Halo Ridge is a long ridge hike that's the best way to see the Cross couloir on its namesake peak, Mount of the Holy Cross. The standard north ridge of Holy Cross does get a brief view from the trail that descends from Half Moon Pass to East Cross Creek drainage but nothing like the view you get from Notch Mountain. Everyone knows the one.

Thus one reason to do Halo Ridge, which circumscribes the Bowl of Tears cirque: get some views of the Cross couloir, which I hadn't been able to do on my one previous climb of Holy Cross since I'd gone up the couloir itself! And of course the other reason, tag more 13ers. We all know that was the one, true reason. I would be adding Notch Mountain's true northern summit to the hike as well, as Halo Ridge can be done without it. The Notch Mountain Shelter is on the southern side of the notch and adding Notch Mountain and the crossing of the notch would add some Class 2+ scrambling and route finding to an otherwise purely Class 2 route.

Note: I'll be referring to Mount of the Holy Cross simply as Holy Cross, and Holy Cross Ridge as Holy Cross Ridge to save the mouthful each time.

The hike starts off easy enough on an excellent trail from Half Moon Pass Trailhead to Half Moon Pass. It took me about 40 minutes to ascend to the pass where the work of Halo Ridge begins. Notch Mountain's north ridge from the pass is steep, blocky granite and gneiss talus and a number of small bumps and false summits along the way.

The views of Holy Cross as I ascended the ridge were stunning. The couloir was mostly dry but it stands out even so.

Eventually after hiking up the undulating ridge I got my first view of the Notch Mountain Shelter to the south.

It wasn't until the summit that I finally got a view of the notch itself and just what that entailed. It looked intimidating but I knew it wouldn't be that bad.

The route from the summit down to the notch consisted of a bunch of broken ledges and ramps, at least by the way I took it. I went down below the ridge crest on the eastern side until I got cliffed out before returning to the ridge crest via some short Class 3 slabs and more jumbled ledges. I probably should have just stayed on the crest but this didn't cost me any time and was probably more fun than just sticking to the talus.

Once in the notch I headed right/west into the shade below the large walls above. Whereas the eastern side of the notch appeared to be mostly steep cliffs the western side was a lot of ribs separated by talus gullies. I was looking for what Roach describes in the guidebook as an "improbable corner" though maybe I was already there and just didn't realize it. I traversed along the talus trying to stay high or gain ground instead of go low around the ribs. There were cliffs here too but they were all avoidable.

On the other side I down climbed a short Class 2+ chimney with exposure on the right, entered another gully, and crossed it to another rib.

At this point there was only one more rib to cross over. Beyond it I could see the talus field I had guessed would take me to the ridge crest. It looked like if nothing else I could just continue traversing on talus until I found a break in the cliffs, if there were any I couldn't see around the corner.

Once the ridge flattened out it was a short walk to the shelter and to Point 13,248.

Once on top of Point 13,248 a neat "catwalk" appeared over to a sub-summit of Holy Cross Ridge. I put it in quotes because it's quite wide and there's no real risk of falling off, it's just out of character with the wide ridges everywhere else on this route.

As I ascended the first ridge point past the catwalk I got my first good views of Point 13,768, and she's a doozy; the north ridge is full of slabs and the east ridge has numerous couloirs and potentially good scrambling from their tops to the summit.

There was another catwalk-like system of flat ridges connecting Holy Cross Ridge with its sub-summit, and from the end of the catwalk two or three false summits to attain the true summit.

I wasn't sure what the opposite (west) side of the ridge spanning Holy Cross-Holy Cross Ridge-Point 13,768 looked like but from researching topo maps of the area it looked like I'd be able to traverse between all three easily. It would be the same blocky stuff I'd been on all day but I was used to it by this point.

I figured Point 13,768 would never be cheaper than it was right now, and if I wanted to come back for the couloirs or slabs later I could. I descended south and walked along yet another largely flat ridge towards the elbow that would take me to the summit.

The summit of Point 13,768 is a couple of huge, stacked blocks of nearly featureless rock. The diversion to this peak was worth it just for the summit alone.

All in all it took me probably 50 minutes to get from Holy Cross Ridge to Point 13,768. The traverse back was tedious but expected.

I found myself alone on the summit of Holy Cross at about 1:15pm. It was windy and a little cold but I rested for almost an hour, taking advantage of the rare fact that I had a 14er to myself.

From my other previous climb of the Cross couloir I knew that the north ridge descent was rather long and tedious. I started moving a little after 2pm and found the initial trail off the summit a little confusing. I don't think there really was one, just a mess of use trails and large cairns going briefly west until the ridge and thus the trail cuts north in a nearly straight line.

The trail is simultaneously good - in that it exists at all - and bad - in that it's covered in loose rock. Overall it's far better than the last several hours of untrailed, uneven terrain! The ridge seemed to stretch on forever, even below treeline. I was vigilant not to continue descending into Cross Creek drainage even though I remembered the trail being obvious into East Cross Creek, which was the case this time around as well. The campsites soon began to appear, marking the right way back. Reascending to Half Moon Pass I got one last good look at Mount of the Holy Cross and the incredible cliffs in the cirque below its eastern side. Truly a sacred place.

I made quick progress back to the pass where I ran back to my car, cleaned my dusty feet off in the nearby stream, and drove home. The remaining Holy Cross Wilderness 13ers will probably have to wait until next season but this was a fine reminder of just how incredible this area of Colorado is!

Statistics

Climbers: Ben Feinstein (myself)
Total distance: 15.25 miles
Total elevation gain: 6,638 feet
Total time: 10:14:15
Peaks: One 14er, four 13ers (three ranked, one unranked)

• Notch Mountain, 13,237' (unranked)
• Point 13,248
• Holy Cross Ridge, 13,831'
• Point 13,768
• Mount of the Holy Cross, 14,005'

Splits: