Mt. Meeker

Route: Iron Gates
Posted On: 6/13/2025, By: Ryan987
Info: Summer conditions minus the snow crossing to chasm lake (but didn't need spikes). Super fun route! 

Route: Dragon's Egg
Posted On: 5/27/2025, By: aksean22
Info: From the Sandbeach Lake TH. Trail is dry for the first 3.5 miles, patchy snow starts just before the Hunters Creek turnoff. I made it another 0.5 miles in trailrunners before giving up and switching to skins. Mostly continuous and supportable snow the rest of the way. I skinned to about 12,500' and booted the rest. I was able to ski off the summit by dropping North towards the Loft before traversing back to the south into the couloir. Coverage was pretty good up high, but getting pretty thin in the middle. There was maybe 4" of new snow but it was super wet and already starting to melt off. I skied the first 1500' continuously, walked 200' around a waterfall, then skis on to the bottom. Lots of rollers up high and kicked off a few wetslides down low. It's getting really thin, would not recommend. 14 miles, 5900' round trip. 

Route: Iron Gates/Meeker Ridge
Posted On: 12/21/2024, By: _coloradical
Info: The trail up to Chasm Junction is packed in nice. We were surprised to see the trail to Chasm Lake wasnt packed in, we put in the first tracks around 9 AM and 2 other groups were behind us and packed it in a little more. The approach to Iron Gates has minimal snow and it can be bypassed. Once you pass through the gates, all the rock is 100% dry. Once we gained the ridge at 13k, we could see small patches of snow lingering in the south side of the ridge - all can be bypassed. The knife edge that connects Meeker to Meeker Ridge is dry. Strong headwinds forced us off the ridge, but theres a nice ledge system on the north side that allows you to bypass the entire knife edge with a couple easy 4th class moves. Beautiful day out today, breezy and gusty in the morning but rather obnoxious winds in the afternoon. Forecast calls for a windy next couple of days, so monitor forecasts if you go out. Will post photos a little later. 

Route: Iron Gates
Posted On: 12/8/2024, By: daway8
Info: Standard packed snow trail to treeline then fairly windswept until just past Chasm Lake junction where's there's a lot of snow piled up, but there were 30+ people ice skating on Chasm Lake today so there's a pretty good boot pack across steep snowfields - not much snow above on MLW to worry about, it's just the slopes below the trail that are loaded, but lots of anchors in the way of bushes, large rocks, etc. I put on microspikes here for added security across a brief firm section. Iron Gates almost totally dry, as was the ridge going over Meeker Ridge and Meeker - Knife Edge was dry. Looked like Loft route was holding a fair amount of snow/ice including especially at the steep sections near the top. Meeker-Longs saddle pretty windswept. Went over and started a little ways up Longs. The couloirs are holding a little more snow - just enough to be annoying but not enough for any avy danger yet. But I started late and was moving slow so aborted about 1k below Longs and went back over the Meekers since Loft route below the saddle looked a bit sketch. Will upload some photos. 

Route: Loft
Posted On: 9/9/2024, By: drummerjohn
Info: Did the Longs Grand Slam on 9/8. This includes Meeker, Longs, Pagoda, Storm and Mt Lady Washington. The rock was all dry aside from some water runoff after leaving chasm (all easily avoidable). Excellent conditions right now. 

Route: Southwest Ridge
Posted On: 7/23/2024, By: bsteinmetz21
Info: Went up Meeker via the Iron Gates, across the knife edge, and down the Loft. One of my favorite days in the mountains and an absolutely awesome perspective of Longs. The knife edge was pretty legit, but there are definitely ways to hug the right side of you prefer. The unexpected bonus of the day was getting to glissade about 300 feet near the bottom of the loft route! Started at 7:15am and had cloud cover all day with zero rain or thunderstorm activity. We took our time and spent about 11 hours out there. Highly recommend this route if you're looking for zero crowds (didn't see another person all day after the Chasm junction) and a completely unique view of Longs! The whole route (minus the glissade in the Loft) was dry despite some snow/freezing temperatures recently. AND, the hike up through the Iron Gates was not nearly as miserable as I expected. We hugged the right side and found a lot of class 3-type climbing that was way easier than navigating scree. 

