Pikes Peak

Route: Y coulior
Posted On: 5/15/2025, By: Linux_92
Info: Pikes Peak highway perfectly fine. Snow conditions amazing on the Y, towards 1300 the first inch gets sloshy but totally fine. A lot more foot traffic. Highway opens at 0900 as of right now. Good set of crampons and ice axes incase of self arrest needed, and some warm gloves. The gusts of 60 felt like nothing where I was, and once you start climbing you get hot. Great clear views! 

Route: Northwest Slopes
Posted On: 5/3/2025, By: notidealbutfine
Info: Started at the gate closure located about 1.1 miles below the Crags TH. Used trail runners until the top of the main slope at ~12,750 then switched to skins in the deeper snow to ~13,650. Dropped my pack and skis here and finished the class 2 talus hopping in trail runners with spikes. Had the summit to myself on a bluebird day. Most of the skiing wasn't great until my transition point at ~12,750, which had amazing corn snow at around noon. Overall, it probably wasn't worth hauling the skis all the way up there, but it was still a lot of fun. Only post holed for a little bit before getting backing into running shoes and finishing the trail in low snow conditions. Couldn't have asked for a better Pikes Peak experience. 17.35 miles / 4,787' gain / 9 hours, 2 minutes 

Route: None
Posted On: 4/25/2025, By: Veory
Info: Drove up to ski Stove Leg (which was awesome, barely connects and the only variant that does connect starts with a 4 foot cornice drop), thought I'd take a look down the north face couloirs.

Pics looking down attached, I doubt any line or variant is getting skied clean from the summit. Still some good turns in the middle it looks like.

I did not get a peek at the right entrances. 

Route: Northwest Slopes
Posted On: 4/15/2025, By: tbonesaredelicious
Info: Left winter gate closure @9:30, back to car @ 6:30. Mid 30’s when I left, upper 30’s when I left. Steady 15-25 wind above treeline decreasing some in the afternoon. Skis and boots on my back, which proved to be a pain ducking under the many low hanging branches. I left them roadside ~ 13400’ & they probably saved me time back to the devils playground. Hiked on the supportive trail in basic boots without traction, tho microspikes probably would have saved me energy. Walked adjacent to road until 13’4, where I ascended directly up through the rocks. Minimal need to touch snow there. Skiing was good down gully beneath devils playground until about 12200, where it transitioned by 11800 to unsupportive crap. Had tried to avoid the sw facing aspect of the ascent there by descending just skiers left on a more wwnw, but it was horrendous. Collapsing and big potential for wet slides gouging to ground if it were steep enough. Snowpack might be 3-4 feet there. Almost everywhere I stepped would take me in knee to thigh, despite fairly fat skis, tho I’m about 210 with all the gear. Eventually navigated safely back to the ascent trail around 11000’, and pizza’d my way back to crags campground, only having to take skis off at the two log bridge. Maybe 10 small sections of dirt from there to the gate closure, took skis off .1 from gate. About 17 miles and 5600 feet. Ring the peak trail is not the crags trail 😂 

Route: Northwest Slopes
Posted On: 4/8/2025, By: rivrrapids
Info: Continuous snow from gate to summit. Put snowshoes on at 10,300 and then stashed just past Little Pikes. Still contended with shin-knee deep snow past that to summit. Left snowshoes on whole way back to car.
Couloirs looking a bit thin. 

Route: Northwest Slopes
Posted On: 4/2/2025, By: bigfoot1
Info: No summit, went up to Pangborn's Pinnacle. Much better conditions from last week; only postholing on the road where there were old postholes and they are pretty easily avoidable. As of today at like 1600, no one has tried to go up to pikes peak/devil's playground from crags since the snow yesterday/last night. There is maybe 2-3" of fluff on the ground down low, and those parts that always melt first down low will probably be clear again by tomorrow or soon after (assuming no more snow). Great conditions for going off trail in snowshoes, the crust is mostly stable (assuming you weigh less than 130 lbs with all your gear on) so you're just trenching through the newly fallen snow. Pangborn's pinnacle is a weirdly difficult hike, once you get to the rocks it's like class 4. Wildly unexpected. 

Route: Northwest Slopes
Posted On: 3/28/2025, By: bigfoot1
Info: Conditions are absolute misery. No summit, went to crags. Mashed potato snow and intermittent postholing. Snowshoes necessary if you want to go off trail. Postholed 5 times just on the road, and I know where the packed down trench used to be! 

Route: Northwest Slopes
Posted On: 3/23/2025, By: nohandz
Info: Road clear, passable by 2wd. Parked at the gate , 1.2mi from the Crags Campground trailhead. Snow all the way. Spikes helpful, but did not take the snowshoes out of my pack or use poles.

Easy to follow trail up to treeline, then vague through the bowl, though you just go up to the saddle. Wind was rough, as forecast. It stole my mitten, so I turned around at 13,000’. Road was closed today, so had to hike down to meet my ride. Pulled out the ice axe in case I fell in the bowl. It was maybe 25 degrees, consolidated snow.

Soft, warm and slushy below treeeline on tbe way out. Now I have to go back.. 

