9/18/2022 Route: West Slopes Posted On: 9/19/2022, By: samfarmer789 Info: Antero is in great condition, no snow or anything. Was super windy up on the ridge. I went from the lower TH and clocked 15.14 miles, and 4694ft of elevation gain- so not as bad as I was expecting. Was super pretty with the Aspens turning yellow!! |
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7/20/2022 Route: Little Brown Creek Posted On: 7/20/2022, By: olgav100 Info: Epic Wednesday, Antero via Little Brown Creek. Why this route is not a standard (and not even described in 14ers.com) is beyond me. Thankfully I knew about it from Sawatch race a year ago! Not a single person all morning. The trail is fantastic, the 4WD road bit from there is annoying yet very tiny (imagine most walk it all the way up!), and the rock field of the last pitch is so short, and much sturdier than Princeton! Winning combination on all counts. Ran away from storms, as always perfect timing! Pays to wake up at 3 am. Lovely time by myself! Unless you intend to drive most (or some) of that road up, please consider taking this trail from Browns Creek TH! I clocked 7.8M to the top (15.6 miles round trip), which is the same distance as from the Lower Parking Lot. |
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7/16/2022 Route: West Slopes Posted On: 7/17/2022, By: MaryinColorado Info: Summer conditions, nothing notable about the hike past 12K. But how about that road, eh?? I posted a trailhead update to elaborate, but as someone with decent off-roading skills, let me just say the road up to 12K is a lot worse than my research led me to expect, and my significant other said it was a lot worse than he remembered, as well. (The road was new to me.) Would NOT recommend an attempt to drive to 12K unless you have both a capable vehicle (4WD + 10"+ clearance) AND really good nav skills. Whole road from bottom to 12K consistently presented plenty of opportunities for character building the whole way. It was just two of us Jeeps parked at 12K. |
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7/9/2022 Route: West Slopes Posted On: 7/9/2022, By: Mitsugi Info: 100% Summer conditions. To be honest, if it weren't for this mountain largely being drivable this would be a miserably boring and long hike. It's basically a road for 90% of the hike. Pretty much a D tier 14er. Get a friend with a jeep to take you up to about 13,800 and then the rest is about 60 minutes round trip on foot. Much more fun day that way. |
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7/9/2022 Route: West Slopes Posted On: 7/9/2022, By: taylorharris50 Info: Antero was a lot better than expected. Awesome 4WD drive up and had no issues getting up there in a 4Runner (TRD Pro). Parking / camping was easy near 12,000'. Traffic was pretty bad trying to drive down around 9:30 AM. Would recommend starting very early on the weekend. |
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6/19/2022 Route: West Slopes Posted On: 6/21/2022, By: barnsy12 Info: Summer conditions totally free of snow. Was able to park at 12k ft and could have driven higher. |
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6/9/2022 Route: West Slopes Posted On: 6/10/2022, By: jwright117 Info: Started from the Browns Creek Trailhead and head up via the Little Browns Creek Trail which is completely snow-free until the valley around 12,400'. There are only a few patches of snow to cross in the valley itself and at the turns in the road heading up to 13,800'. The only sketchy part of the route was the snow and mud leaving the mining area at 13,800' to the summit ridge section, but this part is short and just requires a bit of care and should be improving every day. Minimal snow on the summit ridge itself and what snow exists is entirely avoidable. |
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6/5/2022 Route: West Slopes Posted On: 6/6/2022, By: johnsonm4292 Info: Hiked Antero from the 2wdr trailhead. Tiny bit of snow. Summer Conditions. |
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6/4/2022 Route: Little Browns Creek Posted On: 6/4/2022, By: thebeave7 Info: Started across the CT and hiked up Little Browns Creek, water flowing steadily. No snow until treeline then just patchy in the valley. Slowed us a little but nothing major and no special gear needed. Most snow on the way to the summit can be dodged but a few lingering snow fields have to be traversed. We didn't use spikes but if one is not comfortable on snow they may be helpful for the final summit push. Descended Browns Creek which is roaring right now. |
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5/27/2022 Route: West Slopes Posted On: 5/28/2022, By: Jimmy Jay Info: No tracks up here since the last snow, so routefinding across the ridge was tricky since this was my first time up. Hopefully my prints helped the 2 guys that were on their way up around noon as I was headed down. Snowshoes are a must, the road is covered and you'll just posthole all day long without them. The ridge has a slight cornice on the east side, easily avoidable, best bet is to shoot straight up the slope below the summit. There's a gully starting at 11,930 (38.667950, -106.263200 - 5th photo) that was firm enough to blast straight up with ascent-focused snowshoes or crampons in the morning, and glissade back down although it was starting to get mushy after noon. Saves some mileage, I tracked 13.2 total from the lower TH. 4WD TH is passable to any full clearance 4WD, but not past the creek crossing. |
