Mt. Columbia

Route: West Slopes
Posted On: 6/24/2018, By: bwleachuk
Info: No snow on the route this year (a big difference from last year), so my Microspikes and ice axe were superfluous.

The turnoff to the Columbia route is tricky to spot. I had a Garmin device and the topo coordinates from this website; otherwise, there would have been more guesswork. As you reach ~11700ft in elevation, there's a clearing with 5 pathways and a bunch of campsites nearby. On the right there's a large cairn. Turn right there for Columbia. It's unsigned, unfortunately. Then follow the trail until you come out of the woods and find other fork with a smaller cairn. Turn right again. (Keep turning right at every turn, basically). Then as you approach 12,000 you will see the main route up ahead and a new trail being built on the right. Get over to the new trail -- don't go on the route recommended on 14.ers. It's a scree field hell. The new path isn't complete but it's MUCH better and you can trek back left across the tundra at the top of that path and rejoin the main trail about the scree couloir. I wish like hell I had done this! The rest of the route is pretty standard. Plenty of false summits but the climbing above 13,250ft isn't bad. Good luck! 

Route: Harvard and Columbia Traverse
Posted On: 6/19/2018, By: pbarn
Info: Beautiful summer conditions into Horn Fork Basin and up to Harvard. Traverse over to Columbia was long and tedious. There are still several snowfields in the talus field on the east side of the ridge - these must be negotiated carefully. Avoiding them adds time to your journey but is the safest option. The one I had to cross ended up postholing me up to me waist, and I think it could have been potentially more dangerous.

Remember, this traverse is a long and arduous slog, take care on it! 

Route: Southeast Ridge
Posted On: 6/10/2018, By: little_castaldo
Info: Went up southeast ridge and down the west slopes. Both trails are bone dry. When you gain the SE ridge, don't be fooled by the false summit - you have to go around the ridge and Columbia is on the far right. Also, the false summits have false summits...you can save some gain by skirting them to the left or right.

Going down the west slopes was TERRIBLE until reaching the new trail (new trail was AWESOME). 

Route: West Slopes
Posted On: 6/18/2018, By: gnblase
Info: The trail for the first 3.5 miles until tree line is fantastic. Only about 1500 ft of elevation is gained during this first part of the hike which leaves almost 3000 ft for the last 2 miles. After tree line it was very hard to pick up a decent trail. We started going up through the rock and eventually found the trail off to the right. The trail is not nice. It is very loose dirt and very steep. It was a hard, long 2 miles up to the summit. Be aware that there are multiple false summits. The view from the summit is fantastic. Coming down was as challenging if not more challenging than coming up since the trail is so steep and mostly dirt with small rock. This will be a great hike once the entire trail is redone in a few years. 

Route: West Slopes
Posted On: 5/28/2018, By: Eagle Eye
Info: Nice trail conditions from the TH to the Mt Columbia cut-off. Then a little bit of snow, mud, and draining muck in the woods going thru the cut-off. There is a short snow field at the route descriptions treeline gully. A very nice new trail (often with steps) is still under construction starting low on the west slope, its long switchbacks avoid scree moving upward and then it ends abruptly. Yellow and Orange trail markers seem to mark the general direction the trail will continue. SMOOTH SAILING to the summit! 

Route: Southeast Ridge
Posted On: 5/21/2018, By: jbealer
Info: So the last report was on 4-30. not much has changed, it had snowed over night so the route finding in the woods was made harder as the stacked rocks were covered in snow, the ridge also had a fresh layer so climbing over the rocks took longer as i did not want to twist an ankle falling between rocks. It was all melted out by the time i returned. the areas of snow you can walk around or go over, i used spikes as they helped on the fresh snow and mush ground to keep from slipping, but took them off on the return. took 6hrs up (getting off track twice and in the snow) and 3hrs down.
the one thing i want to point out is even with the track loaded on my GPS i still walked pass the turn off on the ridge because it came up fast, i took pictures on the return to show you all. after the cut tree the turn off is on the left, where the staggered logs are. 

Route: Southwest Couloir
Posted On: 5/13/2018, By: roxfan22
Info: Road is open and clear to the trailhead. Significant postholing after the turnoff from the marked trail to the couloir. We opted for crampons on the climb up the couloir. Skiing is possible from about 13,500, 150 feet or so below the ridge. Excellent spring corn conditions. On the descent, there is a 200 yard section about 100 yards above the lower choke with no snow, but after than that, it is possible to ski to a few hundred feet below the lower choke. I cannot imagine that this run will be in for much longer. 

