Gold Dust Peak

Route: Negro Basin
Posted On: 9/25/2024, By: rachel
Info: See my trailhead update about the road to Fulford Cave trailhead (road 415 closed until October 15). I started from Fulford Cave trailhead, hiked the well established Lake Charles trail, continued up a cairned climbers trail to Negro Basin, and then to the summit of Gold Dust. Since I was solo, I elected not to take the ridge traverse to Pika. Rather, I dropped the basin and climbed the loose gully and easy blocky/ talus to the summit of Pika. Route was entirely snow-free. 12.5 mi, 5560 roundtrip. Took 10.5 hrs with plenty of time for pictures of the fall colors. Gore Range appeared completely dry. Elks and Sawatch had snow, primarily on north sides, gullies, and above treeline. 

Route: from Lake Charles
Posted On: 8/21/2024, By: ScottLovesRMNP
Info: Gorgeous area with lots of alpine lakes. Holy Cross Wilderness is a favorite of mine. Climbed Gold Dust and Pika, but avoided their connecting ridge, thus dishing out a lot of mileage, elevation, and talus. Class 2+ rating is accurate for both peaks. Mostly just want to caution that the dirt road FR415 leading to the standard TH is undergoing road work, and on my way out, I got stuck for 50 minutes behind the project, in which there was nothing I could do but just waste time, as the huge trucks were clogging the entire road and could do nothing to let me by. Plan extra time for this if you go this way soon, as the project appears to be ongoing for some time to come. 

Route: Gold Dust to Pika traverse
Posted On: 8/19/2024, By: SionaRW35
Info: Route finding on the traverse has one tricky spot near the towers near the saddle between the two peaks. We went Gold Dust to Pika and had to drop down to the west to just below 12,600 (climbers right) to circumvent the unclimbable towers. Summit register is non existent on Gold Dust but there is one on Pika in good condition. 

Route: West Ridge from Lake Charles
Posted On: 7/8/2024, By: rhammond530
Info: The bushwhack into Negro Basin was straightforward and dry. There were a several avoidable snowfields on the lower edge of the south face of the west ridge. The north face of the summit ridge held snow, but we mostly stayed true to the ridge to get to the east edge of the summit block. 

Route: Pika-Gold Dust and Eagle N Ridge
Posted On: 9/27/2023, By: Kbrown321
Info: Camped at Lake Charles 9/23 and did the N Ridge of Eagle and Pika-Gold Dust on 9/24. Snow in pockets on northern facing aspects (ended up bailing on the Fools N Ridge after seeing scattered snow pockets on the face from Lake Charles), southern aspects totally dry, didnt use spikes for either ridge. Snow didnt materially impact Eagle N Ridge, but did spice up the descent off Pika. The class 4 chimney in between the towers on Pika-GD was snowed in, so I dropped around the northern tower on the west side on gullies that were very loose and somewhat sketchy (overall was surprised by the looseness on Pika-GD but that was definitely the most attention catching part). If going Pika-GD be advised that youre down climbing the cruxes, snow on the GD ridge forces a cl4 move right at the end, and the descent off GD is lots of talus. Eagle N ridge was a really fun and solid class 3 and can be easily accessed from easy talus up to the Pika-12940 saddle! Ridge is definitely easiest run towards Eagle as youre climbing up the harder sections and majority of the time, but was fun both directions. 

Route: Pika to Gold
Posted On: 7/15/2022, By: blazintoes
Info: From the Fulford TH we hiked 5 miles up the Lake Charles trail with mosquitoes in full force. They followed us all the way up Pika. This trail reminded me of hiking up to Crater Lake but less people and moose. It would have been nice to hang out at the lakes sans skeeters but there were a couple brave tents up there. We went up some blocky slabs and then Pika's west flank with endless talus that moved underfoot occasionally but overall was tolerable. We enjoyed the summit then scooted toward Gold Dust along the ridge. The centennial junkies went down and left and I went right around the first tower. Then some fun scrambling followed by a second tower where half went right and the other half left. The right variation seemed more fun. The left was hard to stay high on the tower with class 5 moves on loose rock. So we descended all the way to the base of the tower then clawed up scree back to the ridge. Really this was the worst part but the other climbers had fun on the right sunny side. Go right. After the last tower is some spectacular ridge scrambling all the way to the summit of Gold Dust and it reminded me of the Music to Tijeras scramble in the Sangre de Cristos but a little better and I'm starting to think that the Sawatch are underrated. I hiked down Gold Dusts north ridge to look for the A10 wreckage and to study the route to Finnegan. It looks time consuming and probably best as a solo mission from New York TH to the north but there is a route from Finnegan to Gold Dust and it seems easier to go the opposite direction to up climb the difficulties but you will need a shuttle and also have to climb back up New York mountain. An entire sweep from Fools all the way to Gold Dust also looks worthy. You could call this run Fools Gold. I didn't find any airplane wreckage and we came down Gold Dusts big talus west face then down into Negro Basin and chose to beeline down the small creek between the two peaks which isn't always a good idea but it worked. We bisected the main trail and cruised back to the TH. Then I solo hiked up to the Fulford Cave and I'll caution that if you're claustrophobic don't go because you hike down a narrow metal tube into the mineralized bat cave that is a cool 55 degrees. There weren't any bats unfortunately. Bring a headlamp. 

Route: Negro basin + Pika traverse
Posted On: 6/13/2021, By: Dobsons
Info: Went up Pika from Lake Charles today via Fulford Caves parking lot. Then traversed over to Gold Dust Peak via the ridge and down negro basin back to the trail. Really no snow of concern on these southerly aspects and we did entire trip without any snow gear, traction etc. The 4th class dihedral around tower #1 on the Pika side of the Gold Dust/Pika saddle discussed in other reports was completely full of snow but we found a gully decent and re-accent around the tower to the Negro basin side of the tower by dropping about 300 feet off the ridge proper around the cliffs of that tower. This kept the entire traverse at class 3 max and it was just a wonderful connecting ridge otherwise.