Grizzly Peak

Route: From North Point Peak
Posted On: 9/20/2024, By: ericahlstedt
Info: The patchy snow and ice is pretty much gone. Super fun and short class 4 knife edge ridge coming from North Point Peak. Standard descent was easy to follow and turns into a trail not too long after exiting the couloir. Really beautiful up there. Lots of good potential campsites around all of the lakes. 

Route: Cascade road
Posted On: 9/10/2024, By: tdawg012
Info: Patchy snow/ice above 12k especially on grassy and shadowed surfaces. A little more continuous on the final stretch above the main coulior. The coulior was slow going with verglass, icy snow and wet mud. Curiously, Rolling, San Miguel peak and Ice Lakes summits looked mostly snow/ice free from my vantage point. V10 had some patchy slushy snow above 13k on its north facing standard route. 

Route: ridge
Posted On: 6/29/2024, By: zootloopz
Info: The "roughest" 8.5 miles of the road in took me 90 minutes. Slow going. Recommend high clearance as some of the potholes are deeeeep. Not much dispersed camping along the way unfortunately. This is one of my favorite bicentennials so far. Gully still filled in with snow, but the ridge goes at a solid class 3 via Alex henes' trip report. Found a bunch of wild onion, and there must have been 50 varieties of flowers along the way. 2hr 40min ascent 

Route: FS 579 Rico Silverton Trail
Posted On: 6/23/2024, By: piper14er
Info: If interested in this peak, I recommend looking at Kiefer's Report which is bang on for access and trail/route details. The weather was wet prior to Saturday so all the potholes are full of muddy water, some a few feet deep... It takes all of the hour and fifteen minutes to get to the end of the road as Kiefer states. The road is clear all the way. Some trees that were downed across the road were cut. A few narrow spots where there were trees. There is snow in the southeast gully right now. It is not the steepest gully by any stretch but the snow goes from one side to the other at the moment, so no clear areas left or right. Another week or two and it all probably gets easier. I ended up going up to the ridge on the left side of the gully and left even of a smaller gully. That meant some Class 3/Class 4 spots to deal with. Three or four spots. That being said there is a grass ledge that you can follow first to the right and then to the left, but you have some route finding to do. I did not think there was any dramatic exposure, moderate at worst. I will post a short report over at LOJ with a gpx. 

Route: Eastern Slopes
Posted On: 10/24/2023, By: Kiefer
Info: The mountain has absolutely no snow on it. The trail from the junction off the CT is remarkably well-trodden for not being on any maps or topo's. Lots of cairns marking the route. The access gully to the top of the ridge/upper slope is easier than it looks from below. The San Juan's aren't supposed to get much precip from this storm (Tuesday & Thursday). So I'd expect maybe at most, an inch or two up high. Grizzly has a great little perch/summit! I left a new register. 

Route: SE ridge from Cascade Creek TH
Posted On: 10/2/2023, By: SnowAlien
Info: Did the SE ridge route from Cascade creek. Approached as for S gully, but then kept going across the basin to the ridge, which provided for ~2,000 ft of quality scrambling. Didn't have time or weather for V10. No summit register. Descended loose South gully. Saw a small bear above the trail around 11k. 

Route: Cascade Creek
Posted On: 7/30/2023, By: 9patrickmurphy
Info: Hiked from Bolam Pass. This adds 7 miles and ~1300ft of gain round trip as opposed to the end of the Cascade Creek logging road, but it was sort of on my way and saved a whole lot of driving. Great views, too. The South-facing gully to gain the summit ridge is holding snow. It didn't occur to me that this would be a possibility until the night before, but I'm glad it did as I used the heck out of my ice axe. The gully isn't really that steep, but it would be difficult to stop a fall. I may have been able to get up without the axe, but I was happy to have it for a glissade on the way down. Trailrunners and microspikes worked. The informal trail that leads to the basin South of Grizzly from the CT is really good, way better than it has any reason to be. I saw 4 people and a team of 3 horses up there on a Saturday, so I guess it gets plenty of local traffic. It peters out at about 12,000 ft. I should add that although the south-facing gully is holding quite a bit of snow, the North Couloir has barely any left. 

