Mt. Columbia

Route: West Slopes
Posted On: 6/16/2019, By: merrion13
Info: Harvard & Columbia taken from the top of Yale. 

Route: West Slopes
Posted On: 6/14/2019, By: LetsGoMets
Info: Trail is now relatively snow-free for the first couple miles, then it's quite messy (wet/soft snow) until consistent snow near the basin. Short 50 yard section of snow you need to climb to reach the West Slopes trail proper, traction helpful. After that though, you can avoid just about every bit of snow to the summit.

We started at 3:15AM, had good snow on the way up. On the way down around 10 or so, things were already getting very soft. Start early still, but the snow is melting out on the lower trail quickly. 

Route: West Slopes
Posted On: 6/6/2019, By: spartan0512
Info: Snow is soft and melting but is still consolidated enough in most places to walk on, especially if you start before 7. I didn't even bother bring snowshoes and it worked out nicely. I didn't bother putting on my microspikes all day either, it wasn't neccessary. The west slopes themselves are pretty dry and rocky. Once you get to the ridge the drifts are back but if you hug the west "climbers left" side you can scramble up dry ground all the way to the summit. Glissade down the slopes was the best I have had so far. 1000+ feet in a minute, snow was perfect for it. 

Route: Southwest Couloir
Posted On: 6/2/2019, By: mbnat
Info: We attempted a ski of Mt. Columbia via the Southwest Couloir, but turned around at about 13,400' (just shy of the top of the couloir) due to impending storms and dangerous conditions. We underestimated this route and it took much longer than anticipated in current conditions.

The approach was pretty miserable. We hit continuous-ish (maybe 5 short breaks in snow) from about 0.5 miles from the upper trailhead all the way to the second bridge. Sunday was very warm, and the terrain below treeline didn't even get close to freezing. Even at 4:30am, it was completely unsupportable. We opted for skins for most of this section. After the bridge, there were small patches of unconsolidated snow that couldn't be avoided or connected, which resulted in post-holing in ski boots while carrying skis. We finally hit actual continuous snow at maybe 10,600' (didn't check exactly). It took over 3 hours to get from the trailhead to the base of the couloir with all the sloppy terrain.

The couloir slid BIG sometime this year, and a huge chunk of the forest is gone. Only a few minutes after leaving the main Mt. Harvard trail, we ran into the debris field. It's impressive. The base of the couloir is in bad shape. We thought perhaps that the May snows would fill it in, but all the debris is near the surface and its pretty rocky snow. Skins didn't cut it inside the couloir so we used crampons and were very happy we had them. The snow in the couloir was in good shape, consolidated and had a light freeze in the morning. We didn't see any signs of instability.

The rockfall danger is extremely serious here. Every few minutes a small rock would come by, but we had quite the scare when a large rock (~1 ft diameter?) flew right in between us. We didn't hear it coming since it was rolling on the snow. While this was a very close call, we did see many other large rocks come tumbling down after we angled lookers left out of the couloir. If you do this route, its really important to be always looking up for rocks. Some of these could easily cause serious injury or death.

We turned around at around 10:30am and skied the skiers right side of the couloir on perfect spring skiing conditions! This made the suffering worth it :) Storms rolled in shortly after. The way down was back and forth between skiing and hiking. It was very slow but we made it down and learned a lot from the experience. 

Route: Southwest Couloir
Posted On: 4/26/2019, By: jmanner
Info: I skied Columbia yesterday. The upper mountain ridge appears to be as in, as it could ever be. However the couloir ran big, and probably multiple times, it's scoured pretty clean and it blasted out the avalanche path and expanded it pretty thoroughly. Trees skied pretty well at 11:30-12:30 when we were in them. Go get it soon, the dust and the snow drought are really wrecking the couloir. 

