Mt. of the Holy Cross

Route: North Ridge
Posted On: 9/13/2026, By: Redelectric3
Info: Great day for a hike! Weather held up nicely, a bit of corn snow at the top right around 1pm, but other than that, great mix of clouds and sun the whole time. I made it up to the trailhead and started around 7:15am, was to the summit around 11:50am, and then back to the trailhead around 4pm. Like others have said before, it was a longer hike than most but it was okay, got to see a lot of the aspen changing as I hiked. CFI has done some great work on this trail, and the amount of carins was very helpful. Only the last section required a scramble, but that is always the case right? Overall little wind, pretty much a perfect day, I could see all the way to Longs. The road was decent, I did see one car in the lot, but I would not drive a 2wd car up there. Lot was full when I got there, I am glad I chose to bike to the top from where it turns into a dirt road. 

Route: North Ridge
Posted On: 8/22/2026, By: ericwolf88
Info: Got to the trailhead at 5:30 and got the second to last parking spot. Started at 6:00, summit at 10:15 (hung out for probably 20-30 minutes), back at the creek at 1:15, back to the car at 3:00. Really an absolutely beautiful hike, but definitely a long one. The first 4 miles are pretty easy moving along, but there is then a lot of vertical in a short amount of time. The trail is fairly easy to follow until right about the very top where some boulder hopping is required. It was a clear day so having those 360-degree views of the Sawatch, Gore, and Vail makes it worth it. I’ve always been slow on the way down, and this one felt like I was going particularly slow for some reason, maybe because so much of the trail is rocks and not dirt. I didn’t think the climb back out was really all that bad, but took a quick break after the creek. A harder hike, for sure, and I was glad the weather was perfect, but overall one of the more memorable 14ers. 

Route: North Ridge
Posted On: 8/2/2026, By: HikesInGeologicTime
Info: If you haven’t done a 5k+ elevation-gain hike in over a year, this mountain is certainly A Choice, but a stellar forecast that panned out beautifully, a longstanding desire to repeat it, and getting to wish my home state a happy sesquicentennial from a fourteener summit justified it…I think.

Cairns were still spray-painted, East Cross Creek still THE place to filter water, hike back up to Half Moon Pass still sucks but nowhere near as bad as the one back up to Broken Hand from Cottonwood Lake. 

Route: North Ridge
Posted On: 7/25/2026, By: medleyjosh
Info: Summer conditions, creeks are flowing lower down, no snow anywhere on trail. 

Route: North Ridge to Halo Ridge
Posted On: 7/14/2026, By: Da Legit Master
Info: Hot, and sunny with no wind. I ended up going through all my water by the time I reached the hut on Halo Ridge. Luckily there were several water sources on the way down. There are two at 11,680'. If going down, use the first source. If going up, use the second. There is another source at 11,080'. All three of these were light flow, and I wouldn't be surprised if they are gone in a week or two. The final source had very strong flow at 10,960'. Quite smokey in the afternoon. Smoke from the willow fire was visible on the way down. 

Route: From Holy Cross City 4×4 Road
Posted On: 7/14/2026, By: CaptainSuburbia
Info: This was a great route to Holy Cross and and it allowed me to tag 13,786 and Holy Cross Ridge on the way and Whitney Peak on descent. Any car can reach the trailhead at French Creek. It took about 45 minutes to reach it from the turn off on 24. Great dirt roads except for a couple mile section on the Homestake road which is washboarded pretty bad. After the 4x4 road there's a nice trail to the beautiful Seven Sisters Lakes. It's then a talus hop to the upper ridge for 13,786 and some steep slaps to reach it's summit. From there to Holy Cross Ridge and Holy Cross it's a mix of talus and exposed Ridge climbing. I didn't see any other climbers until the summit of Holy Cross where I met a nice group from the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra taking a day off from concerts in Vail. It was about 7.5 miles one way, so a bit longer than the standard route but well worth the effort. Some of the views were smoky, especially in the morning, but Holy Cross itself was not smoky. The register on 13,786 needs replaced. Someone even used a bandaid wrapper to leave name. 

Route: Halo Ridge --> North Ridge
Posted On: 6/13/2026, By: GavinUtroske
Info: North Ridge Conditions:
The trail had some snow on it before the final push to the summit, but it is avoidable. Backcountry campgrounds looked to be pretty dry from when I walked by.
Halo Ridge Conditions:
Lots of downed trees at the beginning of the trail. Some of them I could step over, but some areas had super dense amounts of them so I had to find my way around. Snow almost entirely avoidable.
Good conditions out there! 