Route: North Couloir
Posted On: 6/19/2023, By: supranihilest
Info: Thanks to Boggy B for coming up with this route and leading our intrepid crew! From South Mineral Creek Road one can drive approximately half a mile up the 4WD road before hardened avalanche debris block the road. This adds ~1.3 miles each way to the hike from there to the Bandora Mine trail. Trail is basically a river and covered with patchy snow, some downed trees. Eventually all snow, then all snow above treeline literally all the way to the summit and back. The San Miguel are absolutely caked right now. Take the trail over Hope Pass then sidehill to the saddle west of "V 9", go over it and into Cascade Creek basin. From the saddle Grizzly's north face is massive and obvious. Drop down into the basin then climb up a ramp towards Grizzly - this is the steepest snow on the route, probably up to 45-50 degrees, east facing (gets real mushy fast and early), and over a massive cliff, so be fast up and down. Past this ramp the route mellows. There are essentially two couloirs on the north face, the massive and lower angle main couloir climber's right, and one up the middle of the face that we took, since it doglegs right and joins the main couloir about halfway up. Main couloir is 40 degrees tops, and mostly less than that. Tops out something like 30 feet from the summit. Made for a great ski for one member of our party. Reverse the route to "V 9" saddle if Grizzly is your only objective. We continued on to "V 10" by reversing our route down the ramp and around Grizzly's long northwest ridge, see my CR for "V 10" if interested. Helmet, ice axe, campons mandatory. 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 6/29/2022, By: angry
Info: FR579 - no issue driving in if you have clearance. There are several large ruts in the road filled with water/mud. This was another cruiser trail. Snow and running water in the gully that can be avoided. Surprised to run into supranihilest and whileyh! No summit register. Also, can we rename all the Grizzly's? 

Route: S gully to SW slopes
Posted On: 7/6/2021, By: d_baker
Info: Drove road in from Purgatory ski area on Saturday afternoon. Plan on minimum 1.5hrs or so for that drive. I stayed in 2wd, but clearance is important to have. Of note, the route on Grizzly B is in view along the drive in at many points, and can also be seen from 550 just N of Purg. Currently snow fills middle section of gully that leads to upper slopes of Grizzly B, and can be seen from 550. We were able to park 3 suv's at trailhead. (The 3 of us having different arrival/departure times before/after hike) Could fit a few more there if necessary, albeit with a tighter turnaround area. Hiking on CT (Colorado Trail) made for cruiser until turnoff for approach to Grizzly (Wildwanderer's trip report provides good info on the turnoff). Approach trail easy to follow and the route to access gully is generally obvious. I don't recall our splits, but I think it took us a little under 3hrs to get to start of gully. We carried ice axe and microspikes because we saw the snow in the gully as we drove in to TH. However, we were able to go up climber's left (middle portion of gully) and squeeze in between snow and rock for ~100' of vertical gain to stay off snow. Worked out well, and upper portion of gully was mostly dirt and rock, and not steep. Upper slopes clear of snow. Summit views = awesome! A new favorite (among many)! Descent was same track. I think it was about 7.5hr RT (round trip) with 40 minutes on summit. ~7-8 mi's, maybe 3k gain? Edit: Topo! puts it at ~2700' gain and ~6mi's. (see map) Drive out no problems. 

Route: From FR 579
Posted On: 10/3/2020, By: WildWanderer
Info: Summer conditions. I took the gully. 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 10/1/2020, By: desertdog
Info: Completely dry. The views from this summit are outstanding! FR579 is in good shape, but it will take an hour plus to get to the TH. 

Route: From FR579
Posted On: 7/13/2020, By: cottonmountaineering
Info: Some snow still remains in the class 2 gully, however it can be climbed around. Summer conditions 

Route: Straight up
Posted On: 6/26/2019, By: Jakomait
Info: Snow makes for perfect conditions and superhighway couloirs. Linked Rolling Mtn to Grizzly to San Miguel then finished the loop through Ice Lake. Surprised how easy the passage was even in the afternoon. 

Route: From S Mineral
Posted On: 7/31/2018, By: Marmot72
Info: From camp by Bandora mine, up to Hope pass, up V9, down the grungy horrid loose east slope into cascade basin, elk trails to then contour Grizzly's east slope, off Grizzly SW corner to 12.4, up to V10, then descent into the narrow north basin and a nice elk trail that 🐝-lined across the upper Cascade basin. Air was clear but smelled a bit smoky-the next day I awoke coughing.