Mt. of the Holy Cross

Route: Halo Ridge
Posted On: 6/14/2021, By: Joey Long
Info: Biked FSR 707 to Halfmoon Trailhead, camped and climbed the Halo Ridge route the following day in counterclockwise direction (Halfmoon trail to Fall Creek Trail). Only minor post-holing in small snow patches going up the North Ridge and in some places coming down the Notch Mountain Trail. Otherwise the route is completely dry. No traction or flotation needed. 

Route: Cross Couloir
Posted On: 5/19/2021, By: ejfahren
Info: Started at winter TH with skis on MTB. Ditched bikes at ~6 mi. Skinned up shaded snow avoiding the melted out road to summer TH, then up over pass. Descent down West side of Half Moon Pass was junk isothermal snow mixed with long dry sections. Slow going in both directions. Camped at campground. 2-3" wet snow overnight. Summit by 945 am. Skinned to 13800', easy billy goating to summit. Peak was socked in, low vis, but slow warming. Couloir recently flushed, so skiing was soft and confidence inspiring to typical exit. Snow in the valley isn't freezing overnight, so mostly isothermal SLOGfest through bowl of tears back to camp. Up and over pass early afternoon in heavy wet snow to a fast MTB descent for the last 6 miles to the car. With the absence of overnight freezes below 12k, might be easier to get this after the road opens again. Much easier and shorter approach. 

Route: Cross Couloir
Posted On: 4/19/2021, By: JacobW
Info: Knocked out Holy Cross in a day, from the winter trailhead. We started at ~2:30 AM and only had to hike about a half of a mile before we switched to skinning. Made it up to the summer trailhead in 3 hours. The west side of half moon pass is pretty rough right now (but it's always that way this time of year). We were able to skin all the way from Cross Creek to the summit, via the north ridge. This required some abuse to the skis and skins on the summit push, but it was way better than booting the crust-over-rocks. Made the summit a bit later than expected (11:30). Luckily, it had been very cold all morning and the snow didn't feel that affected. There was some wet-loose movement at the top of the couloir, so I ski cut as much of that out as I could. This actually released an 8" slab _of old snow) about half way down the couloir which rocketed all the way into the bowl of tears. Relieved that I was able to trigger that from above, and noticing that everything funnels nicely down the center of the couloir, we enjoyed a great descent sticking mostly to the right side and not spending too much time in the center. Instead of going for the rappels, we opted to exit at the usual spot ~3/4 of the way down. We were able to ski cleanly all the way down the bowl of tears and cut a little high to catch the summer trail at the highest switchback. This required some steep skinning and a little booting. From there, it was pretty easy to skin to the top of half moon pass. We skied cleanly to the summer trailhead, then had to skate/skin the first section of road before skiing as far down we could. We skied to 8375', with only needing to boot one, short section. A lot of this was done by carefully picking ways to skip switchbacks and avoid sections of the road that were more south facing. With the new snow this week, I imagine conditions will be similar next weekend, but it could be a bit more melted out. In all, it worked out to 21.2 miles and 7,960' vert. 

Route: North Ridge
Posted On: 3/9/2021, By: angry
Info: Booted from road closure to th. Snowshoes to ~12,200, stashed em right after the first big cairn. Didn't use traction. Day tripped and sleep walked the road miles out. Full value day! 

Route: North Ridge
Posted On: 3/7/2021, By: RobLowe
Info: Tigiwon road was hard packed in areas by snowmobiles. There was an old skin track up to half moon pass from the summer trailhead. Looks like that person skied back down Tigiwon rather than into Cross Creek. As is typical, taking the slope into Cross Creek is the most puckering experience of Holy Cross in winter or spring. Cross Creek and Holy Cross were pristine — no human tracks observed. Wore flotation to 12,500'. Traction not necessary, yet. 31.2 miles RT as a day trip. 

Route: North Ridge
Posted On: 1/18/2021, By: LePistoir
Info: If not completely buried, the skintrack is now there. Be careful stepping off it though because you will go to the bottom, even with skins/snowshoes. There are patches of bulletproof crust as well. I skinned from Hwy 24 on snowmobile packed road with some skintrack shortcuts. The rest of the way to Cross creek was generally fine as long as I could stay on the old snowshoe track. From camp, the old tracks helped all the way to treeline. I stashed skis there but might recommend using flotation (ski crampons necessary) all the way to the turn from flat ridge to summit pyramid at 13430'. There is a mostly continous strip of snow at the edge of the ridge that provides relatively smooth and navigable terrain vs the rock hopping or postholing at random intervals of the snow-covered trail. The speed of descending on skis completely justifies the handful of times you need to dismount to portage over a break in the snowcover. Skiing down from half-moon pass was generally settled pow or mixed crusts and took about 15 minutes. The skins are necessary for the first mile of road back toward the highway, but from there, it was just a long, long schuss down the road. Thanks to all who packed the road and trail before me this winter. 

