7/6/2025 Route: N Slope from Pear Lake Posted On: 7/7/2025, By: astranko Info: Allenspark trailhead is closed for construction, so you have to go through the park. The bushwhack from Pear to treeline is short and aggressive with minimal game trails. No snow to worry about. From Wild Basin trailhead it came out to 18.5mi and 5.3k of gain, 7hrs45min. |
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3/9/2025 Route: Wild Basin>ENE Face Posted On: 3/10/2025, By: Posthole Pete Info: A gorgeous Sunday for a walk in the park. First 6 miles up to Ouzel lake area were a breeze thanks to all the folks who got out on Saturday. Fortunately the fresh snow in the trees was layered quite well so we made quick work up to treeline. From treeline to summit, it was a bit of a slog but snow coverage was great and the wind was blowing so that kept us moving. A little messy one-footing off the summit but once on the main snow, things were quite soft up towards the top. Had some soft-strugi from about 12,8-12 and then we were complimented with some very soft snow all the way back to where we branched off the Ouzel lake trail. A few fun open avenues of turns before we were back in the trees. The packed down trail made quick work of getting back to the truck. 16.5ish miles and 5k for the day. The views out there are something special! |
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9/28/2024 Route: Mahana-Isolation-Ogallala-Copeland Posted On: 9/29/2024, By: mapreader22 Info: Approached via Bluebird Lake to Mahana, Isolation, Ogalla, then Copeland, descending via Pear Lake to make a loop. All of the snow from last weekend is melted except for on northern aspects. Summer conditions on the whole loop except for some lingering snow in the steep gully descending to Cony Pass, which is already loose and felt even more sketchy trying avoid the snow patches, although it did go. Tried to stay close-ish to ridge proper on Copelands west ridge, and there was some interesting route finding and class 3/4 scrambling - lots of options on this ridge depending on how spicy youre feeling, but I think most of the difficulties can be bypassed dropping off the south side of the ridge. Everything else on this loop went at class 2/easy class 3. |
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9/28/2024 Route: West Ridge Posted On: 9/29/2024, By: benopp Info: Snow from last weekend in the gully descent from the the Continental Divide down to the ridge before you start upclimbing this rarely traversed ridge to the east. It wasn't too sketchy, but definitely not summer conditions and is probably typical of north-facing gullies without direct sunlight in IPW and RMNP. That being said, the west ridge of Copeland was completely snow free (I mostly sticked to south side). |
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12/16/2023 Route: Wild Basin Posted On: 12/16/2023, By: Sbenfield Info: From Wild Basin, well packed trail to Ouzel Falls, from there we forged a way up Copelands East Face. Snowshoes highly recommended until just after treeline. Did not use micro spikes or axe. Big winds up top! |
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9/24/2023 Route: Wild Basin Posted On: 9/24/2023, By: AndrewJCraigie Info: Great day - brisk in the morning, warm in the afternoon. The small amount of aspens in the area are starting to change color. Bushwhack from Ouzel Lake wasn't as bad as I thought - fairly easy to find a path up. Trees fade away at 1100 and then its a grind to the top. A few loose rocks but fairly easy to climb up and down to the summit No snow at summit. Start: 630am End: 3pm |
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8/5/2023 Route: East Slopes to West ridge traverse Posted On: 8/6/2023, By: VeraUndertow Info: Hiked in from Wild Basin TH and up to about .3 miles from Ouzel lake where I headed south across the creek and up the east slopes. I'm sure it's possible to keep your feet dry if you look hard enough for a crossing, but I stepped in a boggy area so I just walked across, water was about knee high where I forded. The dead fall going up this slope to treeline was tedious but not as bad as a lot of the beetle kill zones in the San Juan. Once above treeline the slope was grassy patches of tundra and talus the rest of the way to the summit. Nothing too exciting until I headed west on the ridge to climb Ogallala and Isolation. The ridge is class 2 for the first bit until the large prominence half way, I bypassed this on the south side, but crossed a snowfield using spikes, I could have dropped another 200 ft to avoid the snow on loose talus and scree. From here there are a few class 3 sections working around the notches as described in Furthermore's TR. They mostly all end in a sheer overhanging drop on the west side so bypassing