Route: Cross Couloir
Posted On: 6/7/2026, By: soulseeker87
Info: Still goes! snow from the entry point per the dotcom route all the way up to the summit. Boot pack is well established and is still holding even with the super warm temps today. Probably has another couple weeks in it at least. 

Route: North Ridge
Posted On: 6/7/2026, By: MMAfightingClimber
Info: Pretty much summer conditions, around I’d say a quarter mile snow section between/around 13k-13,300 that is foot tracked. But it pretty close to the cornice overhang. You can bypass it totally on the rocks to climbers right on the way up if you’d rather not mess with it.

Couple small snowfields near treeline that are easily worked around as well. 

Route: Halo Ridge
Posted On: 6/13/2026, By: One Step At A Time
Info: Lots of large fallen trees blocking the trail ~1 mile into the hike. Snow is covering parts of the trail above 13,000 ft but very easy to avoid it. 

Route: Halo Ridge/North Ridge
Posted On: 6/6/2026, By: jdubs
Info: Tigiwon road was in good condition and we camped at the half moon campsite which wasn’t yet open to cars but had plenty of spots.
There was a quarter mile of downed trees early on and snow/mud got slick on the way down. Hiked in trail runners and never put micro spikes on. 

Route: Halo ridge/North ridge
Posted On: 6/6/2026, By: Jschramm87
Info: Some fallen timber to deal with near the start of Fall Creek trail. The approach trails are dry, the Halo ridge route is dry except for a small, flat snowfield that was still firm around 11 am (pic 3). It’s right before the final push up to HC and could be avoided if you wanted to hike around it. The North ridge has soft snow with boot prints. Boulders/rocks parallel this whole section, so this snow could be avoided mostly. There’s also some snow mounds as you drop back down into treeline. You’ll post hole in here, but it’s not that bad. I felt ok in trail runners all day. 

Route: Cross Couloir
Posted On: 6/1/2026, By: kelseyd
Info: Whoever set this boot pack, I don't know you. I don't know who hurt you or what you have to prove. But I want you to know, there's another way. Seriously, it was solid but the most aggressive and sustained Tall Man Bootpack I've ever experienced. Every step was an 18" or more step up. C'mon bro, give the little people a chance.

TL;DR couloir still in. Started around 9am, finished around 10 and the snow was firm the whole way up. Approach mostly dry with some small snow patches. Broke out the spikes for a short section on the last slope up to the couloir entrance. Descended the north ridge where things got messy with postholing. 

Route: Up Halo Ridge, Down North Ridge
Posted On: 5/31/2026, By: notidealbutfine
Info: Tigiwon road is open for the season! I camped about .25 mile from the TH and got started at 4:00AM on Sunday. Virtually no significant snow to cross on the Halo Ridge route until Peak 13,373. From there, spikes on trailer runners + poles was fine. The North Ridge descent route had significantly more snow than Halo especially below tree line, but not enough to warrant bringing snowshoes in my opinion. I didn't and I occasionally post holed on the descent around 11AM. Just leave early and send it with the sneakers. 14.31 miles / 5,682' gain / 8 hours, 28 minutes 

Route: Cross Couloir
Posted On: 5/25/2026, By: Swerner
Info: Cross Couloir is in! We took the couloir up and standard route down. Continuous snow from about 12,900' right before entering the couloir to the summit. Couloir itself was great, consolidated snow that was getting pretty soft by 9am, but I wouldn't recommend going much later than that - soft snow made it easier to kick steps than ice would have, but the crux had some slipping and sliding near the top. Conditions from the turnoff by the creek to the entry to the couloir were variable, mixture of bushwhacking, snow crossings, rock hopping, and mud. I think skiing out that way would be very unpleasant. Didn't need snowshoes on the way up at all and barely used them going down the standard route (probably would have been better to save the weight and not bring them at all). Very much still spring conditions on the mountain though, lots of postholing throughout the entire day (gaiters recommended). Road was fully clear of snow and plenty of campsites were open at Cross Creek.

For timing info, we started at about 4:20 from Cross Creek camping, entered the couloir at around 8:20, then summited around 9:40. The section from the creek up to Bowl of Tears has difficult routefinding in places.