7/3/2023 Route: North Ridge Posted On: 7/3/2023, By: DestinV Info: The trail is in great condition! Some snow on the upper parts of the final assent but nothing requiring micro spikes. The road to the trail head is in decent shape, any AWD or 4x4 will make it no problem. I would be careful if you're driving a sedan driving a sedan. |
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7/2/2023 Route: North Ridge Posted On: 7/2/2023, By: Skitch Info: Almost summer conditions - couple of snow fields that are avoidable, no need for microspikes. Started at 6:15a, back at the car at 12:30. GPS had 11.1 total with ~5400 elevation gain. Amazing views throughout the hike, especially loved the ridge. Hike back up to notch pass after descending from Holy Cross was honestly not bad at all. One of our favorites! |
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6/26/2023 Route: Cross Couloir Posted On: 7/5/2023, By: kciarlet Info: Got slushy towards the top around 0845. Hitting it much later would have made for a tough ascent. Approach once you leave the standard trail can get tough to follow in the dark. GPS track was helpful. |
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6/25/2023 Route: Cross Couloir Posted On: 6/25/2023, By: slawrence2011 Info: Started N Ridge at 3:30 from summer TH. Treeline at 6. Summit at 8:20. Dropped in just before 9, took skis off around 10:30 when no more snowfields to link, E cross creek at 12:30, car at 2:30. great snow conditions, wouldn't have wanted to be any later. Recommend making sure to stay skier's R of the runnel after the first few turns, as it gets very large very quickly, and would be hard to cross on skis, and skier's right forms the line all the way down. I also side slipped the choke for about 20 feet, turns the rest of the way. A number of climbers coming up, including a couple halfway up to the entrance from the bowl of tears after all skiers/boarders got down. As Jcinco said, recommend topping out by 8, or 9 at the very latest, to save the skiing conditions for maybe a few more days. 2 firsts: I was able to literally ski into the couloir from the summit, and I was able to link snowfields to the bowl of tears, all the way to the little class 2 saddle that gains the upper cliff bands to the bowl of tears. May this snow season keep on giving! |
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6/25/2023 Route: Cross Couloir Posted On: 6/25/2023, By: shepherdkyle Info: Cross couloir still in good shape. No snow shoes needed for approach. Entrance should be obvious with boot pack. |
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6/24/2023 Route: Halo Ridge Posted On: 6/24/2023, By: Veory Info: Ridge is mostly dry, only mandatory snow is up to 13373 and at the top of Holy Cross. The saddle between holy cross and holy cross ridge 13831 has hollow cornice like snow that you could fall inside if you walked on it, so be careful |
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6/23/2023 Route: Halo Ridge Posted On: 6/23/2023, By: Jcinco Info: Didnt climb this but have some photos. May or may not be helpful. Some snow still on the Ridge. 2 Pics from summit of Holy Cross. One pic from Bowl of Tears. |
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6/23/2023 Route: Cross Couloir Posted On: 6/23/2023, By: Jcinco Info: The Cross is about as skiable as it gets this late in the season. See pics. Other big snow years havent had Junes quite this cool, thus things havent completely deteriorated. Yes, there is a 3-4 foot deep runnel, but there is plenty of space on the skiers right side to make comfortable turns. Ive definitely seen worse. Its not smooth earlier season corn, but I was pleasantly surprised. There is only one place about halfway down where the runnel pinches against the right wall where I had to slip/step my way down. Unfortunately, one can only ski down to about 11,700 before the Colorado alpine marsh slog begins. The North Ridge is quite straightforward right now with a few drifts and short snowfields. Temps and traffic may change conditions in the Cross quickly, however. Just above the Bowl of Tears I ran into a party of 7 that was planning on climbing the Cross during the mushiest part of late morning/midday. If you are climbing, I highly recommend planning to top out not much past 8am. I dropped in at 9:15 and wouldnt want to hit it any later. |