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5/7/2022 Route: West Slopes Posted On: 5/7/2022, By: kcovingt1 Info: Very beautiful but windy day on Antero. Booted all the way to the first gully. Snowshoed up the gully. Some post holing in random spots on 277. 278 is continuous snow but supportive in the early mornings. The road above the gully still holds a lot of snow but can be avoided most of the time. There were two snow crossings I used my axe for but my husband simply walked across with poles. Between 13,100' and 13,800' snow is almost completely melted. The ridge is holding snow but was doable with just boots. Snowshoes were useful from the base of the gully to the creek crossing. We were post holing even with snowshoes, the snow is melting fast. |
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5/2/2022 Route: West Slopes Posted On: 5/3/2022, By: Leos Info: Conditions changed a lot through the day. Morning only needed spikes going up. Switchbacks are still pretty snow covered, so going straight up a gully / scree is the best option - I just took it all the way to the ridge at ~13600, so I can't speak to the trail conditions after the switchbacks. Side slopes into the gully don't have as much snow, but still important to keep an eye on avalanche danger on some spots. Going back snow was very soft and I needed snowshoes. Would have been possible without but very painful with all the post hiking. There was a spot or two where an axe would have helped but I was able to do it with just spikes. |
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5/1/2022 Route: West Slopes Posted On: 5/2/2022, By: Gpacardella Info: Left truck at 6:30 AM, 28 degrees. Spikes were fine all the way to summit due to firm crust. Followed main trail to tree line and then went up the snow gully that bisects the switchbacks. Was surprised when we hit saddle at 13,800' to see the last ridge to summit covered in quite a bit of snow and ice. Definitley up'd the difficulty to class III rock and snow moves. Ice Axe mandatory in my opinion, as were snow shoes once we got back to tree line. Many miles of soft snow to go. Back to truck at 7:00 PM. Exhausting 15.6 miles, 5400' according to our GPS |
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4/9/2022 Route: West Slopes Posted On: 4/10/2022, By: bsiegs Info: I followed a similar route choice as previous conditions report (foregoing the switchbacks which remain basically unusable and instead taking the gully up). There's still several large stretches of angled snow and large drifts to traverse along the rest of the route. I was kicking footholds and choosing steps carefully, especially on the ascent while the snow was still really hard. I needed microspikes for this and kept them on from treeline to treeline. I also chose to stay along the ridge all the way to the summit, rather than trying to cross a large snow patch to get to the old trail off to the right. On the descent, the snow had softened a bit making it easier to have sure-footing on the snow crossings. I glissaded down the gully and then switched to snowshoes for the rest of the way back to the car, which were definitely necessary given how warm it ended up getting. Start: 8am , Summit: 1:45pm, Back to TH: 5:45pm |
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3/25/2022 Route: West Slopes Posted On: 3/26/2022, By: backcountrybrodes Info: Used snowshoes (which were extremely helpful) for almost the whole hike. Bluebird day with little to no wind and light clouds. Started at 7am from the standard TH and took a gully up instead of the road switchbacks, which are all completely covered in 45 degree snow. When we got to about 13k it was 3pm (upper section of the hike was considerably slower), so we had a group conversation and decided that the mountain wasn't for us today. If we would have continued on we likely would have been back to the TH by at least midnight, and one of us had work the next day in Fort Collins at 11am. Oooof. Would have made 29/58 for me, but the mountains aren't ever leaving, so I'll be back for this one in the summer! On the way up the gully, me and the second person in our group were following the third person's tracks, and I heard a whoomphing sound, followed by a barely visible crack that spanned a horizontal length of about 30 or 40 feet. So if anyone is planning to get this one soon, please stay safe and be careful out there. Moderate avy danger doesn't mean no avy danger. Start time: 6:59 AM End time: 7:37 PM Total Time: 12:38:21 Elevation Gain: 5,193ft Highest Point Reached: 13,363ft Mileage: 10.74 miles |