Route: Southwest Couloir
Posted On: 5/13/2018, By: thadwalker
Info: Started climbing up the couloir just below the choke point at 11,600', and the snow in the couloir existed down to about 11,400'. Started up the couloir around 7am and snow was rock hard during the entire ascent. Used crampons all the way up the couloir, which still has snow up to roughly 200' below the ridge line. Sporadic amount of snow along the ridge line, and not nearly enough to make a ski descent from the summit. Skied the couloir starting at 11:30 and had great corn conditions for the entire descent. Snow is not continuous down the entire couloir, but the top roughly 1500' of the couloir was filled and had to take skis off twice to make it all the way down. Great conditions overall. 

Route: Southeast Ridge
Posted On: 4/30/2018, By: tcphoto87
Info: We started off right about 8AM, and summited at 2:30PM and back to the car right after 6PM. Total round-trip time was about 10 hours with 6.5 of those being up and 3.5 being down. I'm a bit of a slow hiker but I have no idea how someone can make it from the car to the summit in 3 hours unless they were literally running lol.

The road was bone dry, and the marker for the Harvard Lakes TH on the 14ers app seems to be off from where the trailhead actually starts with the Colorado Trail is. (It'll be on the right with a small parking area just before it on the left) Once you switchback up make sure you stick to the left and don't follow the amazing Colorado Trail and have to turn around like we did. Once we backtracked we just started up the ridge until we found a faint trail and followed that up the ridge. Pretty bone dry until higher up in treeline some small snow patches start, then they get a bit bigger but we followed previous peoples postholes or just went around the snow which was pretty easy to do. After awhile the snow got pretty bad on the right of the ridge so we started climbing up rocks to the left and stayed on the high points or to the left of them where there was no snow. At treeline and up there was only small pockets of snow too. We weren't sure where the trail went from there, so we skirted along the left of a sub-summit to avoid going over it. After that there were at least 3 high "bumps" to cross over and go back down each one which wasn't a lot of fun to do more than once lol. After the first big bump or so Columbia will be off to the right, the trail makes sort of a backwards question mark loop on the way to the summit. After awhile the snow gets more frequent but for the most part its easy to avoid and go around, or to just step in previous footsteps to avoid sinking in. The wind was killer and on the last loop to the summit felt like it was gonna send me off the side. The summit was a mix of dry and snowy and what I think was a wind shelter was buried under snow so there wasn't much wind protection up there for us. The way down was a lot easier and twice as fast for us than the way up took. The snowy area just after treeline wasn't as much fun tho and route finding wasn't that easy. We used our tracker apps to pinpoint the area we came up to find the trail. Overall it was a great hike and looking forward to #21 after this! 

Route: SE Ridge and Harvard-Columbia Traverse
Posted On: 4/28/2018, By: jknappe17
Info: Parked at Harvard Lakes TH (bone dry) and set off on the Colorado Trail around 6:00am. Stayed on ridge proper and passed by rock outcroppings on the South; minimal snow encountered all the way to the summit.

Made good time to Columbia's summit by 9:00am and decided to go for the traverse to Harvard (see pictures for snow conditions). The traverse has LOTS of snow from "the rabbit" until you gain the ridge that leads up to point 13,516, minimal snow encountered above this point up Harvard's east-SE summit ridge. Snow was fairly consolidated, minimizing post-holing (and not to mention boulder hopping) and allowed us to cruise to Harvard's summit by 11:45am; we followed the standard traverse route sticking to roughly a 12,800 contour through the middle section. See pictures for details on snow; ice axe and traction recommended. Horn Fork basin and south slopes of Harvard looked pretty filled in with snow as viewed from Columbia's summit. Back tracked the traverse and re-summited Columbia on the way out; we were blessed with a snow-pack that kept us from post-holing even in the afternoon. Beautifully brutal 12 hour day with perfect blue-bird weather. 

Route: Southeast Ridge
Posted On: 4/16/2018, By: yaktoleft13
Info: Clear and dry until about 11k, at which point there is scattered snow through the trees. Highly recommend skirting the bumps and outcroppings on the south side, particularly on the way down, since the south side is largely snow free. The long ridge to the summit is largely dry, with the exception of the occasional drift that must be navigated When snow is encountered, you can frequently stick to the ridge crest and have solid, dry rock to scramble on. Brought snowshoes and microspikes, but didn't need either. Be prepared physically and mentally for wind the entire ridge, but all in all a quite enjoyable route.

Trust me, the pictures make the ridge look snowier than it is. Often times dry passage can be found 

Route: Southwest Couloir
Posted On: 3/31/2018, By: JonHandshake
Info: Drove to the North Cottonwood Creek Trailhead (Jeep Grand Cherokee) without any issues. Parked at 6:30am.

Slapped on our skis and started skinning right from the parking lot. There were some spots below 11,000ft that were not covered by snow, but not enough to justify boot-packing.

