Homestake Peak

Route: SE ridge/NE face
Posted On: 5/3/2025, By: Chicago Transplant
Info: Skinned up the southeast ridge and skied down the northeast face. Basically continuous snow the whole way with a few short dry spots on the road. The summer 2WD trailhead where the Slide Lake road turns off Wurts Ditch road is plowed and open. Road has a few up and downs so the exit requires a little extra effort, its hard packed from snowmobile track and would not need snowshoes. Left near the hut and went cross country/bushwhack up to the southeast ridge. Skinned to the summit. Northeast face has a large bare rocks section below the summit the entire face, you can either go west of it, which looked thinner and has cornices above, or east of it as I did which was continuous good snow, a bit of chalky leftovers from Thursdays storm at 10.10am. 

Route: East ridge
Posted On: 4/12/2025, By: sarahmariekirk
Info: Great day on Homestake; wore snowshoes basically from start to finish. Snow is firm in morning and rapidly warming throughout late morning to afternoon. 7h car to car. My watch recorded 13.2 miles. 

Route: East Ridge
Posted On: 4/5/2025, By: Veory
Info: Good conditions on the ridge, 600 feet of amazing powder coming down from it towards the hut, a real rarity for a summit ski. 10.4 miles RT, 3.2k gain. With our half an hour stop at the hut, 7 hrs car to car. The way back felt long with rolling hills and snowmobile moguls. Absolutely fantastic day out. Good weather, the hut was fun to check out, and I'll be dreaming about that 600 feet of powder tonight. 

Route: East Ridge via Wurtz Ditch rd
Posted On: 11/18/2024, By: NittanyLion14er
Info: Winter conditions; summer road/trail to Mt Hut tire and ski packed, spikes helpful. After hut, show shoes to above tree line, it is now trenched. Exposed rock and grassy areas to summit, no shoes/spikes needed. Stayed on ridge back to road, snow shoes needed but now trenched. Snow 12-24" deep, powder to crust conditions. Assume could ski but not fully covered yet. 

Route: N. Fork W. Tennessee Creek
Posted On: 6/29/2024, By: Dan Kearney
Info: Started at the lower end of the Lily Lake Loop and took that to the Tennessee Lakes Trail intersection. When the loop converged with the Tennessee Lake trail it was either ankle deep water or dense bushwhacking. I chose water and didn't regret it. Took the 10th mtn. hut trail from there to link up with Tennessee Creek and then followed the creek to the bottom of Homestake's east ridge. A little wet, but no snow at all and there was even a decent on/off social trail along the creek which aided route finding. Crossed over the creek on a convenient downed tree. Up the ridge and to the summit was common sense route finding with zero snow. Heading back I spurred for the upper Tennessee Lakes just to see if that trail back would be better than the creek. Again, common sense route finding with no snow but with some dense forest and a close moose encounter. Linked up with the Tennessee Lakes trail, which is impossible to miss, and took that all the way back to the road rather than going around Lily Lake again. Some water on the trail created the need for minor, but easy detours. If I were to do this again, I would park at the lower Lily Lake trail again (road is too rough for my Impreza, but a truck could go much further) walk the road to the creek, and ascend and descend via the creek. Didn't feel worth it to spur to the Tennessee Lakes Trail from the summit. 

Route: East Ridge
Posted On: 6/16/2024, By: mijoflynn
Info: Started from the Slide Lake (145) / Wurts Ditch (705) split. The Slide Lake road is still closed, so I hiked it. It's very wet, but clear for about 2.25 miles; a little before the 10th Mountain Division Hut it starts to get ruts, patches of snow, and downed trees, though nothing that impedes hiking. Given how wet the road was, I decided to avoid the marshy areas south of the hut, so I took the trail all the way to Slide Lake and then turned south to Homestake's east ridge. Not the most efficient route, but it worked. Snow in the upper basin and on the shoulder (pic 1) was surprisingly supportive on both 8am ascent and 11am descent -- I brought snowshoes, but never felt the need to use them. Snow on the ridge (pic 2) is about 75% avoidable if you stay on the south side -- I brought microspikes, but again, never used them. Nice views of Holy Cross (pic 3) and Massive / Elbert / smoke from the Interlaken fire (pic 4). 

Route: North face ski
Posted On: 3/21/2024, By: SnowAlien
Info: It's been 11+ years since I skied the peak, so it was time for a visit. Like last time, I arrived at the hut the day before, where I met 8 other people. Snow was springlike on the approach with lots of snowshoe and snowmobile tracks. Next morning, after breakfast at around 9am I set out for the peak, following a maze of tracks, no trailbreaking this time. I was hoping to find some skiable conditions on the east ridge, alas it was all sastrugi and breakable crust. Not being above the treeline since October, definitely was feeling the altitude. The summit views were fantastic on a clear bluebird day with very little wind. After poking around the snow, I decided to give the north face a try. Consolidated powder skied great, so I decided to go for a 2nd lap (just extra 700 ft vert). Stuck to my original line, but there were many other options. Skied by the Slide lake and down to the hut on isothermal snowpack. Ski down from the hut took only an hour. Enjoyed my time on the peak as much as last time. Cheers to spring and spring skiing. 