them is required, the north side seemed to work best for all of them. The gully that I believe most people climb to gain the ridge that goes at class 3 still had snow in it, I went up a class 4 gully that had some steep sloping mostly featureless sections near the top and it was pretty full on climbing for about 200 ft at the top. Once I gained the ridge it was back to being casual tundra stroll for most of the way over to Ogallala and then up over Ouzel. Dropping to the saddle with Isolation there was a small section of class 3 where I got hit with a 15 minute rain and wind storm at 10 am. Summit of Isolation from the south ridge was really fun despite the wind and rain. Dropped down to Isolation and Pipit lake and hiked back out on the amazing trails of RMNP and saw two moose. Overall distance was 21 miles and roundtrip was 10:50. |
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7/1/2023 Route: From Ouzel Lake Posted On: 7/2/2023, By: krishcane Info: No snow to Ouzel Lake; some snow drifts still in the forest between the lake and treeline, and then a fair number of snowfields above treeline, but possible to navigate around them. I left the spikes at home, and was glad I did. The crux move on this route was crossing the swollen river from Ouzel Lake - that required shimmying across a downed tree, because the water was too deep and fast to cross safely. |
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9/10/2022 Route: Northeast Ridge Posted On: 9/13/2022, By: supranihilest Info: I took the Bluebird Lake trail to Ouzel Lake before cutting south into the forest. Given Saturday's foggy, rainy weather this made the bushwhack up the northeast ridge pure misery. The forest going up Copeland is dense and has a very high amount of deadfall. The dead trees are often huge and require scrambling over or simply walking around when they're piled high. There's also boulders in the trees, and it's very steep in spots. Add rain and yeah, it's a total blast. Once above treeline it's all Class 2, with open expanses of tundra with large patches of boulders all over the place. While this ridge isn't hard in any way it's very tedious. Bring your suffer game. |
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8/29/2022 Route: Isolation, Ogalalla, Copeland Posted On: 8/30/2022, By: Trotter Info: Read Furthermores TR for good info, I added my thoughts at bottom. Note theres lots of mosquitos up by Ouzel lake, and we even had some above 13k during the day. Bring repellent. |
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12/3/2021 Route: Northeast slopes Posted On: 12/4/2021, By: jabz Info: Some hard packed snow and ice on the trail toward Ouzel lake. I found microsoikes useful here. We started the epic bushwhack a bit before Chickadee pond. There was deep snow in the forest and gaiters came in handy. Once above tree line, it's fairly dry and snow is easily avoided, though some patches on the descent were fun for glissading! |
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6/4/2021 Route: Ouzel Lake Posted On: 6/4/2021, By: bdloftin77 Info: It was fairly dry from the trail head to the Ouzel Lake/Bluebird Lake junction, with only a few solid snow crossings. From there to Ouzel Lake was mostly covered with fairly solid deep snow. From there to the summit was almost all on snow (a few rocky patches that one could choose to take). In the trees, the snow was fairly solid and we only had occasional post-holing. Made the bushwhack really easy. Above treeline the snow varied between fairly firm (sinking only a couple inches) to relatively soft (sinking at least a foot with each step). I tried putting on snowshoes for the softer areas, but it didn't really help too much. Coming back down to the lake, the snow was an even softer mashed potato consistency. We were only able to glissade about half of the slope because plunge stepping ended up being faster for a lot of it. Bluebird skies, warm temperatures, and no wind made the long day rather pleasant. Highly recommend boots, gaiters, micro spikes, and an ice axe. |
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8/3/2019 Route: bushwack from Ouzel Lake Posted On: 8/3/2019, By: shaunblair Info: The biggest difficulty will be fording the raging river at Ouzel Lake outlet. Small patches of snow on upper slopes, but no traction needed. Since Ogallalla doesn't have a status page, I'll put this here: The large gendarme on Copeland -> Cony Pass traverse has a snow field covering the south side, you will either have to cross the steep 3rd class snowfield or go downhill of snowfield. |
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6/12/2016 Route: East Face Posted On: 6/13/2016, By: emgordon Info: No photo, but through the clouds the face still looks about 50% snow. Seen from Hwy 7. |
