Route: via Urad Reservoir Posted On: 7/27/2024, By: joannalee07 Info: I followed the Trip Report for the route from Urad Reservoir - an incredible route. Plenty of bushwhacking and very few people!! Full trip report here: https://www.coloradomountainpack.com/post/hassell-peak |
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Route: Herman Gulch -> CDT Posted On: 6/24/2024, By: Alpine_Iris Info: Some snow and wetness near woods creek on the CDT. All snow above that is avoidable. |
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Route: SE ridge Posted On: 1/3/2024, By: bangerth Info: No hassle today on Hassell. The trail all the way up Herman Gulch is nicely trenched and compacted, with only a handful of icy spots. Once you hit the junction where you go left up the valley or right to Jones Pass, someone with snowshoes had plowed right up to the ridge; we had carried snowshoes but were too lazy to put them on and instead went left along the trail for 500' before turning right up the ridge and that worked moderately well. Gaining the ridge was the most strenuous part, but mostly because it's steep, not because the snow was deep. From there, riding the ridge to the saddle between Pettingell and Hassell was fairly easy, with only a couple of inches of snow, as was the (long) ridge leading over to Hassell. We both had snowshoes and microspikes with us, but in the end only one set of microspikes was used on our four legs. We were back at the trailhead in 6.5 hours. Other than that quite a cold day: 6F at the start, 9F plus a good amount of wind on top. |
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Route: South Ridge from Herman Lake Trail Posted On: 12/31/2023, By: Chicago Transplant Info: Herman Lake Trail is well packed out, a couple of icy spots (mainly at creeks), no flotation or traction needed. Left at the split with the CDT, there was a single round trip snowshoe track to the ridge and I postholed a few times without but don't think the extra weight would have been worth carrying them. From where the trail meets the ridge crest, head left up the ridge and its either dry or light snow and once again traction or flotation was not necessary. Where the slopes start to flatten out around 12,800 I traversed towards the Hassell-Pettingell saddle gaining that ridge just above the saddle to avoid some cornices. The ridge to Hassell from here has spotty snow, mostly avoided to the left. Good day out in good conditions and the route goes really quickly right now given the lack of snow/packed trail. Under 5 hours RT for me. Pettingell looks in good shape, some snow around the lake then pretty dry to the ridge crest. SW slopes of Machebauf look pretty dry and would be a good way to get Woods and avoid any postholing in Watrous Gulch. |
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Route: East Ridge Line Posted On: 7/2/2023, By: nilaoire Info: Short snow field top of the east ridge line . |
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Route: Butler Gulch Posted On: 5/6/2023, By: sarahmariekirk Info: Climbed Hassell Peak today, starting from Butler Gulch. It snowed at the start and was overcast until the summit, where we got sun and blue skies. Like the previous poster said, there are cornices along the CDT guarding the ridge to the summit. We opted to take a corniced ridge up, which had fantastic snow conditions but was pretty steep. You will want crampons and an ice axe for this route, has a bit of a no fall zone. 3 of the 4 of us descended the bowl on skis, and I climbed the opposite ridge down. |
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Route: Butler gulch Posted On: 5/6/2023, By: kyrawhitworth Info: Snow was hard packed in the morning and there was a lot more snow on the East ridge (same ridge as in trip report from eskermo) than expected which made it a bit spicy. We chose this ridge to avoid any weird overhanging cornices and a long time in the wind. We needed our crampons and missed having an axe as there were some steep hard sections. Skiing off the summit down into the NE lake bowl was epic! Snow wasnt too soft or hardjust right. We managed to avoid any uphill walking to regain the ridge and descend back to our uphill tracks. Great day! |
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Route: from Butler Gulch Posted On: 4/24/2023, By: k_fergie Info: Hassell is in from the summit, clicked in on the cairn for those that care. NE bowl skied excellently Sunday, deep dry powder. Cornices along the continental divide are massive this year and starting to split off, be very careful up there. I would walk on the dirt/rocks rather than try to skin along the edge, some of the cracks in them looked like crevasses and would be certain death if they broke off while you were on them. Gaining the CD north of the divide chutes, I was caught and carried maybe 15 feet in a small wind slab (reported on CAIC). The more standard winter route of taking the steeper ridge from "Hocus" had cornices blocking it, although it may have had a sneak path to gain access to the CD we later saw on our exit back over Hocus. Hard to say which option was better. |
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Route: Butler Gulch Posted On: 11/12/2022, By: Carl_Healy Info: Beautiful day today. No wind at summit. Followed the Butler Gulch trail/road from Jones Pass Trailhead then worked our way up to the Continental Divide to grab Hassell Peak. Butler gulch trail was very well packed down and though you might not need snow shoes there I didn't mind having them on the whole way. Above treeline we broke away from the road and went straight for the Continental Divide. Snow wasn't really terribly deep here, even thin in some spots, but I still liked having snow shoes. We then gained the E-W ridge that would ultimately take us up to the divide and that was pretty steep. Again snow wasn't too deep. Most our party wore snow shoes here but postholing may have been a little bit less sketch (some did this on the way down). No one took their ice axes for this outing but for this bit of ridge alone bringing an ice axe would have definitely been advisable. Also want to point out that though the snow coverage was relatively thin I did hear a small "wumphf" around 12,400' on this ridge, so there are some troubling layers forming in that snowpack. Once you gain the Continental Divide, you can likely ditch your snow shoes. The CDT is a little filled in with snow but it's not too much trouble to navigate without them. |
