10/20/2016 Route: West Slopes Posted On: 10/20/2016, By: wildsidesky Info: Pretty dry today. Started from the very bottom. Some patches of snow and ice on the road up to the Baldwin Gulch turnoff. Upper-difficulties completely dry. Get it while it's good! |
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10/20/2016 Route: West Slopes Posted On: 10/21/2016, By: eichsttl Info: I climbed Antero via the West slope on 10-20-2016. I drove up FS Road 277 for 3 miles to an elevation of 10,850 feet. I drove my stock 4 door Jeep Wrangler and had no problems but the road is extremely rough and rocky. It took me 30 minutes to drive the 3 miles up and 30 minutes again to get down. I stopped at the creek crossing but I could have easily drived another 1.5 miles to 12,000 feet. That last 1.5 miles is probably in better shape than the first 3 miles. The down tree mentioned in the 10-17-2016 post has been removed from the road. There is some ice on the road in both the first 3 miles and the next 1.5 miles. The standard route from 10,850 feet to the summit is almost totally snow and ice free. I did not have any need for micro spikes. |
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10/17/2016 Route: West Slopes Posted On: 10/17/2016, By: KelanAnzures Info: We took the standard route up. A few small patches of snow on the ridge between pt. 13,800 and the summit, but nothing of concern. Wind was howling and didn't see anyone else on the mountain all day. A few notes on the road: in the morning we drove our Stock Subaru outback up to about 11,500, but we easily could have gotten it to 13,100 if desired. Coming back down later in the day a tree had fallen across the road. This was a learning lesson to throw a shovel or other tool in the back of the car. We were able to extract rocks, trim braches, and dig down enough to just squeak under it. I wouldn't be surprised if it is moved soon, but be aware of it being a possibility if you are heading up there anytime soon. It was down about a half mile before the stream crossing at ~10,800. |
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10/14/2016 Route: East Ridge via Raspberry Gulch Posted On: 10/14/2016, By: chicagostylehotdog Info: Hiked the East Ridge via Raspberry Gulch. Hike was mostly dry with some snow between the rocks. No traction needed. Not sure exactly where the standard route is, but I took some pictures to share. Refer to the imgur album linked below. It appears the road (if that's the right road) is pretty snowy. I also included pictures of Shavano, Tabeguache, and Princeton. I plan to write a TR in the near future about this alternate route. http://imgur.com/a/i6mJU |
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9/25/2016 Route: West Slopes Posted On: 9/25/2016, By: graberz Info: In regards to the road lots of traffic. FJ made it 12000+ and a wait for it... a Subaru Outback made it all the way to the top of the road. Several other stock 4x4 made it high as well as modified jeeps but I was heading down at this point so not sure how high they made it. The snow was melting off the road and was not a issue. .5 inch spotty snow on the ridge and summit push just made travel a little more careful. Round trip for me 7.5 hours. Beautiful day. Doesn't look like much snow hit the collegiate peaks but the peaks further west looked covered. |
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8/27/2016 Route: West Slopes Posted On: 8/27/2016, By: Sbenfield Info: No snow or any of that to contend with. Summer conditions all the way up. The surrounding mountains look mostly snow free and I don't think they will cause any problems for anyone |
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8/7/2016 Route: West Slopes Posted On: 8/8/2016, By: AlexeyD Info: Hiked/ran from lower trailhead as a quick jaunt on a high-storm hazard day. A few notes: 1) Car-to-car time was about 6.5 hours (brisk walking up, running most of the road portions down, several breaks up to 15 mins). Don't be too put off by what looks like a lot of gain/distance: even without running, this route goes quickly due to the miles of easy walking along a road. 2) The shortcut to Point 13,800' mentioned in the route page does not seem to exist any more in terms of having any semblance to a trail. While it's certainly possible to climb that ridge directly, it's highly doubtful that this would save any time vs. taking the road. 3) On the final slopes to the summit, the right-hand variation mentioned in the route page still has a very small snowfield across the trail. If going this way, and going down off the trail to avoid the snow, be careful as the slope through this section is pretty loose and unstable. Otherwise, there seem to be numerous possible variations on this final section. 4) If driving the Baldwin Gulch Road, be aware that you may encounter considerable uphill traffic on your way back from a summit hike in the afternoon. This may be a problem as much of this road is too narrow for 2 vehicles to pass each other, and pullouts are relatively few and far between. This might be a consideration to start from the lower TH even if your vehicle can otherwise handle the road. |
