Mt. Wilson

Route: Mt. Wilson + El Diente Traverse
Posted On: 7/4/2026, By: two lunches
Info: several large snowfields persist between the trail split and gully- excellent glissades in the afternoon with minimal sharks 🛘 

Route: Kilpacker Approach
Posted On: 7/1/2026, By: TheDreamologist
Info: Not very smoky considering there's two big fires nearby. The approach from Kilpacker trailhead was beautiful and Kilpacker Creek is flowing. The scree up until Eldiente was pretty manageable. Nothing crazy. After the junction and getting closer to Mount Wilson proper became a different story. Southwest slopes, live up to their reputation being extremely loose. After the crossover, there's some spots that are loose, but much more stable rock as compared. However, don't let your guard down at the very summit. There's a loose boulder the size of a mini fridge about or a microwave. Happy trails. Stay safe. 

Route: Mt. Wilson + El Diente Traverse
Posted On: 6/25/2026, By: notidealbutfine
Info: Camped just past the Navajo Lake TH at a nice dispersed spot Sunday evening and got started at 3:00AM. Made it to the lake around 5:30AM and dropped my backpacking gear then headed to the base of the El Diente's north buttress route. El D's north slopes route still has a decent amount of snow on it. As for the north buttress, it went completely dry, with the exception of one snowfield (see pics) about 30 meters in length, with a pretty nasty runout. Really glad I brought the axe and microspikes for this little section, but if you're confident on snow, you could probably just grab a sharp rock and send it to be honest. Summitted El Diente around 8:45AM then went on to the traverse, which took me about 2 hours. No snow to worry about, but a whole lotta choss. From the summit of Mount Wilson I just kind of improvised a way down the north side, not really paying much attention to the north slopes route because there is a good bit of snow to contend with in pretty much all the gullies still. I just descended the driest path between the two major gullies and I was able to get down without touching snow for the most part. Got back to my camp around 1:30PM and had THE most miserable, hot, mosquito infested camp at Navajo Lake. Not a great choice to be camping without a tent... Bring your bug spray, folks! FYI, the forest service was up at Navajo Lake establishing better trails and designated campsites around the lake. They told me there would be about 12 designated sites that are all first come first serve in the future. 13.38 miles / 5,794' gain / 10 hours, 19 minutes 

Route: East Face
Posted On: 6/22/2026, By: Jonathan Deffenbaugh
Info: Approached Mt Wilson by following the Cross Mtn trail from the trailhead. Eventually bushwacked into the basin once I reached approx 11,300' (200 ft higher than I should have been) on the trail via a couple of creek crossings, quite a bit of ups and downs unfortunately, however the goal is maintaining around 11,100' till you reach the basin around 10,900' where you have a good view of Mt Wilson/Gladstone and what's remaining. No snow on the approach thankfully. However, once you get past the first headwall (grassy slope), you'll reach the moraine(s) where boulder hopping awaits till you reach the base of Boxcar Couloir which was my main route for the summit push. To reach the couloir there is a chockstone crux that now guards the entrance into the couloir, which can be circumvented by climbing solid rock (Class 3/4) on its left side. From there the couloir was solid kickstepping till the very top where it's melted out. However, it's only a short distance till you're back on the snow on the East Face where there's 600-700' of good solid snow climbing remaining. Snow angles were around a modest 40ish degrees max on both sections, only needed one axe, crampons a must, with helmet protection of course. The final pitch (100-150') was easy dry Class 3. Descended via the East Face, which had a couple of good glissades, however would have preferred doing it earlier in the season, since it was what felt like endless boulder hopping through the upper basin (12,000-12,800') in order to transition to the lower basin which offered more of a grassy/scree descent. Then there was the bushwacking to get back to the Cross Mtn trail. Recommend having a Garmin InReach for this section as it's very easy to get turned around if you're not tracking your progress. Once you're connected with the Cross Mtn trail, it's an easy descent back to the car. Expect Type 2 fun 😉 

Route: Kilpacker Approach
Posted On: 6/21/2026, By: tkoneal43
Info: We summited, but could not have without crampons and and ice ax! The start of the trail and final technical pitches are dry. The top part of the basin has 3-4 sections where you will need crampons. You could not do this with micro-spikes yet. We started at 4:30am.

The descent is great though. The sun warms the snow and you can carefully glissade down. 

Route: Kilpacker Approach
Posted On: 6/18/2026, By: Craig Barlow
Info: Traversed from El Diente then descended Southwest Slopes Route. No snow issues on traverse. Large patches of snow on descent were a welcome break from talus and we aimed for them. Supported our weight easily and were great for boot skiing. No gear used besides poles. Descent was around 2pm. 

Route: Kilpacker Approach
Posted On: 6/12/2026, By: KRAZY
Info: We did standard route 6/10 and found continuous consolidated snow from 13,200 to almost 13,800. It was dry above the crossover. Despite a prediction of above freezing temps the ice and snow was frozen in the morning. We used crampons, but saw other climbers in micro spikes. Snow was softening, but still supportive by mid morning. Snow in the gully to approach the rib crossover was pretty rotten by the time we got there. We ended up just climbing the rib which was mostly solid and Class 3 ish. On the way down midafternoon the snow was very soft and our larger partner needed flotation. We had stashed our snowshoes at 13,700. If you don’t want to carry flotation I would recommend being off the snow before noon. And I would recommend traction.

I’ve included what I could see of the traverse and Wilson Peak. 