Route: Iron Gates, Loft
Posted On: 5/13/2024, By: justiner
Info: Snow on the East Longs Peak Trail starts at the trailhead. Approach to Chasm Lake is relatively easy, with the snow slope below Mt. Lady Washington being quite dug in. Iron Gates is also relatively snow free. Snow of course of the ledges on the ridge leading up to the summit. From the Loft, descending the exit ledges are quite snowy. Fairly substantial amount of snow has built up on the ledges thenmselves, so prepare for traversing on steep snow. Loft itself is in great shape below the exit ledges, snow from Chasm Lake to the Exit Ledges - pretty amazing. Snow isn't yet crunchy styrofoam. Mostly two distinct layers. The top layer is somewhat heavy powder, the layer below seems more consolidated, but feels quite heavy, as if there's more melting than setting up overnight. Lots of pinwheels everywhere. There seems to be evidence of a small slide on the bottom of Dreamweaver. Top of the Loft has a lot of debris from sluff from the very top, above the cliff band. 

Route: Iron Gates
Posted On: 10/21/2023, By: _coloradical
Info: Trail is clear all the way to Meeker. The knife edge between Meeker Ridge and Mt. Meeker has very little snow and can be crossed without any issues. The Loft has snow and ice, I did talk to 2 people who came up the Loft and stated that you can easily avoid all ice. Things may change heading into the week, but weather has been great for these Fall Climbs. 

Route: Southwest Ridge
Posted On: 10/5/2023, By: HikesInGeologicTime
Info: Snow is a relative non-issue until you curve around to the north-facing side in the futile hope of keeping the route strictly Class 2/2+, then is just unavoidable enough to up the pucker factor on the ledge-y/knife-edge-y ridge leading to the summit. Microspikes stayed in our packs nonetheless, as the concerning section is short, and the mandatory snow crossings are in the easily walkable areas. Makes perfect sense to me why the Loft or Iron Gates might be more popular, as this route is steep, relentless, and overrun with boulders in addition to having a starting elevation nearly 1000 feet lower than the main Longs TH, but it is a nicely southern exposed option if you want to hit this one after conditions have changed to more or less permanent ice/snow/cold. 

Route: The Loft
Posted On: 9/16/2023, By: illusion7il
Info: Fun conditions on Mt. Meeker with 1-3 inches of fresh snow. Melting fast but microspikes we're very helpful. 

Route: Loft Couloir
Posted On: 9/1/2023, By: PikaSteve
Info: Some unavoidable water on the Loft Couloir exit ramp--I don't know when this becomes an ice concern. Great trail to Chasm Lake. A few class three segments in the couloir and exit ramp, but mostly well traveled (but not alway well-defined or completely connected) paths up to the Loft and within a 100 feet of the summit ridge. Meeker summit ridge was a slabby catwalk/knife edge made more interesting by 30 mile per hour wind gusts. Beautiful blue skies and incredible views of Longs Peak. Only a few flowers remaining and still no sign of fall colors. 

Route: Iron Gates
Posted On: 8/12/2023, By: sarahmariekirk
Info: Climbed Meeker today via the Iron Gates and added on Longs via the Loft. Great day up high today despite kinda gnarly weather, and super fun (but quick) climb of Meeker. Ridge is easy and there is very minimal exposure. 

Route: Loft Couloir
Posted On: 6/26/2023, By: jfm3
Info: I climbed "Southeast Longs" and Mt. Meeker via the Loft on June 25. I didn't go over to the true summit of Longs. Still a lot of snow up there. I put on crampons at Chasm Lake and didn't take them off until I was back at the lake on the descent. I saw two people who skied down Lamb's Slide. The snow on the Loft was cold and crunchy. The snow on the ledge that exits the couloir was fairly icy, due to the water ice that is thawing and flowing off the cliffs above. It was more like climbing on a glacier than a snowfield. There is a good track but it's steep and some places are harder to kick steps than others. The snow on the north side of Mt. Meeker is still cold and supportive. There wasn't any ice on the rocks on the summit ridge. 

Route: Dreamweaver
Posted On: 6/21/2023, By: desertdog
Info: Perfect conditions, Snow plus two short sections of ice. We were surprised given the warm up, but we had clear skies the night before then a cloudy morning, so it was quite cold. We descended the Loft which was snow covered with a trench. 

Route: Dragon’s Egg Couloir
Posted On: 5/7/2023, By: Wildernessjane
Info: Hauled skis about 2-1/2 miles in. Made it up to the Dragons Egg and turned around due to poor visibility and thin coverage higher up. If weather had been better we probably would have continued, though the skiing would have been subpar.