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7/3/2016 Route: West Slopes Posted On: 7/5/2016, By: schira Info: Great conditions. The road was very wet from all the rain and some places above tree line you could tell some small areas of the road were missing. I would estimate the stream crossing to be 17-20 inches as it was just up to my door seals on a Jeep Cherokee. The snow at 12,800 is passable by going around it as shown in my pictures. There is a well established road going to the left, however it is fairly steep and would require decent clearance. |
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6/30/2016 Route: West Slopes Posted On: 6/30/2016, By: quinnwolf Info: Hiked all the way from the 162 road starting a little before 5am. The jeep roads are completely clear of snow and debris below the creek crossing. I have a CR-V and would not feel comfortable driving it, but there were Jeeps, Hummers, and trucks that made it up. The creek crossing is very wide right now, and I would guess about 2 feet deep. There is no problem dryly crossing the creek on foot. There is a large snowfield covering the road at about 12,600' (its right after the last switchback), so I cut that last switchback to avoid the snow, which was pretty easy and probably faster than following the road anyway. Rest of the route is 100% snow free. I summitted just after 8am. Dark clouds were coming in from the west. It rained lightly starting at about 9am and continued for the entire walk down to the car at 11:15. It was never heavy enough to get me very wet though. It kept raining (very hard at times) almost the entire drive back to Denver (through Leadville to I70). |
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6/27/2016 Route: West Slopes Posted On: 6/29/2016, By: hollyhammons Info: Completely summer conditions. There was one small patch of snow on the road getting close to 12,800' that jeeps couldn't get past, but you can easily hike around it. We road bikes to about 13,800' and then hiked the rest of the way to the summit. Started from the 2WD trailhead at 5 AM and got back to the car at 5 PM. The bikes definitely slowed us on the way up but it turned into a 20 mile day. Perfect weather. |
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6/26/2016 Route: West Slopes Posted On: 6/27/2016, By: thurs Info: Summer conditions. Short snow crossing on the road at 12,750ft -- not mandatory, but why not? However this is just large and deep enough to stop jeeps and ATVs from proceeding higher. Should be gone in a week or two. No other snow on the route. |
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6/20/2016 Route: West Slopes Posted On: 6/22/2016, By: AnastasiaC Info: Baldwin Gulch road is very rough, I would not attempt driving on it unless you have a high clearance 4WD vehicle. Large stream crossing is not bad at all, no more than 2 feet deep. Rocks on the bottom are pretty level. We parked right after second stream crossing at 11,100'. There is a large level campsite where I turned my truck around. If you keep going up, road mellows out quite a bit, there are more campsites. The trail is dry, there is some water runoff along 4WD road above treeline. Couple of large snowfields are easily avoidable. |
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6/18/2016 Route: West Slopes Posted On: 6/19/2016, By: roemmic1 Info: Similar to previous reports, there is one small snowfield up high on the road to cross but no snowshoes, spikes or any type of winter gear is needed. The peak is nearly in summer conditions. There is still a small snowfield on the right side of the ridge on the approach to the summit but if you stick to the left side it is very easily avoidable. Conditions on the summit yesterday were some of the best I've ever experienced. |
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6/15/2016 Route: Via Little Browns Creek Posted On: 6/16/2016, By: meanderer Info: Path along Little Browns Creek was mostly clear with only a few places having snow coverage. I had never taken this trail, so in these places it was hard to know where the path was. However, these could be easily traversed to the left or right (see pictures 1 & 2). After joining with the 4WD path from the west slopes the only spot that seemed questionable was along the south ridge between Point 13,820 and Antero's peak (see pictures 3 & 4). Despite seeing tracks of successful traverses across this snow slope, both high and low, I was hesitant to cross, until two other (super-friendly) gentlemen crossed before me. The snow slope is significant, even for a short crossing. |
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6/11/2016 Route: West Slopes Posted On: 6/11/2016, By: mlayman09 Info: Route is free of snow except for a few select spots above treeline that are easily crossed or avoided. Snow is melting fast so it'll likely be gone soon. The stream that you have to cross at 10,800 ft is running swiftly. Luckily we got a ride through it on the way up, but we ended up hiking about 300 yards south to cross the creek on the return. Simply toss your packs/shoes over, and wade through. Definitely a nice, but brief, ice bath for the legs! |
