5/18/2025 Route: East Face/Couloir Posted On: 5/18/2025, By: VeraUndertow Info: Climbed UN 13,738 from North Halfmoon Creek TH today. The road is drivable all the way to the trailhead, but I stopped .4 miles short where the road gets rougher because I didn't want to deal with it this morning. Started at 5:30 AM and followed the road all the way to the big, Champion Mill building at 11,700, then headed north to go up the lower headwall. Was able to hike in trail runners, to 12,300 or so before I decided switching to boots lower and out of the wind would make sense. Climbed straight up the east couloir of UN 13,738, which had some fairly deep unconsolidated snow in spots. Hit the summit at 10 AM, and transitioned to ski mode and made the drop at 10:20 AM. The snow was nice cold pow for the first 300 feet or so, before the line turns due east and became hot pow with a few roller balls forming. Wild how it heated up so fast even with the wind today, as it was cold and crusty when I went through it on the way up. Then followed the snow back down to champion mill and a little beyond. The snow gets really patchy below 11,500 ft and I was putting my skis on and off a lot, some other folks skied K49 south face and had set some nice postholes for me to follow on the way out after I gave up trying to ski short patches of snow, so Thank You for that! Awesome day, and happy to have gotten this peak in good condition. Bonus pictures of the Indy pass area for those who are interested. |
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6/6/2024 Route: West gully ski Posted On: 6/6/2024, By: SnowAlien Info: The interesting feature of this year's snowpack is/was good coverage of west faces (which is pretty rare). I've wanted to ski the west faces of Champion and UN 13,738 for years and they never seemed to be in. On the drive-by a couple days ago they both look surprisingly promising! Cue in current high temps... :( The approach trail is usual patchy snow until 11.1k, then the snow becomes more continuous. The fist west gully I was interested in has already slid, probably in the last couple days. I decided to skin a little further, and thankfully, the next west gully actually still looked good. I left skins and shoes on the apron and started booting. The sun hit the couloir around 8am, which seemed early for west facing line. The snow softened up quickly. I persevered and eventually reached the ridgeline. From there, it was a simple walk to the snowy summit. The upper part of the line was getting a bit boney, but I was able to do a continuous ski back into the gut. The coverage still looks excellent, but the high temps made the approach a bit more strenuous than it should be. The west face skied as if it were the east face - soft corn instead of teeth-shattering ice! |
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10/22/2023 Route: South Slopes: Champion + PT 13,736 Posted On: 10/22/2023, By: ncxhjhgvbi Info: Absolutely stunning day. Any snow can be avoided besides a patch or so here and there along the ridge from Champion. Lackawanna gulch is exceptionally beautiful! |
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8/31/2023 Route: South Slopes: Champion + PT 13,736 Posted On: 8/31/2023, By: osprey Info: Blazintoes left a selfie in the summit register which is in one the most awesome register containers ever. What is the name of the mountain in the second picture with the Couloir leading to the summit ridge? |
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10/22/2022 Route: South Slopes: Champion + PT 13,736 Posted On: 10/24/2022, By: CheapCigarMan Info: Very little snow to speak of along the ridge and saddle. No traction needed. Almost summer conditions minus the cold and windchill. Absolutely stunning views of surrounding peaks with Grizzly and its couloir most spectacular and impressive to witness. Route finding through the woods on the descent was much better. Cairns were placed appropriately along the way to give clues when needed most. |
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8/25/2022 Route: Traverse from Deer Posted On: 8/26/2022, By: cdgibbons Info: This ridge is long, and parts are loose, but I was able to keep difficulty at class 2 with two short exceptions- about one quarter of the way from Deer to the saddle and about three quarters across, I downclimbed short, solid, class 3 sections in the center of the ridge (second one in photo). There were class 2 options to the west, but they looked uncomfortably loose to me. Everything else was on the ridge crest or to the west. Ascent to PT 13,736 is steep class 2. New register as of 6 weeks ago. |
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7/22/2022 Route: loop from Deer Posted On: 7/24/2022, By: zootloopz Info: Summer conditions! Loop of UN 13,500, Twining Peak, UN 13,545, UN 13,202, Deer Mountain, UN 13,736, and Mount Champion. Storms moved in earlier than we anticipated so we skipped adding on UN 13,300B and K49. Beautiful ridge as far as the Sawatch goes with some opportunities for class 3 and occasional 4th. Fun to get 4 bicents in one day!! |