Route: Southeast Ridge
Posted On: 4/8/2019, By: thomasdds
Info: We attempted to summit Friday evening, 4/5/2019. The conditions are very poor on this route. I would suggest avoiding this route the rest of the season. Due to warm weather the snow is very slushy. There is a .5 mile stretch on the Colorado Trail that is snow free. We made it above 10,000 feet and were post-holing with snowshoes most of the time off the Colorado Trail before turning back. 

Route: Southeast Ridge
Posted On: 4/1/2019, By: wintersage
Info: Had to park 1.5 miles from the trailhead as well; there is a nice cutoff that can hold multiple parked cards. From there to the summit, postholing was minimal as the snow was packed. We brought snowshoes but none of us needed to put them on and microspikes were sufficient. Overall an incredibly long, tiring day on the ridge. Not much wind but it was snowing pretty hard and visibility was very poor. 

Route: Southeast Ridge
Posted On: 3/29/2019, By: CaptainSuburbia
Info: Parked 1.5 miles from trailhead. We booted the road and put snowshoes on at trailhead. From there to treeline the snow was very soft but postholing was minimal. We followed an old ski track which helped. Microspikes or just boots were fine from treeline to summit. The ridge was mostly windblown, and when we did encounter snow it was solid with only the occasional posthole. The biggest problem was the constant high wind (some of the highest I have encountered this winter) on this very long, exposed ridge. So after summiting we made the mistake of returning via the east ridge to get out of the wind. While trying to undercut one of the many ridge high points, we encountered some pretty serious avalanche terrain which forced us into the basin too early. We definitely should have stayed on the ridge proper to it's conclusion. It was a long slog out of the basin to the Colorado trail through mushy snow. The Colorado trail was even worse. We pretty much postholed for 3 miles back to the SE ridge junction. 

Route: West Slopes
Posted On: 11/26/2018, By: RBeaudry
Info: Decent packed trail up until the two sequential clearings ~1 mile before the treeline, then ankle to thigh deep boot packing.

Dry crystal snow below the treeline, thin sun crust in places. Unlikely that flotation would keep you on top. Above the treeline there was little snow, and what was there had an eggshell sun crust as well. Perfect base conditions for extreme avalanche danger.

My boot prints follow the "South Slopes Direct Route" up Columbia, a tremendously poor route. Look over your right shoulder as you break the treeline, if the entire face isn't covered a snow seam will mark good trail up to the ridge.

Found half of an omnifuel stove; message me to claim! 

Route: Southeast Ridge
Posted On: 11/19/2018, By: cottonmountaineering
Info: Road to TH is a small amount of packed snow, after reaching the ridge there are varying snow conditions in about a half to foot of snow. Once above treeline ridge becomes windswept and travel is much faster than lower on the mountain

Used microspikes but snow was not deep/consolidated enough to use snowshoes below treeline 

Route: West Slopes
Posted On: 9/18/2018, By: derekesq
Info: First, I'll echo the recent report by ma1919 regarding the great work by CFI so far. The completed parts are excellent.

If you are climbing Columbia before the work is complete here are some observations from my hike of Columbia on Sept. 11. Currently it appears there is no connection from the trail where it exits treeline to the new trail (clearly visible to the right as you exit treeline and start to ascend). I, and the other 4 parties I saw, proceeded up the current trail and then, when each realized that trail was not going to the new trail, cut right to get to it. So if you are going to Columbia, you will have to go right across the boulders if you want to reach the new trail. Also, when descending - unless you want to go down the "old" trail of 1,500 feet of horrible, loose dirt/scree, don't just follow the trail at the top - you have to go further southeast and likely off trail to get above where the CFI crew is and cut down off trial to connect to the good trail. I made the mistake of just following the trail. But if you just follow the trail you will descend scree hell (the old trail). Don't do this to yourself. 

