Square Top Mountain

Route: Southeast Ridge
Posted On: 10/15/2023, By: Danger_D
Info: a few small patches of snow here and there, but 98% snow free. Brought traction but never used it. It looks like the peaks further west got a little more snow, but the ones are Guenella are mostly dry 

Route: Southeast Ridge
Posted On: 9/21/2023, By: Old Hickory
Info: Beautiful day; some patches of snow lingering on the flat area before the summit. Easily avoidable, but boot deep in places. It was interesting that there were very light snow flurries at times, although NWS said only "breezy" and "sunny." No mention of possible precipitation, but I don't think I checked the detailed graph. 

Route: Wilcox, Argentine, Square Top Lolly Pop Loop
Posted On: 7/14/2023, By: FoxintheForest
Info: Ran Wilcox to Argentine to Square Top. Challenging run with the lack of a trail most of the time but an excellent romp. Pretty much summer conditions. There's one small snowfield towards the top of Argentine that's unavoidable (photo attached). You probably don't need spikes but I'm a snow weenie (I've had to self-arrest) and I hauled them all the way up so might as well use them. Just stay left of the cornice. Snow is soft, trashed, and punchy.

Coming down Square Top wasn't as straightforward as the rest of the route. You've got to avoid a big snowfield (walk around), but it tips you towards Square Top Lakes, so pay attention and plan on traversing over to the correct side of the gentle ridge.

I found the descent off Square Top to be the crux of the day - kinda loose and crappy compared to the lovelyness of the rest of the route - definite vibe change. I ended up coming down a few easy cliff bands (Class 3 for a move or two) and somewhat traversing over from where the photo shows to avoid willows/snow patches. It was tedious but doable. I may have been "off route" a bit though.

If you want to go light and fast, there's water on the initial steep up Wilcox, running off the snowfield on the way up Argentine, and on the snowfields off of Square Top. Also plenty of water on the trail. Just a few easy snow patches.

FWIW I clocked 9.2 miles and 4,300 feet of gain. Probably splitting hairs there.

Wildflowers are poppin' all over this thing though. Didn't see a soul until I was back on the main trail - had all 3 summits to myself. Mountain magic all the way! Wave to all the tourists on Quandary, Grays, and Torreys. GO GET IT! 

Route: From Argentine, descending standard
Posted On: 6/25/2023, By: 14er101
Info: Part of Loveland to Guanella traverse,
Argentine to Squaretop is mostly summer conditions, no traction needed.
Square top standard route summer conditions. 

Route: Southeast Ridge
Posted On: 6/11/2023, By: xDoogiex
Info: Lots of snow above 13,350ft on east slop and summit ridge. It was mostly still solid going up at 10am. A few snow patches lower including the turnoff to go to the ridge. Muddy. Also lost my marmot gloves and balaclava if anyone finds it 

Route: Southeast Ridge
Posted On: 5/13/2023, By: Laxer04
Info: Started at the Winter TH. The road to the actual TH is mostly dry. Snowshoes were super helpful the entire way after that. The ridge is dry in spots and we took our snowshoes off for a good portion of the higher sections. We didn't see a single person the entire day.

My strava (not always the most accurate) came in at 10.9 miles 3500 ft of vert 

Route: Southeast Ridge
Posted On: 4/10/2023, By: ellenmseb
Info: skied from 13k. need to take skis off to cross a bunch of dirt humps traversing from guanella pass. staying lower would be better 

Route: Southeast Ridge
Posted On: 3/20/2023, By: drop_bear
Info: Used snowshoes from the pass up until around 13,000. From there to the summit it was windblown. The snow was pretty good quality, there were only a handful of brief post-holing instances in my snowshoes through some willows, otherwise it was supportive. 

Route: Southeast Ridge
Posted On: 11/20/2022, By: Hiking_TheRockies
Info: Trail is covered with snow up to the lake. Once you start up the mountain, the trail is about 50% snow, 50% dry. Microspikes were moderately useful but not necessary. We did not use floatation. 

Route: Southeast Ridge
Posted On: 11/19/2022, By: swilson753
Info: A lot more snow than we expected - 4-6" over most of the area with more in the willows. Bring flotation - we didn't and spent a couple hours postholing through the willows before turning around at the lake. Beautiful day out there! 

Route: Southeast Ridge
Posted On: 10/31/2022, By: coopergould
Info: Broke trail in the AM, no one had been up there since before the storm. Consistent ~8" of snow until breaking off the South Park Trail to gain the ridge, where I tried to link up wind blown tundra patches. Worked well with the occasional mandatory snow crossing that would have me post holing past my knee. Initially planned to go for Argentine but decided the juice wasn't worth the squeeze

Wore gators the whole day and spikes from lake to summit and back 

Route: Wilcox, Argentine, Square Top Lolly Pop Loop
Posted On: 10/22/2022, By: Carl_Healy
Info: This condition update might be kinda useless, since there's some snow bearing down on this peak in the hours following this post.

Pretty much entirely dry from Silver Dollar Lake trailhead summit.
No traction needed 

Route: Southeast Ridge
Posted On: 10/9/2022, By: ryansunshine20
Info: Most snow and ice avoidable. Lots of people going to silver dollar lake and almost no one going to the peak. 

Route: Southeast Ridge
Posted On: 9/12/2022, By: derekesq
Info: Trail is in great condition - even after the lake there is a trail, and the trail goes all the way to the first false summit/ridge. the route outline is right about false summits - they just keep coming. 

Route: Southeast Ridge
Posted On: 8/27/2022, By: nyker
Info: Entire route is dry although in the early morning the first mile or so had some icy patches on the rocks and logs. Some minor snow fell across the way on Bierstadt but nothing on square top.