Mt. Hope

Route: Hopeful Couloir
Posted On: 6/3/2019, By: supranihilest
Info: From the trailhead the first mile and a half or so is dry. You will soon encounter plenty of snow and avalanche debris and you will find flotation useful to Hope Pass, especially because the snow on the trail is an absolute mess of postholes. Get to the bottom of the couloir VERY early, especially if there was a weak freeze the night before. We reached the bottom right around 9am and it was knee deep slush. We turned around almost immediately since it didn't get any better. There's a lot of avy debris at the bottom of the couloir as well, but the cornice at the top is small; still, consider taking one of the climber's left variations if snow conditions deteriorate as rapidly as they did on our climb. 

Route: East Ridge
Posted On: 5/4/2019, By: osprey
Info: Snowshoes are needed starting at about 10,300 all the way up to Hope Pass and of course on the way down. The trail disappears in deep snow about 10,500 and I had to navigate by GPS until reaching the crossover to the east side of the stream and then navigation becomes easy as one gets to timberline. It took 3 hours from the TH to Hope Pass. I ditched my pack on the Pass and changed to crampons and ax. The first part of the east ridge is fairly mellow as long as the large cornices on the north side are avoided. The slope becomes much steeper and icy where the ridge merges with the summit pyramid. I was very happy to have the crampons and ax at this point. After the summit pyramid the ridge eases the rest of the way to the summit. It took 2 hours 15 minutes to summit from the Pass and 1 hour to return to the Pass.
After reaching the Pass I ascended the peak to the east and within 1 hour 10 minutes was enjoying a nice serving of Quail. Crampons are not necessary for Quail. 50 minutes later I was back at the Pass and then snowshoed back to the TH.
11 hours round trip. 

Route: Hopeful Couloir
Posted On: 4/22/2019, By: Buddyboy27
Info: Parking lot completely dry. First mile of the trail is relatively dry, I wouldn't put skins on until after 1 mile. The remainder of the approach can be skinned but I opted for hiking boots all the way to the apron of Hopeful. Good overnight freeze with no post holing at all on the way up. Snow in the couloir itself was solid, including the top layer; great for climbing, less fun for skiing. Cornice is actually quite small/non-existent above fall line. Cornice above cliff walls climbers right are bigger and scarier. I dropped in at 10:00AM and the line needed at least 2 more hours of good heat, still skied decent. Summit photo (#2) looks south towards to Apostles. Able to ski from summit to .5 miles from parking lot. 

Route: East Ridge
Posted On: 6/8/2018, By: MaxKugel
Info: No snow on the route at all......Hopeful Couloir is definitely not in for skiing, but could still be used as an ascent route if someone was really motivated. Snow ends just below the couloir proper in the apron. It is also melted out for a short stretch a few hundred feet below the entrance. 

Route: East Ridge
Posted On: 5/28/2018, By: HikerGuy
Info: Summer conditions. Had to cross two short stretches of snow on the ridge where Hopeful Couloir finishes, the first was about 20 feet just past where the left arm exits and another about 10 feet where the right arm exits. Traction not needed. 1st photo shows finish of Hopeful Couloir. 2nd photo looking down couloir. 3rd photo second patch of snow that had to be crossed. 

Route: Hopeful couloir
Posted On: 5/12/2018, By: Trotter
Info: Hiked up from Sheep gulch, several small snow patches to pass above 11k.

North side of Hope pass has mostly snow. Hopeful couloir is completely filled, and in. Good steps kicked in, no cornice on normal exit at top. Lots of natural rockfall, dodged several close rocks.

We never used snowshoes all day. Used crampons on couloir. East ridge is about half covered with snow, we descended via SE bowl and glissading. 

Route: Hopeful couloir
Posted On: 5/14/2018, By: Gsule
Info: From Willis gulch TH. In the morning we walked to the clearing at 11k then skinned to the base from there. Crampons to the top. There is a short section of rotten snow where an old slide stripped it down to facets. Don't be discouraged here, it gets way better after the crown.
Dropped in at 10am and skied perfect corn to the tree line. From there, it was rotten snow back to the meadow, then boots down to the ditch where we switched to running shoes for the hike out. 

Route: East Ridge
Posted On: 10/27/2017, By: mikemalick
Info: This location didn't seem to get much snow from the storm that went through the state last night. Lower down there were a few small patches of snow on the trail in the shade of trees. Up higher didn't have much snow along the route either. There was some snow between boulders starting perhaps around 13,200' but it was sparse and easy to avoid. I took spikes, but they never left my bag.

