"Peak of the Clouds"

Route: From Spread Eagle via Gibson TH
Posted On: 1/31/2025, By: Will_E
Info: Spread Eagle and Peak of the Clouds today. The trenching was super extra juicy, the bushwhack difficult in places, took me 3.5 hours to reach treeline today. From treeline on the snow is mostly inconsequential, no traction or axe needed today. There's one section coming off Spread Eagle that required a bit of care, but not terribly difficult. Beautiful route, in the trees and above. Stronger wind than I expected today, in the trees on the way down my tracks were partially covered in the upper section of treeline. 

Route: from Lakes of the Clouds
Posted On: 6/26/2024, By: 9patrickmurphy
Info: I thought about just going up and the East ridge of Spread Eagle as this seems to be the "standard" route, but I figured if bushwhacking could be avoided that might make my day more enjoyable. And I was right! I started from the Gibson TH and hiked up to the Lakes of the Clouds via the swift creek trail. Great trail. I left the trail after the first lake, crossed a few streams, and ascended next to a steam towards the upper basin (this was all grass and tundra, very pleasant). I gained the not-too-bad scree slope below the "Peak of the Clouds"/13165 saddle and was surprised to see a few people ahead of me. Once reaching the saddle it turned out to be about 15 people, which was a surprise for a 13er on a Wednesday. Easy talus and tundra to the summit, and straightforward over to Spread Eagle as well. I figured I would descend Spread Eagle's East ridge to see what I had missed out on. Turns out I made the right call because wow, so much bushwhacking. The forest here is pretty open, but lots of underbrush made it annoying, and it was very steep for a very long time. Glad I didn't go up this way. Once down to Gibson Creek I immediately found the old trail which apparently goes up a lot higher than Bill's route describes. It's very overgrown though and there are some big downed trees to navigate around higher up. But it was easy to follow on the way out. I could see myself easily losing this trail if I were going up it. So yeah, these peaks are very pleasantly approached from the North. I can 100% recommend coming up this way, and if I were to do it again I'd probably descend this way as well. 

Route: From hermit pass road
Posted On: 5/26/2024, By: yaktoleft13
Info: Did potc, rito alto, and hermit peak from 10.3k on hermit pass road. Left the road at about 11.7k, ascended to a saddle, and dropped into the basin below potc. Took the obvious rib above treeline and then straight up the south face of potc. Doable in spikes, mix of talus and snow. Traverse to rito alto was also snow/talus, mostly choose your own adventure. Rito alto to hermit peak was very quick, ascent primarily on broad but non-overhanging wind drift. On descent, road has some steep snow drifts that will be there for a bit. 

Route: Spread Eagle Traverse
Posted On: 7/10/2023, By: emilyexplores
Info: Traversed from Spread Eagle, very stable talus down ridge and completely snow free. Summer conditions 100% and lots of wind at the summit. 

Route: From Lakes of the Clouds / Spread Eagle Peak
Posted On: 6/18/2023, By: Laxer04
Info: We camped at Lakes of the Clouds and I did a loop of Spread Eagle Peak, Peak of the Clouds, Silver Peak and Mt Marcy. The trail to the lakes is snow free until the first lake. There is on and off snow after that. We camped at the lower lake and I went up the talus/scree slope (not good, not terrible) to reach the Spread Eagle/Peak of the Clouds saddle. There is some unavoidable snow but it's melting fast and was pretty firm this morning. Snow was completely avoidable on the ridge to Spread Eagle. Widespread snow on the ridge to Peak of the Clouds but again, melting fast and was firm. The ridge descending Peak of the Clouds towards Silver is super fun - really solid rock and great class 3 scrambling I brought an axe and crampons and only used them for one downclimb section between Silver and Marcy. I just hiked in my summer boots without issue for the majority of this loop. I exited below the Silver/Marcy saddle. There is a ton of snow still holding there and that offered up a nice glissade before a miserable trek through the willows back to camp at the lake. 

Route: from Silver Peak
Posted On: 8/29/2022, By: HikerGuy
Info: After traversing over Silver Peak from Mount Marcy, I continued on to the Peak of the Clouds. This is a handsome peak. The ridge looks intimidating as you approach, but any difficulties can be avoided by staying slightly below on the west side. The scramble to the summit is steep and provided the most fun of the day. Excellent summit with great views of the lakes below and surrounding peaks. GPS read 9.41 miles to this point. 

