Square Top Mountain

Route: Wilcox, Argentine, Square Top Lolly Pop Loop
Posted On: 7/31/2022, By: CheapCigarMan
Info: Did Lolly Pop in the reverse order, started with Square Top Mountain. Easy trail to the lake. Took slope with easy talus up to the saddle. Beautiful area with scenic lakes. 

Route: From Silver Dollar TH
Posted On: 7/22/2022, By: madmattd
Info: Ascended the first, and shallowest, gully from the top of the switchbacks as the trees open up around 11,600'. Went up a steep short grass gully to a small knob, traversed that (bear right to avoid the willows), and ascended the obvious main gully from there. Mostly steep tundra, with a short steep bit at the very top of the ridge. From there, followed the ridge to the summit, it looked worse than it was. Maybe I mixed a few 2+/3- moves in there, but probably avoidable if one cares. 

Route: From Argentine Pass TH
Posted On: 7/13/2022, By: NotTimid
Info: Summer conditions! No snow along the slope up to Argentine Pass (or anywhere along the route). 

Route: Southeast Ridge
Posted On: 6/13/2022, By: pcsongei
Info: Pretty much summer conditions. A few small snow patches here and there but easily avoidable. Smokey this morning and a bit windy but I think the wind cleared out the smoke. The Guanella Pass area was much more clear on my drive out 

Route: Silver Dollar TH
Posted On: 5/16/2022, By: kwhit24
Info: Left TH at 7am. We wanted to head straight up to the ridge but found soft snow early in the trees. So we followed the road/trail toward the lakes looking for a good spot to head with too much postholing (especially so early. More on that to follow).

Followed the road/trail on dirt or good hard pack snow (this snow on trail was also good on the way down at 11:30) for 1.4 miles. Just about where Naylor Lake comes into view. From here we head up rocks, bushes, and snow to the ridge. This was the only part we used microspikes for. There is snow on the upper ridge but we didn't need them up or down.

After a 15 min break on top we left at 10am. After getting back down to the ridge (around 12,800') we saw a good route down to Silver Dollar Lake which worked out and we met up with the nice trail after walking some rocks and grass. What we didn't see was around the corner the next .75 mile was on and off postholing for the next 30 min until we met up with the original spot where we had left the trail in the morning. Snowshoes may have helped here

After that we were back in the trees on the dirt or hard pack snow back to TH by noon 

Route: Southeast Ridge
Posted On: 5/6/2022, By: jmanner
Info: Skied one of the north chutes today, it goes from the summit but youve got to billygoat a little. 

Route: From Silver Dollar Lake TH
Posted On: 5/3/2022, By: wintersage
Info: TH is still closed 0.5mi from the Silver Dollar Lake TH. The TH to Bierstadt is closed (gated) near the same spot as well. We took a hard south from the silver dollar lake TH to gain the ridge and take it directly to Square Top to avoid sketchy avy terrain and postholing. Very windy, low visibility, but a chill easy hike nevertheless. No snowshoes needed but microspikes helped conserve energy. 

Route: Southeast Ridge
Posted On: 12/19/2021, By: 14er101
Info: As mentioned before, the road still closed 1.5 miles below the pass from the Georgetown side. Mixed conditions, some snow drifts in the basin but mostly dry above. Traction helped but no traction or flotation is needed. 

Route: Southeast Ridge
Posted On: 11/30/2021, By: oldmanforest
Info: road closed at the winter closure from the georgetown side but the road is totally dry to the trailhead. short avoidable stretches of ice and snow on the route, but traction/flotation not needed. 

Route: From Guanella Pass
Posted On: 11/22/2021, By: Will_E
Info: Did Squaretop and Argentine from Guanella Pass today. Very little snow on route, I didn't used any traction or flotation. 

Route: Southeast Ridge
Posted On: 10/30/2021, By: malogos
Info: Reporting from the summit -- Handful of negligible snow patches. No traction required. 

Route: Up North Side, Down SouthEast Ridge
Posted On: 10/5/2021, By: benopp
Info: Surprising to me- a fair bit of snow on the north side of Square Top. Fun conditions though and no snow on south/west facing slopes. Colors in Guanella Pass were pretty great. 

Route: Southeast Ridge
Posted On: 6/22/2021, By: PikaSteve
Info: Summer conditions. Some mud and water in the willows and one short patch of flat, firm snow, but mainly dry trail. Could not see southern Sawatch through the haze; could barely see Pikes Peak. Flowers are waking up from trailhead to summit.
Great Class 1 hike close to Denver; no crowds on this side of Guanella Pass. 

Route: Silver Dollar TH
Posted On: 6/20/2021, By: soccern23ny
Info: Started at silver dollar trailhead and took it to Murray lake. From there I basically went straight up the southern face using natural serpentines on the face of the mountain. Other option would have been to walk to the saddle and up but that didn't seem worth the extra distance. Little to no snow/very easily avoidable. Traversed over to Argentine and Square top and descend square top north face to silver dollar lake and linked back to the silver dollar trail. Argentine had one small stretch of snow on it's eastern approach near the summit. Square top is mostly snow free minus some sections that can be avoided 

Route: Southeast Ridge
Posted On: 5/30/2021, By: k_fergie
Info: Took advantage of Guanella pass opening, and set out to ski Squaretop. Made the mistake of thinking we'd be able to skin a fair amount of it, do not do that. You could easily hike to the top in trail runners without traction. East bowl skied fantastic with a 9:30 drop time, and it was skiable from the summit as long as you could skate/sidestep the flat ridge. North gully looks in, with good coverage