Hunter Peak

Route: Hunter to triangle from conundrum creek
Posted On: 8/18/2024, By: yaktoleft13
Info: Ran the ridge from hunter to triangle. Trail is phenomenal. Bushwhack to ascent slope to hunters east ridge was nasty for a second, but got better as it went up. Even faint retails in the forest. Basically class 2 to the summit. Traverse from hunter to Keefe is long and sucky. Multiple times I dislodged me-sized blocks off the ridge proper, which is supposed to be better rock. I basically ended up just doing bypass to bypass back and forth, avoiding the ridge. Final ascent up Keefe is a bit better. Didn't think the route finding was too bad, especially not aiming to stay on the ridge proper. Super long, took around 2:15. The rest of the summits all took less than an hour between each one. Keefe to Hilliard was pretty uneventful. Hilliard to 552 had a steep, loose, and confusing downclimb. 552 to 214 had a couple steep downclimbs, probably the hardest climbing on the route. And 214 to triangle had some slabs, but nothing too tough. The trail out is so insanely long, 11 miles from the summit of triangle. Got into a 15 minute moose standoff right near campsite 16. Total day was 24.5 miles, 8300 gain, and 14:50 (including breaks and moose standoff) 

Route: Triangle->Hunter loop via Conundrum Hot Springs
Posted On: 8/31/2023, By: JasonKline
Info: From the Conundrum Hot Springs campsites, we did the Triangle Pass->Triangle->13216->13537->Hilliard->Keefe->Hunter loop. Still summer conditions. That was a long day (over 15 hours, something like 18 miles, plenty of vert, and a lot of slow, tedious ridgework) for a mere mortal like me. It's a long way from Keefe to Hunter, so I can definitely understand why many people do Hunter separately and I would probably do the same if I were to do it again. Also, when you descend the east ridge of Hunter, you receive a particularly nasty willow bushwhack as your reward before you reach the gorgeous trail back to the Conundrum Hot Springs. 

Route: Conundrum Creek to North ridge
Posted On: 7/18/2023, By: VeraUndertow
Info: Hiked in from the trail head 4.6 miles before leaving the trail and heading west up the basin. Only a few willows to bash before I found a nice ramp to get up the small cliff band on the north side of the creek. From here there was a decent climbers trail switchbacking up for 300 or more feet to a mature aspen grove which led me almost to treeline before turning into a pine forest for a few hundred feet. Treeline was around 11200 feet and the bushwhack was actually very chill, from here I followed some semi stable talus up toward a chossy gully, following Mtnman200s trip report to gain the north ridge. This choss was extremely tedious and about half way up there is some scree covered easy class 3 which I used to climb up expediting the climb slightly, since choss is not my favorite and the rock was actually mostly stable. From here I gained the ridge by scrambling some class 3 till it turned to nice open tundra. There was some running water, which was the only place to filter water I saw all day and unfortunately it's right in the beginning of the day if you run the ridge from Hunter to Hilliard or 13537. The grassy north slope eventually turns into a fun class 2+ scramble with no really memorable difficulties on the way to the summit. I didn't cross any snow the whole way and made the summit after 4.5 hours and 6.5 miles. From here I headed south down the long winding ridge toward Keefe. The initial crumbling towers were easily bypassed on the west side of the ridge, then the next 3 difficulties required dropping east to gain a large bump (13435') which had nice grassy talus on the west side that allowed for quick movement for the first time on the ridge. I encountered a few more bumps that had class 3 and maybe a few class 4 moves as I tried to stay on the crest as much as possible before coming to the crux of the ridge which is at the true low point in the traverse to Keefe. On the east side was some very large steep slabs that I didn't want to climb up and on the west side was a jumble of large boulders that appeared to be suspended purely by luck as they chockstoned themselves together over a 500' cliff. None of this gave me good vibes, but I crossed the chockstones and quickly climbed a class 3 chimney to cross the ridge to the east, where I down climbed relatively solid (still the Elks tho) class 4+ cliffs, that were covered in dirt and scree, down to 12800' on the east side of the ridge. In hindsight I think I could have dropped 300 feet to the east side of the ridge under the slabby section and around to the same area to avoid some of the sketchiest parts of the traverse. From this basin I followed a grassy ramp south with occasional class 3 moves up toward the second to last large bump before Keefe, this section was class 2+ again and once I reached this bump the ridge turns west on nice grassy class 2 to another large ridge bump that almost looks like it could be ranked, before heading south on nice grassy ridge until 300 feet of class 3 to gain the summit of Keefe. The traverse to Keefe was long and tedious and took me about 2.5 hours. 

Route: East and North Ridges
Posted On: 9/27/2022, By: supranihilest
Info: TL;DR: The east ridge of Hunter is pretty unpleasant when it's wet. From Conundrum Creek trailhead I took the trail up and left it at the unnamed stream draining the bowl northeast of Hunter. The trail is great but it's immediately a steep, gross bushwhack after leaving the trail, replete with willows, tall grass (sucks when it's wet), thick aspen groves, and some rotting scrambling down low. Persevere into the upper bowl which is all full of roly poly talus. I made for some obvious grass ramps and gullies on the north side of the east ridge, which didn't look too bad from afar. It's a lot steeper and crappier than it looks. It starts off on easy enough grass, but everything is kind of rotting away. Eventually it funnels into a series of gullies that would be dirt when dry, but had melting show in them when I climbed and were thus very wet. The gullies go at Class 2+ to Class 3, and the final gully as I neared the ridge crest was very steep and extremely muddy to the point where I was slipping and sliding everywhere. I used the walls of the gully for support, and at one point ripped out a cooler sized rock that knocked me over as it rolled past, slamming my head into the wall before I began sliding down the gully, which of course had a cliff at the bottom. Thankfully I was wearing my helmet, which I recommend on this loose peak. I literally clawed my way up that damned gully to grass and then to the ridge crest, where things became marginally more solid. There's some fairly exposed Class 2+ and Class 3 scrambling on rubbly ledges and grass. A lot better than the gullies to be sure. Having had my mojo sapped by hitting my head and not wanting to go back down my ascent route I went down the north ridge which had a short section of Class 2+ before turning into steep, loose, awful talus. Very time consuming to get to the saddle. From there I took a very steep gully (which was dry and would probably be scary wet, since it was rotting little outcrops and scree on top of hardpan) down into the bowl, which went at loose Class 2+, and then down like 1,000 feet of very unstable talus to treeline, down the steep bushwhack and back to the merciful trail.