Route: East Ridge
Posted On: 3/11/2024, By: dolfh
Info: The road heading west from Crane Park TH off of HWY 24 is easily drivable for about a mile to closure. There is room for several vehicles near the closure. Walk a few hundred yards on snowmobile tracks up to the road junction with the 10th Mtn Hut Winter Trail. The first mile of trail is smooth compressed snow to another road jct. Turning right at the jct. puts you on another groomed road for a half mile to a meadow where the snowmobile tracks fan out in all directions. I found a snowshoe track heading towards the peak. I followed the snowshoe track for a couple of miles through the forest on surprisingly shallow snow to near treeline. From treeline I continued on skin track/snowshoe track up onto the East Ridge of Homestake. The ridge is about a mile long at at 20 degree angle with some sections of unconsolidated snow. There is a steeper rocky area right before the summit. I wore micro spikes for the first 2 miles , then snowshoes to the summit. 

Route: East ridge
Posted On: 3/8/2024, By: Will_E
Info: Road to the TH is well packed, I made note of it as I was walking the road;) First 2 miles is well trenched, I put snowshoes on just after the second junction and broke trail most of the way to treeline when I intercepted a skin track for a short distance. I was using my hero ToyotaSupraNihilist's GPX track, which broke from the skin track sooner, I didn't know where the skin track would go, so just made my own way, the trenching was pretty enjoyable, not too deep, not too thin. My trench meanders a bit, but it'll get you through the trees. I didn't get out of snowshoes until maybe 400' from summit, there's really a lot of snow up high on Homestake. A few trap doors up high also. My tracks were wiped out on descent until getting back into the trees, it was mostly intact from there. Nice day, other than not much for views. 

Route: East Ridge
Posted On: 2/26/2024, By: RestlessLegSyndrome
Info: Continuous snow from the trailhead to the summit if one is careful with routefinding on the last 300. After the hut but below treeline expect to break trail as it gets blown in from the wind 

Route: East Ridge
Posted On: 11/30/2023, By: astranko
Info: Packed up the road to the hut. Brutal postholing to the base of the east ridge. East ridge itself had lots of snow. We alternated between surprisingly unstable talus and postholing. The mountain either needs more snow or less. Bring snowshoes. 

Route: SE ridge
Posted On: 7/25/2023, By: denvermikey
Info: Basically 100% clear of snow, bugs are insane, road from Wuritz Ditch Rd turnoff is awful. About 40 minutes to slow crawl 2.5 miles. High clearance and AT tires a must. 

Route: East Ridge
Posted On: 3/20/2023, By: BillMiddlebrook
Info: Lot's of snow on Homestake now. We skinned to east ridge to the summit and skied the same line. All steep slopes on the north side of the ridge and above Slide Lake are loaded and dangerous right now. If you're going up Homestake, take the east ridge. We started at the Wurts Ditch road pull-off, skinned up the road a bit and turned left on the "Winter" route to the 10th Mountain Hut. The winter route had a packed trail all the way to the hut area but before going to the hut we found a skin track leading southwest toward the base of the east ridge. We followed it to the ridge and skinned the ridge proper to the summit. Lots of snow but the skiing was poor due to varying conditions. Below tree line, we mostly skied the entire winter route trail back. Then we skinned the uphill back to the Wurts Ditch road. 

Route: East Ridge
Posted On: 2/18/2023, By: stomblin7
Info: Took the summer road and trail was mostly packed. Put on snowshoes just prior to the hut where the snowmobile tracks ended. Used snowshoes from hut to summit and all the way back to the car. There is a solid trench to follow to the ridge and then snow covered ridge to summit. 

Route: East Ridge Via Crane Park TH
Posted On: 1/9/2023, By: IHikeLikeAGirl
Info: An exceptional trench is in place...at least until it snows...or until the wind fills it back in.... Six of us summited Homestake on Sunday, 2 on skis and 4 on snowshoes. Road to the turn was easily bootable, traction not needed. Snowshoes were useful on the trail toward the hut. The trail to the hut was packed, but narrow and there was the potential for postholing here and there. After we left the hut trail, it was nothing but pristine, knee-deepish snow...time to break trail. Fortunately, there were several, strong (and willing), trail breakers in our group. I took a short turn at it, but had to relinquish my position, lest we would still be up there. The ridge had significant snow as well and we kept our snowshoes/skis on until we hit the rocks. Ascending the rocks was tricky, many hidden trap doors. Enjoy the trench while it's still there!