Route: Mt. Wilson + El Diente Traverse
Posted On: 5/25/2026, By: Connor1
Info: Started a little late around 7 am. Had to move fast for lost time but luckily met up with another climber who was also moving at a fast pace and planning to do the traverse. We sped up el diente. There was a lot of downed trees on the approach from kilpacker but there were not to much of a problem. The snow was of good consistency and was bootpackable. We used microspikes to climb the snow. Once getting into the class 3 sections we took them off and navigated to the summit. There was snow patches in a lot of inconvenient places making class 3 turn into class 4 at times. Then for the traverse. The traverse was awesome. Fun scrambling although the rock is totally crappy. It’s very loose. There was quite a bit of snow especially towards the mt Wilson side. And the north side of the ridge as well. Snow caused some 4th class moves to go to easy 5th. The way down Mt Wilson was a little tricky at first but we glissaded down and made it down very quickly. 

Route: East Face
Posted On: 4/26/2026, By: Jcinco
Info: The Boxcar is still skiing reasonably well. Enough snow coverage to ski down to 11.2 K. The approach to this is pretty miserable. There is still plenty of snow in the woods for the long section of off-trail rolling terrain, which required wallowing both going in and out. There’s also a long dry stretch after that with a few annoying drifts up until the aforementioned 11.2 K mark. It ended up being a bigger day than I expected because of those woods. Pics are in reverse chronological order. 

Route: East Face
Posted On: 3/27/2026, By: Gavin Goold
Info: Boxcar was still filled in and skied in great corn. Summited around 9:20. The first ~0.5 miles from the trailhead is dirt but after that there is consistent snow. 

Route: East Face
Posted On: 4/6/2026, By: Splitboard14ers
Info: There is already a good condition report of this from 1 week earlier than I climbed, but I thought I'd add mine as well. Be aware that between 16-19" inches of snow was reported on Lizard Head Pass since this date of climb, and that will change conditions almost entirely.

Nevertheless: I began at Lizard Head pass and had almost consistent snow coverage in, choosing to skin. I made my way up Cross Mountain Trail. I looked for the turn at 1.87 miles, but it is all just forest. So at 2.11 miles I finally just turned left into the forest. I think this is West, or SouthWest.

The forest was dense, and the snow was refrozen slush with poor isothermic conditions. This section was a tough push for miles, with no clear line of direction. Some terrain changes occur, such as up, down, and across to finally descend a ways till reaching some creek(river) crossing. I found a downed tree and hopped across *(about 5-6 feet). Once across it was another half mile or so to reach the top of tree line and work my way into the basin of the peak.

It was easy going from this point, with great reference to directions seeing Gladstone peak, and the route to the center of the East Face. It's not very steep, but the snow was firm and I used crampons from here all the way up the East Face. I reached the top of the Col, and transitioned to boots for the remaining fifty feet or so to Summit. It was class 2 or 3 climbing up the rocks to reach the Summit.

From Summit back down the same route to the top of the Col. I strapped into my snowboard and rode down the East Face making my way across to Boxcar Couloir. There was a rock band of about 3 feet width to cross before entering Boxcar Couloir. The top of the couloir was quite narrow and I had about 20 feet before I could open up and make turns through the couloir. The Couloir rode very nicely. The bottom section where shadow from the rock walls on either side made shade on the snow caused that snow to be frozen and icy, which is worth noting because there were two enormous boulders at the choke exit of the couloir into the Apron.

I rode down the Apron and back across till it was rocky, and I had to unstrap. I transitioned to skins and worked my way a short distance down to treeline. From the forest it was a reverse of the approach path. The snow had warmed in the Sun and was entirely collapsable. Working back up the ridge was a chore. If you had snow shoes on, you would likely sink every step.

Once up the ridge I made my way back through the forest following my tracks until I reached Cross Mountain trail. I was able to skate ski some sections to maintain flotation and ride a few others, but the snow was pure isothermic slush all the way back to Lizard Head pass.

Start: 3:39am
Summit: 11:06am
Finish: 3:30pm
Total Time: 11 hours 51 minutes
Total Miles: 13.87 round trip
5234' Vertical Feet 

Route: East Face
Posted On: 3/18/2026, By: ericahlstedt
Info: There is continuous snow currently from the cross mtn TH. Firm and supportable snow today all the way to the summit. Around 1130am the descent was mostly great corn skiing from the summit col into the box car and lower mountain bowls. Great route! Summit block top 50ish feet from the col is pretty much snow free. 

Route: East Face
Posted On: 1/19/2026, By: Kiefer
Info: All snow once you leave Cross Mountain trailhead. GREAT bootpack on the trail from skiers & snowshoes.
Some deep powder in the forest. Slate Creek equally holding snow. Even the southern aspects are holding snow (kinda surprised at that one). Despite our tracks, you'll more than likely be trenching.

Couloir has variable snow, not the best, but manageable. Some good cramponable sections, about a 200' section of icy, bulletproof cement and soft unsupportive at the col. Pitch ranged between 34° to 46°.

Summit ridge is holding snow in recesses. Made for a SPICY climb. Left a register. 

Route: Southwest Slopes
Posted On: 10/31/2025, By: jamal
Info: Sumitted yesterday, not much snow recently, pretty dry . Beautiful weather! You will need crampons and an ice axe above 13, 850 ft. as there is a healthy dose of consolidated snow above that. 

Route: Southwest Slopes
Posted On: 10/3/2025, By: ColoNativeGal
Info: These conditions are as of Thursday, there is a storm coming in Fri-Sat that is supposed to drop 3-5" of new snow, so take this report with a grain of salt. All north faces and places with shade are holding snow. We had frost on the talus early morning, made it tricky to avoid slipping. Small amount snow in the gully leading up to the cross over and in the gully leading to the notch. Had spikes, but didn't use them. Fall colors were amazing!