6/14/2025 Route: Northeast Ridge Posted On: 6/14/2025, By: Boggy B Info: About as perfect conditions as you could hope for. After the stream crossing, all snow to the ridge, then options to stay mostly dry to the summit. The last mantle is filled in with snow, which also covers the summit. Firm up until 7am or so, then got soft fast. Trail runners + ice axe were sufficient. |
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8/12/2024 Route: East Side from Governor Basin Posted On: 8/12/2024, By: Grover Info: Agree with Kiefer's recent statement: "This mountain is best done as a snow climb, per Summit Lounger." Camped at ~11,180 where the creek crosses the 4x4 road. Drove up and into Govenor Basin. HIke from the road to a grassy bench filled with colorful wildflowers is the best thing to happen to you until reaching the summit block. Savor it. If you have hiked up Three Needles, the suffer-fest up the awful scree slope will bring back fond memories. Summit block itself is a puzzle, and there are many options, depending on your level of spiciness. |
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8/4/2024 Route: Eastern Slopes Posted On: 8/4/2024, By: Kiefer Info: All I'll say, is arrive early. Traffic up Yankee Boy has increased as of late. Governor Basin Road is not hard, but it is narrow. There's a small snowfield down below before you reach the delightful talus slope. But it's avoidable. Everything dry above this. This mountain is best done as a snow climb, per Summit Lounger. And I believe him. It's borderline hazardous when dry. Summit block is confusing. |
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7/6/2024 Route: Yankee boy 11450 Posted On: 7/6/2024, By: Skimo95 Info: Cirque Gilpin Emma today. Cirque is sweet, Gilpin sucks unless youre splitboarding it, and Emma is a slut. Snow on the last two, just a fun little loop. Ridge between Emma and Gilpin is a death trap. 8.5mi 4,500 exiting Sneffels creek |
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7/8/2023 Route: Governor Basin Posted On: 7/10/2023, By: slawrence2011 Info: Started from 10,7 at YBB / GB road junction at 5 AM. Followed road, but we turned left and crossed difficult crossing, rather than going right through gate, which made access to Governor basin much more difficult with steep class 2+ / class 3 side hilling and scrambling to gain the upper road, where we could have just gone up easy snow all the way. From D Baker's previous report, not sure if the gated road that goes direct is private, sounds kind of like the upper one we took is, which I wish I hadn't. Anyway, from the base of the Cirque, not many continuous ski lines left, but low angle grass got us to continuous snow, then traversed left to gain a snow weakness from left to right, gained the ridge on snow, and followed S ridge up a class 5 (but secure and not exposed) squeeze, and a few more class 4 moves to the summit. My partner went a different way, and gained the ridge further N than me via very steep scree that sounded worse (though probably less technical). Bob Garrett's book describes gaining from Gilpin saddle, and everyone's CR and TR sounds like a different route, many possibilities! I reversed the ridge and skied down snow, then traversed skier's right to and climbed a cool couloir in the middle (I believe climbers' left of true summit), of San Sophia ridge that is useless for gaining any summit, but offers great skiing from the ridge to within less than a mile of where we parked on lower GB road. Mendota cross and T5 look great, left them on the table, hopefully next weekend! |
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6/10/2023 Route: from Governor Basin Posted On: 6/11/2023, By: d_baker Info: Slept at TH, which for now is before the bridge crossing (just after junction w/Yankee Boy road) as the road into Governor Basin is snowed in heavily and unless the County does snow removal on that road (not sure if they do), it will be unpassable for quite some time. Started at 3:50ish a.m. Back by 1ish p.m. gaia has me at ~2950' vert gained & ~5.5 miles. I'm slow. (a few breaks, long one on summit talking with a guide that came up behind us, forgot name...) But it was nice out! I carried snowshoes. Didn't need to. Snow stayed firm for us with a mostly clear skies night and decent freeze. I used crampons and axe and I also carry a wippet which is nice on steeper sections. Wore bucket on my head too. Blazin Amy and I went into lower Governor Basin (through Private Property, fwiw, but I'm friends with one of the owners and had permission) and went up N facing slopes through treed and steep gullies to reach the upper portion of the road. In hindsight and after descending the back headwall of lower Gov. Basin, we should have just gone up that way to upper Gov. basin. Oh well. Amy had a track that is on this site, provided by alexhenes. We