Route: Spread Eagle South Ridge from Hermit Pass
Posted On: 8/8/2022, By: CheapCigarMan
Info: Beautiful morning. Nice scramble to the summit. Great views of nearby peaks. 

Route: East Ridge from Spread Eagle Peak
Posted On: 1/10/2022, By: supranihilest
Info: Largely straightforward. Descending Spread Eagle is the only spice on these two peaks. The ridge is narrow with some exposure and covered in very slick snow. Microspikes will be useful for the less sure-footed. About halfway down there's a notch where the easiest way down is a few moves of snowy Class 3 down a slab. Holds and rock quality are good. There's a short, exposed traverse after this and then the entire remaining route up "Peak of the Clouds" is Class 2. I returned over Spread Eagle Peak. Flotation not useful between the two peaks (not enough snow). Traction and ice axe not mandatory (I didn't use either) but may be useful depending on comfort level on snowy scrambling with some exposure. 

Route: East Ridge
Posted On: 8/10/2021, By: dolfh
Info: Smoke was not much of an issue. The air quality seemed to improve the higher I went. 24 hours after my hike I feel no negative effects. 35 degree slope on loose rock to gain the East Ridge. Hiked up the Swift Creek Trail to Lake of the Clouds. 

Route: Spread Eagle South Ridge from Hermit Pass
Posted On: 9/28/2020, By: mikemalick
Info: There are patches of snow as you drop off Rito's North ridge, but you can avoid just about all of it and the parts you might step on are of no consequence. Stayed close to the main drop ridge line most of the time. No snow at all once off the steepest part of the ridge all the way to Peak of the Clouds. Pic 1 looks back on Rito's North ridge from the saddle with Peak of the Clouds. Pic 2 Peak of the Clouds from Rito's summit. 

Route: Hermit Pass/Megan Lake
Posted On: 9/13/2020, By: angry
Info: From Hermit Pass Road, went up the saddle at ~12,180 ft and dropped down the other side and headed to Megan Lake. Snow varied from 4 inches to 2 feet. From the lake, followed the rock rib to the Spread Eagle/Peak of the Clouds saddle. Saddle to summit consisted of snow covered tundra and rock. Reversed the route on descent which was a soupy mess. Was looking for a short day and this wasn't it ;) It would probably be best to go up either Spread Eagle from Gibson TH or Rito Alto from the Pass first, as this route took much longer than expected. Views were amazing. 

Route: Traverse from Spread Eagle Peak
Posted On: 5/10/2020, By: cloudkicker
Info: The traverse over to Peak of the Clouds from Spread Eagle Peak was 90% dry with the remaining snow being of little difficulty to cross. We took a look down at Megan Lake thinking we'd make it a loop but found a report on Alltrails from three days ago stating miserable waist high postholing the last 1/2 mile to the lake. Looking down at the lake and its head wall seemed to confirm what Alltrails said so we instead made it a long and arduous out and back to and from the Gibson Creek trailhead (Spread Eagle east ridge). Garmin watch clocked 8.5 miles and 5500ft round trip FWIW. 

Route: Via Spread Eagles east ridge
Posted On: 12/10/2018, By: CaptainSuburbia
Info: I'm a little late posting, but conditions should still be same. The steep, rocky descent off Spread Eagle was covered in powdery snow and difficult. Fortunately, there was no ice and microspikes worked well here. You have to watch your step very carefully as you work your way off the summit though. A little ways down there is a notch that you have to climb into that made me real nervous(photo 1 and close-up in photo 2) with one particularly sketchy move and plenty of exposure. It gets much easier after notch. The saddle and unnamed bump were windblown and easy to cross(photo 3). The ridge up to the summit was hard packed snow(photo 4 and 5). It was steep, but I had no problem getting traction with microspikes. I stayed as close to the ridge proper as possible because the interspersed rocks here made me feel safer. The summit area was rockier, but easy to work through(photo 6). The last photo is from summit looking towards Rito Alto. 

Route: East Ridge
Posted On: 7/23/2016, By: JasonKline
Info: Snow-free summer conditions. 

Route: via Spread Eagle
Posted On: 6/5/2011, By: IHikeLikeAGirl
Info: Left the Gibson Creek Trail shortly after 10K and landed on the ridge at ~10,800. Took the ridge proper to the summit of Spread Eagle. Ridge to 13524 was pretty much snow free. Spotty snow along parts of the route, but it was either avoidable, short lived, and easy to kick into. We had no need for snowshoes or traction all the way. Pics to come.