8/25/2024 Route: French/Frasco/Casco Combo Posted On: 8/27/2024, By: NotTimid Info: Once you are past the first crossing (right at the trailhead) there is a fair amount of water running down the road especially in the first mile or so. Waded the first crossing in my chacos, the others were manageable with boots/poles though I was glad I was in boots and not in trail runners. |
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7/6/2024 Route: French/Frasco/Casco Combo Posted On: 7/7/2024, By: bethyhewes Info: As previous trip report mentioned, essentially summer conditions with chilly mid-calf crossing South Half Moon creek. Im not sure if I was on the best route, but I found the down climb from Frasco to the saddle between Frasco-Casco to be a little spicier than I was expecting. I was definitely doing some class 3 climbing and found sections of rock to be quite crumbly. Overall totally manageable, but not quite what I was expecting from the route description. |
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10/8/2023 Route: French/Frasco/Casco Combo Posted On: 10/8/2023, By: donovanrice Info: Just shy of continuous snow, approx foot deep, on North Ridge. If descending standard route, would also hit snow below ridge. I instead traversed to Bull Hill and then Elbert |
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9/20/2023 Route: From North Fork Lake Creek Posted On: 9/20/2023, By: PikaSteve Info: About an inch of snow on last 100 feet to the summit. The rest of the French Group has no snow. Creeks are low and easy (with poles) to cross on rocks. Willow and meadow areas all dry. Fiascol slope to Frasco/Casco saddle was dry, and not fun. Other than Fiascol, a nice hike. I avoided the summit snow on the way up by scrambling closer to the ridge. Used microspikes on the way down. On the way up Fiascol, I had a class 3 dirt experience until reaching a rocky rib. On the way down, there was an easy to see Class 2 path traversing south with the added benefit of avoiding some talus hopping at the bottom of the slope. Small amount of aspen starting to turn colors, but very few aspen to see on this route. |
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8/5/2023 Route: French/Frasco/Casco Combo Posted On: 8/6/2023, By: swilson753 Info: Summer conditions. All snow is avoidable. Flowers are still going strong. Register on Casco needs new paper - the envelope someone left is all filled in. |
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6/10/2023 Route: French/Frasco/Casco Combo Posted On: 6/17/2023, By: adamorsubtractem Info: Started from North Halfmoon, crossed the creek, and went up direct French's NW face/ridge. The freeze was very solid, at 7am, so I went up a steep snow gully. Fortunately, I had brought an ice axe, because that gully was definitely on the limit of what was comfortable in microspikes. If I was doing that one again, I'd bring crampons. The north ridge and summit of French was pretty dry. Great views of the surrounding peaks! The ridge from French to Frasco had a lot of snow, but was still frozen nicely around 8:30-9am. The ridge from Frasco to Casco was far softer and postholing was bad on the snow patches when I was making my way across from 9:30-10:15am. I was able to mostly avoid that by sticking to the West side of the ridge, but the going was a bit slower that I anticipated. From Casco's summit, I started down the standard route for a bit, then glisaded off the face into the basin around 11am. I was aiming for the mining road, so it was really 4-5 smaller glisades, but I was thankful for the quick decent. The basin is a mess right now, with a lot of lingering snow. I used snowshoes and was still postholing. I crossed a couple seasonal streams, the main one back to Halfmoon, and then made my way back up the road to North Halfmoon. Totals for the day: 12 miles 4600' Summary: If you're just trying to climb French and are comfortable with no official route, a direct approach from the NW really works well right now. There is minimal snow in the trees and the trees are brief. The snow gully's are great, just bring crampons and an axe. If you're going for the combo, get a early start and bring flotation! |
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5/6/2023 Route: Casco>Frasco Posted On: 5/7/2023, By: Posthole Pete Info: Coverage is quite nice over here. So nice that we had to park .6 mile from the river crossing. Was enough logs to help us get over the creek in the am. Skinned to about 12.5k then switched to pons. Snow was a bit firm off the summit but found very nice pow once I got into the face. Bonus round over to Frasco. Wind helped the south aspect not cook so we had amazing hot pow corn back to the road. |
