5/27/2018 Route: Southwest Slopes Posted On: 5/28/2018, By: SkyGirl Info: Drive up to the upper 4WD TH wasn't bad; two stream crossings, with the water being a little higher in the afternoon. Not summer conditions class 1 walk up yet. Quite a bit of snow to negotiate, which is very slick early in the morning, soft with lots of post holing in the afternoon. Large sections of the trail is covered with snow and what's visible is muddy or streaming with water in the afternoon (lower on the route). Beautiful hike, this has become my favorite 14er. |
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5/26/2018 Route: East Slopes Posted On: 5/27/2018, By: noexit33 Info: Trail was great most of the way up and very doable without any traction or flotation. Mostly clear of snow but did get very muddy. I got kind of a late start (10:30) and by the time I got to 12000, the trail was a small creek. Some soft snow to cross with minimal post-holing at that time, but only one real significant section where you couldn't go around. Only saw a couple other people on that trail but there were probably more on the standard route. |
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5/19/2018 Route: West Slopes Posted On: 5/24/2018, By: WVMountaineer Info: Copy paste from the Forum response. I double summitted Sunshine and Redcloud last Friday and handies on Saturday. I stayed at the Mill Creek Campground Thursday night at the bottom of the East ridge route. Started 5:30 am Friday and hiked East Ridge to Sunshine then hiked the ridge to Redcloud and back. The trail is dry and no traction was needed. There was another group of 2 that hiked the standard route but I didn't ask how the conditions were. I'd recommend the standard route to avoid the steep loose forest section on East Ridge. There's a few snowfield crossing on the ridge to get over to Redcloud. Round trip for Sunshine+Redcloud was 11.2 miles with 5275' of elevation gain - 8.5 hrs. round trip for me Drove to the American Basin trailhead that day to check out the conditions at the East Ridge TH and to see if I could make it to American Basin TH. Road is clear to both options and the water crossings aren't more than 8 inches deep and wasn't a problem for my Tacoma. I hiked up the west slopes of Handies to get a little more of a workout and that was a very bad idea - it's 2000 ft of elevation gain over that last mile to summit with no snow and all loose stuff. Take the southwest slopes and enjoy the hike. There's lots of snow crossing on the SW slopes but if you summit by 9 and get down quickly, you'll have good traction without any postholing. I didn't use traction but my poles were a big help on the snow. Below are some summit photos but somehow I put the wrong summit date on the Sunshine/Redcloud signs... |
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5/10/2018 Route: East Slopes Posted On: 5/11/2018, By: RobLowe Info: No snow until 12,000'. Real nice snow for skiing from 12,000' to 13,700'. Summit ridge melting out. Dramatic change from prior reports. Likely this weekend will be the last weekend that this is skiable. |
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4/23/2018 Route: East Slopes Posted On: 4/23/2018, By: jmanner Info: Intermittent posthole-y snow from parking lot to about 1.25 miles, then continuous snow to summit. Northeast face skied great. Easy face has some lines that could go, but it's thin. FYI: If you ski it in the next week or two, I'd suggest hitting the creek bed/basin as soon as is it starts to open up above 11,500', and then skiing it out stay on the north side of the creek until about a half or third of mile from the TH. That could save you a good hour or more round trip. |
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3/17/2018 Route: SE ridge via Boulder Gulch Posted On: 3/22/2018, By: Wildernessjane Info: We did Handies via the SE ridge this past weekend. We parked at the Cataract Gulch TH. There was a big mound of snow blocking the road so we were not able to drive up any further. We put our snowshoes on about a mile up the road. We did have to contend with some deep snow in sections and there was trail breaking to be had but it wasn't too bad. |
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1/3/2018 Route: Boulder Gulch- SE Ridge Posted On: 1/3/2018, By: RyGuy Info: The standard winter route on Handies does still have some snow, but not much. A decent 4WD can make it about a mile past the typical road closure at Cataract Gulch. Beyond that, the road quickly turns icy with several downed trees. The turn off into the basin isn't too hard to find, but there is actually some decent knee-deep snow in the forest as you head up towards treeline. There are several slide paths to cross on the way up as well. The existing snow is very faceted and unconsolidated. Overall the route is fairly safe right now due to the lack of snow, but another decent storm will likely return this route to it's more typical avalanche prone form. Expect an 8-10 mile and 4,000-4,800 vertical day depending on where you are able to park. We did not take snowshoes, just microspikes. They were quite helpful crossing the ice flows on the road, and also on some icy sections higher up. Also beware, this route does have a short class 3 section that requires a bit of scrambling on loose conglomerate rock. |