Route: West Slopes
Posted On: 9/13/2018, By: ma1919
Info: Talked to the CFI crew on the mountain today. This is their last week of work for the season. The trail is usable up to about 12700 ft, but it does not connect to the old trail at top or bottom (at least I didn't see a connection at the bottom going up or down). The trail crew said that people are free to use the new trail, but you will have to traverse a steep, loose scree slope to get back on route above the end of the new trail. The rock tram is down for the season as well. Thanks to the trail crews for all the great work. The new trail is VERY nice, probably the best I've hiked on any 14er and a huge improvement over the existing route! 

Route: Southeast Ridge
Posted On: 7/17/2018, By: Kdudziak
Info: Start 5:45 am, Summit 11:00 am. First 14er of the season (29th in all), and my boyfriend probably could have shaved off another hour if it wasn't for me. This was a tough, but scenic route. I'd consider the route an easy Class 2. The most challenging parts were the distance, steep grades, and several false summits that made the route mentally taxing.

Trail is very steep, particularly in the trees when you leave the Colorado Trail (~0.8 mi from Road). Route has full summer conditions and was dry the whole way. There is no water along this route, so bring what you need.

The trail is faint, and abruptly disappears at times. It's easy to follow once it meets up with the standard route. Particularly in the woods, it would be nearly impossible to follow the trail in the dark, so if you get an early start, expect to forge your own path. Even in the light, it was often difficult to follow -there are a couple of large areas with downed trees that force you to go around. With some patience and sharp eyes, it's not too hard to make a detour and find the trail again on the other side. There were lots of carins in the woods so just keep an eye out.

The last 200m of the woods we did some bushwacking and even on the way down, my boyfriend and I couldn't find the actual path. There are carins set up at several spots at the edge of the woods, presumably to identify the start of the path, so my boyfriend and I each choose one and tried to follow it; however, the second you enter the woods, there's no clear path or additional carins to guide you. This is the only part of woods hiking that wasn't well marked and it seems like the carins that were set up are a bit of halfhearted effort. Perhaps we were just too tired for route finding at this point. I took high and he took low and eventually we were able to meet up with the trail again.

Once you are out of the woods, the path is a lot less consistent, but if you have your route description and photos from 14ers.com is easy enough to head in the right direction. My Garmin measured 6.02 mi exactly both directions. We also used the AllTrail App as a spot check- the GPX tracks appeared to be reliable, but the reported distances were about a half mile off of my Garmin. AllTrails reports the route as being 10.5 mi RT, which is not the case. The elevation estimates were consistent with the 14er directions, so at least that feature seems accurate. 

Route: West Slopes
Posted On: 7/10/2018, By: hsiegel3
Info: Beautiful weather on the 4th. The CFI work on the route is amazing. The crew were hard at work on Independence Day and had helpful suggestions for trail finding above their work area. Hiking as a family (ages 11 to 50) can be challenging but six of us made the summit. The trail could use signs on the lower part where it splits off from the Mt. Massive trail. 

Route: West Slopes
Posted On: 6/25/2018, By: lukeneedsnewsocks
Info: The new trail on Mt Columbia is coming along very well. You can hike on it while they're working on it. When you're heading into the gully it is very easy to pick out on the right hand side. There is a trail split about 30 yards from the trees with a cairns marking the way to get to the new trail.

New trail bypasses the worst spots of the gully but you still have to contend with the upper trail to the ridge (which isn't that bad). If you choose to take the new trail all the way up to where it dead ends, you'll need to make sure you stay to the left when you start walking on the tundra (there is a sort of ridge you should be able traverse under to get to the old trail). I made the mistake of staying too far right which puts you on the tundra too long (sorry plants!) thinking the old trail would cut further left. It doesn't.

When you're coming down, you can see the new trail below and can choose to take the old trail down further toward the gully and join up by cutting over on what looks like a slightly flatter spot, or when the old trail starts to veer harder to the right, cut left across the tundra. (You should notice the "sort of" ridge you want to stay under as you come down the old trail). You can't see the new trail until you get pretty far left and drop down a bit.

I'm not sure if any of that makes sense, but the key is, take the new trail, cut over when you know you're above the gully (having the coordinates from the route description is very helpful), and you should be good.