Frasco Benchmark

Route: French/Frasco/Casco Combo
Posted On: 5/2/2026, By: Geckser
Info: Arthurspiderman and I skied Frasco’s Northeast facing couloir. This is a remarkable line for the Sawatch. Easy approach, aesthetic and varied terrain, not super technical. Sawatch skiers should put this on their list.

We parked ..25 miles before the North halfmoon trailhead. The road was largely dry and what snow was on the road had been packed down by a recent driver. We left the road at 11,400 after which there was continuous snow to the summit. From road to base of couloir took us about 30 minutes on easy terrain.
We booted the couloir and made decent time, amazingly it seems someone booted and skied this earlier in the week but their tracks were largely covered. The couloir is quite twisty with many turns before finally steepening on an easterly face and bumping straight to the summit. Good booting but lots of work with how deep the snow was, shin to hip deep in the couloir.

Snow felt very solid on the way up but rollers had started rolling when we were at the summit, around 10:00. Snow was amazing powder, the while couloir skied great, top to bottom. Beautiful and featured line. Continuous skiing back to the dry road.

Arthur did lose one of his boots and we couldn’t look too deeply as he is flying to Alaska for Blackburn later today. If anyone finds the boot please let me know, I will be back up there next weekend for other lines in the area if not. 

Route: French & Frasco via North Halfmoon creek TH
Posted On: 8/17/2025, By: sehessler92
Info: See update on French 

Route: French/Frasco/Casco Combo
Posted On: 8/27/2024, By: NotTimid
Info: Once you are past the first crossing (right at the trailhead) there is a fair amount of water running down the road especially in the first mile or so. Waded the first crossing in my chacos, the others were manageable with boots/poles though I was glad I was in boots and not in trail runners. 

Route: French/Frasco/Casco Combo
Posted On: 8/6/2023, By: swilson753
Info: Summer conditions. All snow is avoidable. Flowers are still going strong. 

Route: French/Frasco/Casco Combo
Posted On: 7/10/2022, By: CheapCigarMan
Info: Easy ridge run from French. 

Route: French/Frasco/Casco via Fiascol/N. Fork TH
Posted On: 6/28/2020, By: supranihilest
Info: There's no bridge or rock crossing over North Fork Lake Creek, so I took my shoes and pants off and forded the creek. It was ice cold as expected, and very swift. I then stayed on the north side of the creek in Lackawanna Gulch, eventually going up towards Champion, then crossing the creek out of the gulch north of Lackawanna Gulch, up to the shoulder, and to Fiascol. There's a couple of required snowfield crossings in the upper gulch but I did not use traction or an axe. Fiascol is actually not as terrible as I expected, but it does still suck. Steep and crazy loose. Care was taken. The ridge to Frasco Benchmark looks intimidating from Fiascol but it's not that bad; Class 2+ to Easy Class 3 with lots of route finding and loose rock, some exposure. Totally dry. Ridge to French is in good shape, two short snow crossings. 

Route: From Casco
Posted On: 8/18/2019, By: WildWanderer
Info: Summer conditions. 

Route: French/Frasco/Casco/Lackawanna/13660B Combo
Posted On: 9/16/2017, By: JasonKline
Info: Got under an inch of snow on September 16, but the snow promptly melted except for north-facing slopes. Slippy at points between Casco and Frasco, which was already the toughest part of the hike. There were some decent winds and relatively cold temperatures with the snow, so winter is on its way.