tracker, Map, Topo Map from 14ers.com, hiking boots with 2 pairs of socks on, long-sleeve, wind-guard/raincoat, light weight puffy coat (didn‘t need), lightweight gloves (didn‘t need), day pack with water sack, snacks. *Road Condition: This road would be perfect for BMX Bikes, mountain bikes, ATV‘s or anything of that sort- I just don‘t know if any of it is allowed? It‘s incredibly hilly, but despite 14ers.com advising only 4WD, I made it 2.5 miles up the road- taking 5 miles off my hike! *Trail Condition: The road is easy to navigate and the pictures easily show you when to turn off onto the trail. From here on, you need to watch where you‘re stepping with every step. The boulders at the beginning are fun in my opinion, but once you get past the easy boulder hopping, it gets much harder to follow the trail. There are trails EVERYWHERE! Due to rock movement, you might think you‘re on a trail, and then all of the sudden it‘ll disappear. Even some cairns are misleading. It can make it a heart pounding ascent fighting with loose scree. Just follow the directions the best you can, and slowly but surely, you‘ll get there.