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6/22/2023 Route: North Ridge Posted On: 6/23/2023, By: dvex105 Info: Good amounts of the trail are covered with snow. Some you can just cross through. Some might completely cover the trail and can cause you to lose track on where the trail is going. After passing east creek campground and hitting towards the treeline, the snow made my group lose track of the trail and ended up having to go off-trail and just hike in the general direction to the north ridge. For example on Photo #14 on the 14ers.com route description, this is useless as the snow just made us start guessing where the trail is. Because of this, we ended up making our own path to the north ridge in Photo #15. From above the treeline to the summit, most of the trail is covered with snow (can be waist level deep). Ended up doing a mixture of rock scrambling and hiking on the snow along the general direction of the trail. |
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6/18/2023 Route: Cross Couloir Posted On: 6/18/2023, By: Jcinco Info: Anyone have any pics of the Cross from the last few days? |
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6/18/2023 Route: Cross Couloir Posted On: 6/19/2023, By: wyatttannerhughes Info: No photos of the couloir, but some information. The road is closed until next week so expect a 30 mile backpack. After the road opens, it's not bad at all. Next bring the snowshoes. There is lots of snow on the trail leading to the lakes and postholing is plentiful. Use extreme caution if climbing the Couloir is your goal. With the warm, early morning sun and two inches of snow the day before; my climb was sketchy to say the least. A mini slide of a few tons flew right by me about a quarter of the way up the Couly. I made it out with a ton of new knowledge and experience of what to look for. The standard route down was no issue and a very normal downclimb. A great weekend all in all. Stay safe and stay spicy my friends. |
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5/27/2023 Route: Cross Couloir Posted On: 5/29/2023, By: Tartay Info: Flotation needed starting at the summer Trailhead. Snow starts fairly patchy near the TH and gets more and more consistent as you climb the pass. Postholing, even with snowshoes from around 10am on. Extremely slow going. Consistent snow from the campsites to bowl of tears. Flotation needed. Started climb from 12K at 7am and had some postholing from around 12.5-13,000 as the snow was being warmed by rocks. Entering the couloir at 13K, the snow becomes much better and held well all the way to summit. |
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4/30/2023 Route: North Ridge Posted On: 5/1/2023, By: dummycode Info: Continuous snow on road starting at 8,300 feet (half mile from winter TH). Pretty efficient travel with a decent skin track below treeline and fairly solid windboard above. We were able to skin to the summit with only ~50 feet of rock hopping. The couloir itself skied great! Small wind slab (1 foot crown at deepest point) at the top of the couloir and another about halfway down had failed a day or two prior. Wet snow made for a slow egress both in the drainage and down the road back to winter TH. |
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4/9/2023 Route: North Ridge Posted On: 4/11/2023, By: milesmorris Info: Climbed North Ridge, skied Cross Couloir. At and near tree line snow was challenging to travel on as it was continuously collapsing. Be sure there as been a good freeze from when I went to when you go up. Top 1k was challenging as snow was not supportable between rocks (pow). Snow on summit. Cross Couloir had 4in pow on top of a supportable crust (1st dust layer). This dust layer provided a good surface to slide on in had pits at the top of chute. I also observed another layer 8in deep that was a good surface for snow to slide on. Also, large cornices surround the couloir. I would not recommend ascending the couloir anytime soon. Also the couloir does not go all the way through, there is a mandatory double, 6ft to a 15ft air, if you don't exit the couloir skiers right before this choke. Couloir skied very well. Incredible descent! |
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12/26/2022 Route: North Ridge Posted On: 12/27/2022, By: randallson Info: Parked at the winter closure. The road up had a faint snowmobile track from a week or two ago. Tigiwon community house was locked but a window was open. The outhouse at the summer trailhead was also locked. The snowshoeing from here on out was laborious. However, the summer trail was relatively easy to follow and route finding was not an issue. I set up camp at Half Moon Pass. The next morning I took the winter detour to avoid any avalanche concerns on the summer trail. It was deep and tedious snowshoeing down and then up to treeline. The ridge above treeline was was mostly bare rock and was a nice reprieve. |