Route: East Slopes
Posted On: 3/23/2025, By: MaryinColorado
Info: This condition update is a joint effort since I tapped out at the A-Frame. First 3-ish miles of Barr Trail is super dry, and where the snow begins it's packed down until Barr Camp. We didn't use spikes up even though there was a fair amount of ice in spots (but I did use them on descent from Barr Camp for a couple miles). Past Barr Camp, we added to the boot track. I wouldn't call it trenched; it's a boot track. Snowshoes would be a personal preference, but I would definitely bring them. We didn't put them on, but with changing conditions I wouldn't want to be without them. Past the A-Frame: you need to be careful about navigation so you stay on route, but even then you will encounter deep snow! My friend reported back that it's tedious, and need to be careful on the crossings that are steeper. She's training for Denali, and the two other people that summitted at the same time were also training for Denali, so these are folks VERY well-equipped for these conditions and for significant snow crossings. When they reached summit, SAR had been assembled to begin rescue of two people my friend had crossed paths with earlier. (We hope they are ok but have never heard anything.) El Paso County SAR has been posting cautions about the conditions above the A-Frame because of the navigational difficulty and the deep snow; they just fished another couple people out of there several days ago. Bottom line: proceed with extreme caution. 

Route: Northwest Slopes
Posted On: 3/18/2025, By: bigfoot1
Info: With all the melting, trail is a little slushier and you're more likely to posthole now but you still don't need anything more than spikes. Windy up there yesterday; I turned around at treeline. Met some cool people who were training for everest and they said they took the road up to the summit and that the road only had a few drifts. Found what looks like a missing crampon black cover anti-snowball thing on the trail maybe a quarter mile from the crags/devils playground junction. 

Route: East Slopes
Posted On: 3/24/2025, By: Jonathan Deffenbaugh
Info: Climbed via the Incline. Ended up getting to punch through the cloud layer on this one. Only had to use microspikes for traction. Trail was still doable without snowshoes even though I carried them just in case. Ended up going up the East Face direct to the main switchback crossing the East Face in order to save time. Beautiful day! 

Route: Northwest Slopes
Posted On: 3/4/2025, By: bigfoot1
Info: One set of skin tracks on the road already. I broke out a separate snowshoe track up the road and to the Devil's Playground junction (and up to UN 10966). Looks like about 4-6" of new fluff, and at least down low, pretty easy trail breaking. Some cracking and unstable snow even along the flat crags trail, so be careful going up to Pike's Peak.
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UPDATE: 6 Mar 2025
Road is fine to bareboot now and looks like others have tried to head up to pikes peak summit. Someone (I'm guessing Nanc, Toby, Trapper, and Joe) left a note in the snow saying "Do not go." Looking at pikes peak from UN 10786, above treeline looks pretty windswept so I'm guessing below treeline is the limiting factor. 

Route: Northwest Slopes
Posted On: 3/2/2025, By: MaryinColorado
Info: Trail is packed from winter closure until treeline. Above treeline, pick your poison. On ascent, I opted not to follow the route out of treeline and instead stayed further climber's left where snow coverage was either more thin or non-existent. I analyzed for avy potential before deciding to proceed knowing how much that slope would be baking in the sun later. I did not *personally* have any concerns. From where the slope tops out until the summit, things felt more tedious with decent snow coverage. Especially after Devil's Playground, there are stretches of trail that are disguised by snow. I didn't care for the snow crossing below Little Pikes at all especially with the sketchy run-out. I was glad to have all the things: spikes, axe, poles. The push through the boulders was not the worst ever; the snow is mostly consolidated.

Descent was a different ball game until far enough back down in the thick of the forest. The day got hot, the snow got baked. The slip-and-slide snow became more prominent - and annoying. I followed standard route all the way this time down the slope to treeline. There is much deeper snow present in the route, so plenty of postholing to be had.

Overall, good conditions with an appropriate amount of tediousness. Haha. I was glad to have spikes, poles, and axe, though. I did carry snowshoes the whole way, but I didn't end up using them. Conditions are "in between" enough that I think it comes down to personal preference. I have a higher tolerance for wallowing/postholing on the downhill, but anybody who doesn't will be glad to have snowshoes. I was close to putting them on, and maybe I would have if the sun bake was even more severe. So, I would say it's still a good idea to carry them, just in case.

I showed 17 miles and 4,760' gain total. 

Route: Northwest Slopes
Posted On: 2/28/2025, By: amandanicole
Info: Significant snow up high since the last update. Trail packed nicely from Crags TH to treeline. From there to Devil's Playground was great early morning when it was still frozen solid, and very sketchy in the afternoon sun. Trail mostly buried above the road, will probably melt quickly through the boulders if it stays sunny. Used microspikes up and snowshoes part of the way down. 

Route: Northwest Slopes
Posted On: 2/23/2025, By: Veory
Info: Beautiful, fairly warm day. Brought snowshoes but didn't use them although there would've been a couple spots where they might have been helpful, did use micro spikes up to devils playground and no traction after that / on the way down.

Took us 8 hr 40 min, pretty fast moving getting to treeline and the upper bit, the section below devils playground was the slowest as usual with snow.