Shortly after entering the couloir, however, we decided to boot-pack. Snow coverage was consistent throughout the couloir, but it was basically ice. No way we could have skinned up that. Although it wasn't ideal for skinning, this snowpack was clearly strong enough to ski down.

Made it to the top of the couloir around 12noon (did not summit) and observed some minor wind slab. Not nearly enough to write home about. Despite the icy quality of the snow, the recent storm seemed to have provided enough of a coating that there was some cushion on the way down. It was a fast and fun ride.

We were able to ride for quite a bit after exiting the couloir.

By about 1pm the snow started to turn to slush and skinning grew difficult. There are some steep traverses about 1-mile out from the trailhead that were particularly tricky when the snow held this consistency.

Nevertheless, great day. 

Route: Nolans Route
Posted On: 3/25/2018, By: JulianSmith
Info: On Saturday the 24th of March, we climbed the Nolan's route on Columbia, up from the bridge across N. Cottonwood Cr. We both skinned up the Nolan's route, and had to boot pack too where the snow cover got thin in a few spots, but we kept skis on most of the way up to the Southeast Ridge. Once we got to the ridge proper, we boot packed it all the way to the summit. We were able to ski most of the way back down from the summit, with only 2 short boot packs. A lot of the skiing was traversing along the lee side of the ridge, where the snow had accumulated. Finally, we descended a fine couloir just to the west of the Nolan's route, dropping about 2,500' in good snow conditions! The lower angled terrain in the valley and the trail back to N. Cottonwood Cr. was a trudge, as it seems to go uphill in both directions; it makes for fine skiing.
Overall, the snow seems to have tracked a few miles to the north, like around Huron and Missouri, and missed Columbia and Harvard. Though Columbia was skiable, it was not the most glamorous affair. The south face of Harvard is not close to being able to ski.
The road into N. Cottonwood Creek TH does not have a winter closure. It's open all the way to the summer TH. In a 4-wheel drive truck, we were able to drive comfortably to about half way between Silver Creek TH and N. Cottonwood Creek TH, when discretion got the better part of valor. Perhaps you could make it further. 

Route: Southeast Ridge
Posted On: 3/4/2018, By: dwoodward13
Info: Up Southeast, down Three Elk. Wow, what a day. Turn off at the saddle to the ridge was easy to find in the dark. Faint patches of trail here and there up the ridge. A few really large snow drifts below treeline, but did not get out snowshoes. Once above tree line, windy as expected, but route is obvious. Left at 230am, summit at 11.

At summit we decided to descend to Three Elk, which looked pretty dry and way less windy. Followed the dry ridge on the north side of the drainage more or less until we started running into the first set of trees. Used ax a few times to cross slopes below points for caution. At this point we found pretty old tracks, but they didn't make much sense, so we abandoned them and headed to the creek. Saw some human prints, but the tracks were going in all directions. Eventually gave up and followed and animal track down on the north side of the creek to around the CO Trail where a maze of tracks lead to the Harvard Lakes area. Snowshoes literal lifesavers here. If you find a track in Three Elks, use at your own risk :lol:

CO Trail past Harvard Lakes oddly was really hard to follow, even with GPS. We completely lost it as no one had been south of the lakes, and wallowed around until finding it again around just past Powell Creek. A few boot tracks from here back to the car.

19 hours and one hell of an adventure. Eat your Wheaties before doing this in winter! 

Route: Three Elk Creek
Posted On: 3/4/2018, By: dwoodward13
Info: Up Southeast, down Three Elk. Wow, what a day. Turn off at the saddle to the ridge was easy to find in the dark. Faint patches of trail here and there up the ridge. A few really large snow drifts below treeline, but did not get out snowshoes. Once above tree line, windy as expected, but route is obvious. Left at 230am, summit at 11.

At summit we decided to descend to Three Elk, which looked pretty dry and way less windy. Followed the dry ridge on the north side of the drainage more or less until we started running into the first set of trees. Used ax a few times to cross slopes below points for caution. At this point we found pretty old tracks, but they didn't make much sense, so we abandoned them and headed to the creek. Saw some human prints, but the tracks were going in all directions. Eventually gave up and followed and animal track down on the north side of the creek to around the CO Trail where a maze of tracks lead to the Harvard Lakes area. Snowshoes literal lifesavers here. If you find a track in Three Elks, use at your own risk

CO Trail past Harvard Lakes oddly was really hard to follow, even with GPS. We completely lost it as no one had been south of the lakes, and wallowed around until finding it again around just past Powell Creek. A few boot tracks from here back to the car.

19 hours and one hell of an adventure. Eat your Wheaties before doing this in winter!