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11/30/2017 Route: East Slopes Posted On: 12/1/2017, By: RWSchaffer Info: The Cinnamon Pass road that leads to the standard Handies trailheads is barricaded for the season 3.5 miles below the Grizzly Gulch trailhead. Fortunately, those 3.5 miles are mostly flat, though they start steep, and still generally dry. Most of the trail is covered by thin snow. Where it is deepest, near timberline, several stretches are shin deep and occasional pockets are knee deep. This doesn't require floatation, but it is tiresome to walk through. Spikes were useful in the upper gulch because of patches of sun and wind crust on steeper terrain. The trail is easy to find below timberline. Above timberline, I found somewhat less than half of it on the ascent and much of the remainder on the descent. Even in current conditions, the trail is probably the best line to the summit. |
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10/22/2017 Route: Southwest Slopes Posted On: 10/22/2017, By: hikingbandit Info: Tried to get to the trailhead last night (Saturday) using a 2WD. Made it to the Grizzly Gulch trailhead. After that, there was snow on the hill and my car could not make it up. It was clear from tracks that other vehicles did not have the same issue. |
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10/15/2017 Route: Southwest Slopes Posted On: 10/16/2017, By: alyannkar Info: I hiked this route towards the late afternoon for a sunset hike. The trail had little bits of snow in the areas that see less sun, but by the time I was there, most of the snow had softened so I did not need any traction. The longest stretch of snow is on the talus after passing Sloan Lake. My hiking partner used traction for this area. |
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10/7/2017 Route: East Slopes Posted On: 10/7/2017, By: Dan_Suitor Info: Trail was dry until around 13,000 ft. then I encountered snow. Crusty on top and punched through about calf deep in places. So I'd recommend gators unless you like cold ankles. As it got steeper I put on micro-spikes and broke out the axe for safety. I would not say they are 100% required but gave me peace of mind on a few steep slick areas where I was unable to heel kick into the snow. I'd recommend carrying them as a just in case. You can follow my tracks which should help. Hope this info helps. Dan |
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10/1/2017 Route: Southwest Slopes Posted On: 10/3/2017, By: go_nad Info: Last weeks storm brought some snow with it for sure. We had on just our hiking boots and they were fine for most of the hike, but the steep hill just before Sloan lake was about shin deep, and there were a few drifts up to knee deep on the ascent up to the saddle. Gators and snowshoes are recommended! |
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9/3/2017 Route: Southwest Slopes Posted On: 9/3/2017, By: Jon1702 Info: Literally true that the hardest part of the hike is the drive to the trailhead. I admit, as a 4x4 newbie, the drive kept my heart pounding the whole time (just google image "cinnamon pass shelf road" and you'll see what I mean). The hike itself was not bad at all as far as 14ers go. Trail is in perfect condition. Lots of opportunities to filter water from streams and falls. The view of American Basin is stunning, and arguably the best summit view I've seen yet. |
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9/3/2017 Route: Southwest Slopes Posted On: 9/4/2017, By: KristineL Info: Hiked Handies on Sunday morning after camping in American Basin the night before. We got up around 4:30, started hiking at 5:15, hit the saddle at 6:45 and summit at 7:15. We think there were 3 people ahead of us on the SW slopes and we passed a lot around the saddle heading up when we hit the saddle again around 8. It was busy near Sloan's lake when we hit that section and busy below that - this hike seems to get pretty busy (likely because it's shorter) with day-hikers and we probably passed at least 50 people heading up (while we were heading down) between our descent from 8 to 9:30 - it's been one of our busiest 14ers recently! We did get to see a paraglider between the saddle and the summit - he launched around 7! The trail is great and easy to follow. We missed the lake on our way up (its just off the trail, but the trail doesn't go right next to it) in the dark, but stopped on our way down to see it. The final pitch from the saddle to summit is steeper than the rest of the hike and has some small gravel/sandy sections which can make it tough - so take your time on that! |
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9/2/2017 Route: Southwest Slopes Posted On: 9/4/2017, By: tcphoto87 Info: Probably one of the easiest 14ers I've done. The final stretch sucked a bit with the loose gravel. I brought my pug with me and she summited her first 14er, and this was my 15th. We parked at the parking lot at the end of the road but it wasn't much fun in a couple spots to go over. The trail was in pretty great shape other than the very top. We left just in time and went up Cinnamon Pass when it started to rain and we could see lightning flashes all around us |
