8/21/2023 Route: North face traverse to Storm King Posted On: 8/22/2023, By: blazintoes Info: Soloed the north face. Nothing but slab. Found many wet slab sections and had to backtrack. Continued the traverse all the way to Storm King. This was a bit much for a day trip especially when dealing with slab all day and many large loose blocks. Also I dont recommend traversing to Storm King. Its one mile long with many low class 5 sections and no bail outs. Get and carry all the water you will need and have good weather. The rock quality is better if you stay ridge proper with 4 small towers to climb with a few committing down climb sections. I descended the standard south ridge off SK then to Balsam and up and over the Kodiak trail back into Vestal basin. I bivied on the CT for a little rest before the Molas uphill. Im glad to get these peaks done but overall Im not happy with the plan as this wasnt fun at all. I also feel the north face wasnt nearly as fun as Wham and the traverse is a good way to get three peaks but again for me wasnt much fun. All the summits were anticlimactic. I dont mean to be a downer just giving a heads up for those that like to day trip. |
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9/12/2022 Route: north face Posted On: 9/14/2022, By: zootloopz Info: took the north face route. find your own adventure low 5th. stuck left / center. sustained. fun. great for competent alpine scramblers. excellent test piece for soloing wham ridge. |
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8/31/2021 Route: Trinity Traverse from Vestal Basin Posted On: 9/3/2021, By: JasonKline Info: Entire route from Vestal Basin is free of snow and ice. It's starting to get chilly at night. The Colorado Trail is in great shape, but there's decent deadfall from the Colorado Trail to Vestal Basin. |
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10/25/2020 Route: Molas Pass Posted On: 10/26/2020, By: angry Info: Big ups to whatever organization cleared the avy debris, approach is cruiser. It *was* dry all the way to summit. Traverse to Trinity was also dry. However, conditions changed before reaching East Trinity summit. |
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8/16/2020 Route: West Ridge Posted On: 8/18/2020, By: supranihilest Info: Trail from Molas Pass to the D&SNGRR tracks and then to Elk Creek Trailhead is in great shape. Once heading up Elk Creek there are three avalanche debris piles, each one getting larger as you go upstream. There are plastic flags to follow through the debris. Past that there's plenty of deadfall all the way up to Vestal Basin. Go to Vestal Lake and then towards the Vestal/"West Trinity" ridge. The saddle in the middle of the ridge is the least steep and has a bit of a trail up it, but other gullies will work too. Make your way to the beginning of the west ridge and get ready to scramble. The scrambling starts off easy at Class 2+ and gets progressively more difficult through Class 3 and perhaps Class 3+ or Class 4 if you don't do careful route finding to find the easiest way. There are many cairns, some of which are not useful. The ridge gets steeper and narrow as you ascend until you must follow it as it snakes higher. It gets a bit catwalk-like but not terribly so. Route finding once the ridge is narrow is easy since you just stay on top or make short bypasses just below the crest. Great scramble on solid rock! |
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7/5/2020 Route: Vestal approach Posted On: 7/7/2020, By: jahselassie Info: Summited West Trinity on Sunday. Plan was for all three but a wrench was thrown into that plan. Summer conditions. I can add more photos later. |