Route: North Ridge
Posted On: 1/3/2021, By: arnavxv
Info: Attempted Holy Cross, wanted to do as a two night trip. Pulled a sled on 01/01 to the end of Tigwon Rd. Only the first half mile or so had snowmobile traffic. After that I was following a skin track, and soon starting 9,500' I was breaking trail. Camped a quarter mile down the holy cross trail. Next morning when I woke up, someone had come during the night and broken a trail to a bit past half moon pass, very grateful. I soon followed that, but at around 11,200ish after the pass. the trail that was broken went in a different direction from the trail. I followed it for half a mile downhill before realizing, and turned around. I then started to travel on the proper summer trail (shorter mileage, less gain), until I reached a few sketchy avy slopes I would have to cross from about 11,100' to 10,800'. I then realized the other climber took the detour to avoid these slopes (also see his trip report little while ago). At this point, I had done too much backtracking and even if I had went for Holy Cross, I wouldn't have had enough water to make the return trip. I turned around, packed up camp, and sledded back to tigwon rd. Thankfully, now about half the road was snowmobile packed. Also, snow was terrible. You're postholing to your knees in snowshoes because with every step the weak layer collapses. 

Route: North Ridge
Posted On: 1/3/2021, By: Will_E
Info: Summitted Holy Cross today. The snowmobiles are not running all the way to the trailhead, and the Tigiwon House is closed and locked. The snowmobile track went up the road about 4 miles. From there, there was a track from a camper that was pulling a sled. I started without snowshoes, but eventually (I think around mile 6) put them on. From the start of the TH, there was a short trench to where the aforementioned camper was set up. I trenched beyond that point, much of the snow was very deep. I trenched to the right just before the trail heads left beyond Half Moon Pass, to avoid the avy danger there. I don't always make a great trench, but this one's quality work. I was in snowshoes well past treeline. From there to the final ridge it was a bit annoying, there's a lot of snow up high, and not a lot of rocks poking through, so a fair amount of postholing. 

Route: North Ridge
Posted On: 11/8/2020, By: pcj127
Info: Conditions as described in previous post 11/5. Storm blew in by the afternoon and evening, should be at least a few new inches of snow above treeline by Sunday. 

Route: North Ridge
Posted On: 11/5/2020, By: RWSchaffer
Info: Snow covers much of the trail, but it is generally only a few inches deep. Spikes were very useful for the climb to Half Moon Pass, which is well packed, and occasionally useful thereafter. Gaiters were useful for deeper pockets, mid-calf, above timberline. Floatation would have been useless. Existing tracks follow the summer trail faithfully for about a mile beyond the creek crossing. Then they begin to loose the trail, with several tracks taking separate routes to the ridge crest. Once on the ridge crest, most tracks again follow the summer trail (pictured). Most but not quite all of the summer trail has at least one boot track on it, though it will take some care to determine which boot track to follow. 

Route: Halo Ridge
Posted On: 10/15/2020, By: jasongraves99
Info: Not enough snow to need microspikes or an axe. It was cold and windy as balls though 

Route: North Ridge
Posted On: 9/30/2020, By: Rex_Grant
Info: Trail was dry and clear of snow the entire way up. Very windy and a little smoky/hazy on top but still stunning vistas. Route finding is pretty difficult once you get to the very top but even off trail, the rock field is pretty manageable (even with a dog). That 1K of elevation gain on the way back tho... There were several dispersed campsites along the road up. Slept in my car about a mile from the TH but there were plenty of folks sleeping in their cars at the TH. 

Route: North Ridge
Posted On: 9/28/2020, By: cvbuffs
Info: Windy day to get to the top, but no snow or traction needed. Trail is in great condition with nearly no route finding needed up until the very top, which becomes a bit of a choose your own adventure scramble if you happen to lose the trail for a minute. But there are well marked posts to guide you. There is a stream if you need water for the final ~2.75 mile climb back up the pass and to the lot to wrap up the day. The final 1000+ ft of climbing after the end of an already long hike is a slog, but should take most people around 45 minutes to reach the top of the pass, and from there it's all downhill. Roughly 6 hours round trip. 

Route: North Ridge
Posted On: 9/24/2020, By: peterlarson13
Info: Minimal/no snow. Route was clearly marked. 

Route: North Ridge
Posted On: 9/20/2020, By: seayachter
Info: Dry all around, definitely summer conditions. Windy and cold on the summit. This is a great route/peak, could be my favorite in the Sawatch.