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10/15/2022 Route: French/Frasco/Casco Combo Posted On: 10/16/2022, By: Hobbes301 Info: A couple inches of snow from Casco's summit to Frasco BM saddle. Microspikes weren't used, just slow and careful footing. The rest of the route was dry from Halfmoon TH. |
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7/9/2022 Route: French/Frasco/Casco Combo Posted On: 7/10/2022, By: CheapCigarMan Info: Class 2+ for a short section around some towers between the Bench Mark and Casco. Stay hikers right (west) from the BM. Marmot sunbathing on summit block. Dropped my headband which the marmot took and ate (empty calories). Flies everywhere on summit. Lots of spiders on the ridge up. Met a guy when I was heading back down. He was heading up to Casco. He did Elbert, Bull, and just below Casco and was heading to French. Hats off to that and Congrats on a great day! Made it back down to the road in time to catch a ride back down the 3 mile road from a Jeep crawler. Thank you sir!!! |
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6/25/2022 Route: Casco/Frasco/French traverse from bull hill Posted On: 6/25/2022, By: halfapackofapache Info: Summer conditions. Wild flowers are beautiful right now. |
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6/20/2022 Route: French/Casco/lackawanna Posted On: 6/21/2022, By: zootloopz Info: Some unavoidable snow going over Franco BM but no spikes or axe required. Otherwise summer conditions! W/ vertical_volume |
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6/18/2022 Route: French/Frasco/Casco Combo Posted On: 6/18/2022, By: merrion13 Info: Completed the trio today from Halfmoon Creek. Water running pretty good right now, brought shoes to cross this morning but on way back today right around 10,900' found an offshoot in the woods that allowed a crossing without having to get wet. Basin has a lot of water in it as you depart the road near Iron Mike, snow was nearly entirely avoidable and likely gone in 2 weeks completely. Brought spikes but never needed them. |
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2/2/2021 Route: French/Frasco/Casco Combo Posted On: 2/3/2021, By: blazintoes Info: From IP closure via Lake Fork went up Lackawanna Gulch bisected Casco and Frasco BM then summited Casco via class 3/4 NW side because the snow was post hole hell on the leeward side. Fun scramble with crampons. Blasted over to Frasco staying on the ridge because again the unfriendly snow conditions. There are a few simple towers to scale. Crampons kept popping off then had one major malfunction where the springy instep bar came loose, bent and disassembled. Got it fixed on top of Frasco as the sun set. Bummer because I was really hoping to see the views from the top of French. Feels good to get er done and the weather was nice. Climbed back up Frasco then plunge stepped down the standard ascent/descent route for these peaks and my crampon was cooperative. Good hard long day with lotsa solo torture trenching. Pretty valley. Strava said 16 miles and 4,700 vertical but it felt like so much more. |
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9/20/2020 Route: French/Frasco/Casco Combo Posted On: 9/21/2020, By: drop_bear Info: Easily avoidable snow on the NE face and north ridge |
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6/28/2020 Route: French/Frasco/Casco via Fiascol/N. Fork TH Posted On: 6/28/2020, By: supranihilest Info: There's no bridge or rock crossing over North Fork Lake Creek, so I took my shoes and pants off and forded the creek. It was ice cold as expected, and very swift. I then stayed on the north side of the creek in Lackawanna Gulch, eventually going up towards Champion, then crossing the creek out of the gulch north of Lackawanna Gulch, up to the shoulder, and to Fiascol. There's a couple of required snowfield crossings in the upper gulch but I did not use traction or an axe. Fiascol is actually not as terrible as I expected, but it does still suck. Steep and crazy loose. Care was taken. The ridge to Casco is fairly straightforward; the lower open section is easy, just go up and around the bottom of the snow field, then to the scrambly part that makes up most of the second half. The rock is pretty solid and route finding (up) is easy. Ridge crest is probably best but there are multiple options. There's one false summit and a final summit scramble onto huge boulders. Class 2+ to Easy Class 3 depending on exact route finding. |