referenced it a few times, and in the end maybe should have followed it? Mostly in relation to how they gained the ridge to go to the summit. We went up to the ridge to far to the S, essentialy due E of the Mountain Queen Mine (as seen on a map) and had to bypass a tower on its E side. The W side had steep slopes with cliffy areas below that didn't look inviting and would have had us on the wrong side of "standard" route. I'm sure it would go but we opted not to do that. Traversed E side of tower, and traversed, and then dropped a little, and low and behold we were in the grungy standard dry route to the ridge. From there, it all came together and we got to the snow capped summit blocks. Wasn't sure which was the summit so we walked the snow line to most of the bumps. Descended the snow-free grungy slope (Amy glissaded a thin strip of snow) back to the upper bench and caught up to our ascent track and to our stashed poles and my snowshoes. I found your golf ball in Governor Basin, in case you're still searching for it... |
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9/26/2022 Route: Governor Basin Posted On: 9/27/2022, By: dwoodward13 Info: Left the road at 12.2k' and headed up toward an old mining trail on above the hillside. Followed this around a few outcroppings and headed toward the ascent gully. Its pretty lose in spots, but not terrible. We descended further descenders right, and that was a bit better. There are numerous options to reach to summit block. We tried to stick to the more protected options, even if the climbing was harder. The first chimney was pretty well marked and Class 3. Once on top of that there are several options. We chose to ascent a Class 4 chimney with a narrowing about halfway up. Fun climbing. Required a small hop down once at the top to go over to the summit. Descending we chose a different option which was much looser/sketchier. I'd recommend ascending/descending the way we did, which is detailed in Hoot's TR. |
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7/20/2022 Route: Governor's Basin Posted On: 7/20/2022, By: JasonKline Info: Summer conditions. The summit gully really is as narrow as advertised--I had to take off my backpack to ascend. |
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5/16/2021 Route: North Face Posted On: 5/16/2021, By: osprey Info: The road to Governor Basin is clear until immediately after crossing the bridge which is where I parked. It is not possible to drive farther than the bridge. Trekking poles were sufficient until the slopes steepened where I added crampons and exchanged one pole for an axe. Upon reaching the summit block the route goes to the left up a broad Couloir which leads to the summit. So of course I went to the right and went up a narrow Couloir which narrowed even more up higher. These led to a false summit which was entirely snow. The narrow ridge from the false to the summit was also snow no more than 8 inches wide with steep drop offs on each side. The summit was about 4 inches wide of snow so I straddled the summit rather than standing on it. It was a spectacular finish. My terminal case of Ludditeism prevents me posting pictures but they can be sent via text. 9seven0 7Three9 333six. |
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9/20/2020 Route: Govenors Basin Posted On: 9/20/2020, By: angry Info: One unavoidable snow patch on the down climb of notch to reach summit. |
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7/3/2020 Route: From Governor Basin Posted On: 7/4/2020, By: WildWanderer Info: All snow is avoidable. Summit and scrambling to summit are dry. Small creek to cross before starting the hike. I was able to avoid getting my feet wet by jumping across to multiple dry areas. |
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8/30/2019 Route: via Governor's Basin Posted On: 8/30/2019, By: Hoot Info: Emma was snow-free from Governor's Basin today. You can drive really high in the basin on the easy 4WD road. Fun scrambling at the top! |
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8/6/2019 Route: NE ridge Posted On: 8/6/2019, By: tdawg012 Info: Lots of snow in N-NE facing gullies. Had to get creative on NE ridge. Would suggest ascending from SE ridge via Governors or traverse to SE ridge from Yankee. Also, Gilpin has snow on its north ridge but can be avoided. Main issue there is super saturated soil which seems to make talus all the more slidey and dangerous. T5 holds lots of snow still and looks like one would need traction and axe particularly for pinch spots |
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6/8/2018 Route: Standard Posted On: 6/8/2018, By: illusion7il Info: Steep snow blocks what I believe would be the easiest route to the summit on the north side, but I was able to string together a series of nasty gullies on the south side. |