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Route: Herman Gulch Posted On: 10/30/2022, By: dwoodward13 Info: From TH to CDT/Jones Pass junction, trail is a mix of packed snow, ice and bare ground. I did not wear spikes on the way up, but did on the way down. CDT/Jones Pass trail was unbroken with a mix of ankle and mid calf deep snow. I broke trail around to where Hassell's SE shoulder meets the trail and headed straight up on a mix of grass and light snow cover. On the descent I followed the south ridge to just above Herman Lake, then picked my way directly down grassy slopes back to the Herman Gulch Trail. |
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Route: CDT from Herman Gulch Posted On: 9/24/2022, By: madmattd Info: Cruiser trail all the way minus some minor boulder hopping on the final summit ridge. Tiny bit of snow on the trail in the saddle between the false summit and true summit, like 5 steps worth and easily walked right through. Stream crossing in the upper valley was lightly iced over in the morning. North-facing aspects of peaks visible had a light dusting of snow/ice clinging on. None of it is likely to last long. The small amount of aspens on this route (near the TH) are starting to turn, roughly even mix of green and light yellow. |
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Route: Herman Gulch Posted On: 9/17/2022, By: IHikeLikeAGirl Info: Snow on the trail, can be avoided, if care is taken (see photo). We did not have ice axes or traction. |
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Route: From Hassell Lake TH Posted On: 6/25/2022, By: HikerGuy Info: Any remaining snow can be avoided. Summer condition. |
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Route: Herman Gulch Posted On: 6/18/2022, By: JasonKline Info: A dozen or so short snow crossings that are all either avoidable or flat and easy. No microspikes/snowshoes/ice axe required. |
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Route: From Herman Gulch Posted On: 5/28/2022, By: SionaRW35 Info: Used snowshoes and spikes. Probably will need both for at least another two weeks, especially above 12k. |
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Route: CDT Posted On: 7/11/2021, By: MKwhite45 Info: Summer conditions. Followed Herman to CDT. Beautiful trail and wild flowers are insanely beautiful right now. |
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Route: Herman gulch TH to Jones pass, SE gully Posted On: 5/15/2021, By: VeraUndertow Info: Good snow coverage on the approach once you get past the initial south facing slopes from Herman gulch TH. We climbed up above Jones pass and skied down to woods creek/the south east gully that goes to the ridge that is Hassell peak, a lot of snow mobile tracks on this east facing slope and in the south east gully but otherwise good skiing. The climb up the gully is really easy, on par with the angel on shavano and has great snow. Once on the ridge things got windy as we made our way to the true summit of Hassell, it's a bump after the first false summit. There was a big cornice but plenty of flat stable snow on the ridge for the easy half mile skin to the summit from the top of the gully. Once on the summit we transitioned to ski mode and made our way down the ridge, skirting the false summit to the east, avoiding the cornices and back onto the ridge. We dropped into the gully around 10:30 and the snow was already a little past prime but the skiing was still an absolute pleasure for about 1200 ft. Then we skinned back over the pass and traversed skiers right to avoid the thick trees on the more direct line back to the main bootpack. Once at the boot pack it was just trying to keep speed over all the little ups and downs till snow stopped and we booted the last .5 miles to the TH. I made it up the gully with my ski crampons no problem but my split boarding partner ended up having to boot up the last little steep bit. Otherwise just easy skinning the whole way. |
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Route: Northeast Ridge from Butler Gulch Posted On: 4/4/2021, By: supranihilest Info: There's a superhighway from Butler Gulch Trailhead to treeline. "Hassel"'s northeast ridge is visible from treeline. We snowshoed below the saddle with the ridge, where things dried out slightly, but ultimately kept our snowshoes on until the snow became too steep and canted north to remain safe. At this point I brought out the ice axe; Heather put on microspikes. She did not have the former, I did not have the latter. I kicked steps up the sometimes soft, usually rock hard snow knife edge all the way to the ridge. The last 100 or so feet were very steep, highly exposed, and the snow was super hard. I'm sure the steps I kicked will remain for several days if not longer. The rest of the ridge to the summit was easy with some minor scrambling and minor postholing. To descend we went down "Hassel"'s broad, snowy east ridge to a flat-ish spot on the ridge, then went north avoiding the cliffs. The approximate route is hard to describe in detail but it can be viewed from the saddle on the northeast ridge almost all the way to the summit, so just make a mental map of your descent route. We then snowshoed back up about 200 vertical feet to the saddle, then back to the trailhead. I found an ice axe useful for the snow on the upper ridge; Heather found microspikes useful. Bring at least one, either traction or an ice axe, since you will not want to be without, even with pre-kicked steps. Snowshoes were useful but probably not necessary, especially with hard snow. Most of our snow was icy but you will obviously find very variable conditions this time of year. |
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Route: North Ridge Posted On: 3/24/2021, By: jmanner Info: Hassell is super in, on all aspects it seems. I'd be careful skiing anything steep too soon, my partner saw shooting cracks skiing the melow east slopes. |