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7/10/2022 Route: South Slopes: Champion + PT 13,736 Posted On: 7/11/2022, By: kwhit24 Info: Instead of wasting time trying to cross a dry place on the creek we opted to just bring sandals and walk across. The creek crossing was mostly 6" deep but some spots can get close to knee depending on where you step. Good wake up and not all that difficult. I packed my sandals with me for the crossing at the end and the others tossed theirs back across. Followed a solid game trail until we turned up the slope. The trail we were on (yellow) ended up being a little more north (right) of Ben's (orange) and Bill's (red) tracks. You can see the difference in the screenshots of the tracks. Raj's track (blue) went up a steeper and bushier area. Definitely recommend going as far as Bill's route shows plus we went by some old mine ruins. Once on the ridge it is pretty obvious to PT 13,736. We wanted to make this a loop so we had some information that told us we could go down the NW ridge and then at 13,400' we turned due west down the drainage which was steep grass. Once we got towards the bottom we were able to pick our way through the bushes via rock drainages and game trails without much bushwhacking. We found a few good rocks to cross the creek and stay dry. It was south of the rock pile area near the creek. It looks like Ben's route going all the way down the NW ridge was much gradual but may have lead to a little more bushwhacking back to the good trail. After the creek crossing we headed down the North Fork Lake Creek Trail which was muddier than I expected since the lower part of the trail is dry. (7.78 mi; 3,414' gain; 5:35:58 total time) Start at TH 5:55am; Mt. Champion 8:20am (15min on top); PT 13,736 9:10am (15min on top); Back to TH 11:30am |
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9/9/2021 Route: South Slopes: Champion + PT 13,736 Posted On: 9/9/2021, By: angry Info: Alpine start of 1pm. Route description says the combo is only 7 miles and 3600' gain but Gaia had me well over 8 miles and 4100' gain and I was on the defined trail. Just fyi in case anyone is under time constraints. I didn't have anywhere else to be so no worries. There isn't a summit register. |
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6/18/2021 Route: Via Deer Posted On: 6/19/2021, By: JosephG Info: Ridge from Deer > UN 17,736 > Champion is snow free. Creek remains high, making crossing it on the way out an adventure. |
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10/30/2020 Route: Opposite direction Posted On: 10/30/2020, By: Makbrad Info: Ascended UN 13,736 first and traversed the ridge to Champion. Opted for an alternative exit route out of the forest to avoid the avalanche path and crossed lower on the river which is partially frozen. Agree with the post made about Lackawanna conditions, very similar on the other side. The approach was compact in the morning, only slick in a couple spots but did not micro up there. I put microspikes on for the ridge. Plenty of slick unstable snow. Choose your own adventure on the traverse. There's plenty of snow on the ridge too, which may be deceiving from below. Descent was another story as mentioned in the other conditions report for Lackawanna...boot skiing and route finding through the forest on the way down and out. I did a different loop and came through the avalanche area several weeks back and I noticed many new trees down this time. Will add photos later this weekend. |
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9/6/2020 Route: via Deer Mountain Posted On: 9/6/2020, By: LetsGoMets Info: Dry as expected. Approached from Deer Mountain - ridge between the two goes as an easy straight forward class 3 except for the last obstacle (down climb) to the low point on the ridge before climbing 13736. That section was a stout 3 with a good amount of loose rock to navigate and exposure. At the low point there is a bail out option west back into the valley that is plainly visible. |
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6/28/2020 Route: From Champion w/ Northwest Ridge Descent Posted On: 6/28/2020, By: supranihilest Info: The ridge between Champion and 13,736 is completely dry. The flanks are pretty loose but also pretty easy. The ridge crest may be your best option, though it might be slightly more difficult, so choose between easier and looser on the flanks and harder and more solid on the crest. I descended the northwest ridge (so I didn't have to resummit Champion, and to see a different part of North Fork drainage) and it's a long but easy ridge. Plenty of tundra and a fair amount of Class 2+ to Easy Class 3 scrambling on solid rock. The southern side of the ridge is lots of cliffs so it's best to just go down until you have a clear path through the willows to the creek to the west, then jump or wade the creek, continuing west until you find the trail. There's tons of marshy stuff/willows/creek crossings but I was able to keep my feet completely dry with careful route finding and jumping over the creeks - you're unlikely to find any trees or rocks to cross on. |
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10/19/2019 Route: South Slopes: Champion + PT 13,736 Posted On: 10/19/2019, By: WildWanderer Info: See Mt Champion report. Picture is of route from Champion to 13736. No traction needed. |
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9/26/2017 Route: South Slopes: Champion + PT 13,736 Posted On: 9/26/2017, By: JasonKline Info: Some snow on traverse between Champion and 13,736, but no need for traction (yet). Rest of route was snow-free. |