The spot on photo 3 probably had the most snow of consequence, but even this was easy to navigate around. 

Route: East Ridge
Posted On: 8/12/2017, By: madadraw1
Info: With this route mostly on the Colorado Trail, the trail is very nice. Very faint, intermittent trail along the East ridge, but not really once over 13K feet. At the crux, I did not traverse left (south) as far as they mention in the route. Still kept it to difficult class 2, maybe easy class 3 (kind of subjective anyway) but really did experience as much loose rock as advertised. In addition, I undertook another experiment on the way down. Instead of going directly back to the ridge, I made a left hook turn off the summit to the south, then SE and finally East (sound of the ridge). This kept things to easy class 2. Maybe a little less than 100 feet descent on loose dirt, but not bad, just slipped once. Then around 13K feet I angled back towards the ridge w/o gaining/loosing elevation. This put me back on the ridge and skipped all the difficult class 2 for my descent. Put just a little extra mileage on by doing this, but not that much. 

Route: East Ridge
Posted On: 7/24/2017, By: LetsGoMets
Info: Came in from Sheep Gulch. Colorado trail is in great shape up to Hope Pass. Couldn't really find any semblance of a climbers trail from Hope Pass up to the summit, so basically just hugged the left of ridge, and then climbed straight up through the boulder wall versus cutting around to the left that looked really scree filled (just before the ridge point that you typically traverse to the left). Lots of loose rock and nasty scree up there, be careful, difficult Class 2 is an accurate rating.

Summit log showed I was the first person in 4 days up there. 

Route: East Ridge
Posted On: 7/8/2017, By: jasayrevt
Info: Also, traversed over to Quail Mtn (13,461'). 13er summits are an inspiring, invigorating hobby. This classic route is another recommended, straightforward path. It has incredible views of many quality neighboring Sawatch Rangers (i.e. Belford, Blaurock, Ervin, Oxford, etc.). Conditions up high were moonlit. So, perfect for navigating these slopes and ridge line extremely well. Standard light pack plus trail runners approach was good. Pictures with a topographic map diagram have been included as beta. Climb safely out there mountaineers 

Route: East Ridge
Posted On: 7/2/2017, By: mountainman102
Info: The East Ridge trail was free of snow all of the way to the summit, but there was still snow scattered along the rest of the mountain. Both the Southeast Ridge and Hopeful Couloir routes still retained snow. The couloir still seemed to have enough snow to climb, but the snow condition is questionable. 

Route: Hopeful Couloir
Posted On: 6/12/2017, By: screeman57
Info: Couloir is in quite good shape for climbing, and is continuous from the benches above the lake. The cornice has receded enough that we were able to take the direct exit.

Hope Pass is still very snowed in, with snow covering the trail from just above the Big Willis turnoff. 

Route: Southeast bowl
Posted On: 6/13/2017, By: AlexeyD
Info: Another Hopeful CR! We climbed and skied/glissaded the big east facing bowl/headwall just south of Hope Pass. For anyone looking for an early season snow climb or ski descent on Mt. Hope that is more moderate than the Hopeful couloir, but still has decent vertical (more than 1500'), this is a fun alternative!

The trail from Sheep Gulch still has intermittent snowfields across starting at the switchbacks around 11,500'. Those were pretty firm in the morning and soft but relatively supportive in the afternoon. We broke off left from the trail at the last snowfield below Hope Pass. From there, it was all snow to just below the summit ridge. I was able to skin from about 12.4 to 13.3, before the angle got too steep. Thanks to at least 5 people who went up this way recently, there is now a good boot track all the way up the bowl. Snow was soft, but still supportive enough for good axe plants in late morning (I know..super late for east facing). Angle approaches low 40s near the top, but only briefly. Dropped in around noon and still had OK conditions for the most part...triggered a small sluff on the steepest section, but nothing too alarming. Would definitely recommend going earlier, though. Otherwise, almost 2k' of continuous, good quality skiing in mid-June - I'll take it! The glissading was fantastic as well - among the best in Colorado, so I was told! Get it while you can! 

Route: East Ridge
Posted On: 6/10/2017, By: mbird
Info: On the positive side, the glissading conditions were excellent. As for hiking, total suck once you get to the snowy part of the ridge - usual spring combo of mashed potatoes and thigh-deep postholing. Didn't quite top out, but there's a sketchy cornice near the summit that gave me some pause. Ice axe a must, microspikes handy, swearing mandatory.