Route: Southeast Slopes Posted On: 10/19/2023, By: Istoodupthere Info: Started from Mt Massive th. The scree slope is pretty miserable. The only snow is from about 13,100 up the talus slope to summit. Maybe 6 inches in spots. Didnt need to use spikes or gaiters. 0 people, 0 clouds, 0 animals (squirrels dont count). 13.54 round trip. |
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Route: Southeast Slopes Posted On: 10/6/2023, By: DorothyK Info: Completely dry until about 13,500 then some mostly-avoidable snow. I wore trail runners and they stayed dry for the whole hike. Microspikes were helpful for the loose dirt/kitty litter scree on the descent down the steep "ramp". |
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Route: Southeast Slopes Posted On: 9/27/2023, By: gmarcotte Info: I went up the standard route on Oklahoma from Mt Massive TH and continued on to Massive. Everything on Oklahoma and the ridge to Massive is still snow-free. This route is a slog-and-a-half -- but the talus on the upper slopes is surprisingly stable. Be careful not to over-shoot on the Halfmoon Lakes trail -- there will be a point around 11700 where the trail approaches right to the east bank of the creek before turning away uphill again -- this is a good place to cross and start traversing. |
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Route: Southeast Slopes Posted On: 9/18/2023, By: sarahmariekirk Info: Climbed Mount Oklahoma yesterday along with the Tour de Massive - the route up to Oklahoma was pretty mellow although there was some routefinding here and there in the trees; we lost the trail a few times in the dark. The ridge from Oklahoma to Massive was the highlight of the day with sustained class 3 and 4 scrambling with some exposure. There was a little bit of snow coming down off of Oklahoma on the backside but if you are just climbing Oklahoma, there is absolutely no snow on this route. Fantastic day up high doing the Tour, and Oklahoma has a summit register in place. |
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Route: Southeast Slopes Posted On: 8/6/2023, By: swilson753 Info: Standard route is in summer conditions. Having the GPX handy made route finding through the trees much smoother. There are trail segments and sparse cairns throughout. I found plunge stepping down the loose dirt adjacent to the grassy ramp the most efficient way down. |
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Route: Southeast Slopes Posted On: 7/8/2023, By: cougar Info: I made a loop coming over from North Massive and Hunter-Fryingpan Wilderness HP. The north ridge is all clear, up to the top where there's still a snowfield on Oklahoma's summit that involved some postholing. Very steep scramble but on solid rock and slabs, nothing over class 3. Descended southeast slopes, a bit of soft snow that can be avoided. Route finding in the forest got tricky, but I eventually found the trail. |
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Route: Southeast Slopes Posted On: 7/5/2023, By: E_A_Marcus_949 Info: Condition update to 12,400' - didn't summit due to sleet/hail and incoming storms at 8:45am (bummed!) Free of snow up to that point and any small snow fields avoidable. We turned around near the the grassy slope up to the ridge. There is some snow remaining there, which likely can be avoided or easily crossed. No visual on the ridge, though. We veered off the route description and followed the Halfmoon Lakes trail to a good creek crossing, which was at UTM 13S 371436 4336981 / 39.17253, -106.48830 - it was a very simple large step/small jump across. We then traversed across the basins and met up with the 14ers gpx route. Pics show the conditions near the base of the grassy slope, a screenshot of our route (red) compared to the GPX download (orange) from the split to Massive, and the creek crossing. The pinpoint is the GPS coords above for our creek crossing spot. |
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Route: NE Slopes > East Ridge Posted On: 6/24/2023, By: _coloradical Info: Oklahoma > Deer Mtn A > K49 Oklahoma Round 2. Standard approach to Oklahoma, but instead of doing the lower creek crossing I opted to take the trail upto the first lake. From there I followed the trail around the southern portion of the lake to connect to the East Ridge. I found clean mine to gain the ridge that was class 2/2+, with minimal snow. Once on the ridge, I opted to toss on micro spikes for the final 500 of climbing. Micro spikes stayed on for the first 500 of descent off the south ridge of Oklahoma. The next 1 mile of ridge was clean up until the class 4 section of Deer Mtn A. I stayed high on the ridge to climb on dry rock and didnt use traction or an ice axe for the final section. It looked like someone has been up there in the last week, with tracks across the top of the snowfield on the west face of Deer, if you climb it, ice axe and crampons are important. That would be an uncomfortable long slide down to 12,000 feet. The downclimb off Deer Mtn A went smooth to gain the high point that drops you onto the ridge that connect K49. One small patch of snow, can be bypassed, and your standard Sawatch Talus Hopping for the remainder of the ridge. |
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Route: Southeast Slopes Posted On: 6/23/2023, By: wondering_hough Info: Plenty of deadfall to figure out the two creek crossings and we used spikes from 12200 on, as the upper basin is holding a good amount of snow. |
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Route: Southeast Slopes Posted On: 5/31/2023, By: daba3110 Info: Good snow after hard freeze. Consistent snow down to 12,200' |
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Route: NE/E Face Posted On: 5/29/2023, By: davisrice4 Info: View of the east face, and NE bowl/couloir from summit of massive, and upper halfmoon lake. Continuous snow to the summit on the E ridge. Sooner couloir looked thin for skiing, fine for climbing. |
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Route: Southeast Slopes Posted On: 9/6/2022, By: coopergould Info: Portion through the trees after splitting from the trail is pretty unclear but harmless (at least with low water levels for the stream crossings). Helpful to approximately follow the GPX for this portion but certainly not necessary to be right on top of it. Easy navigation once above treeline and a fun/quick descent from the summit back to N Halfmoon Lakes trail! |
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Route: Southeast Slopes Posted On: 7/26/2022, By: CheapCigarMan Info: Trail is sparse at times. During the ascent as you go past the Massive / Oklahoma trail split you enter an open area. Just past that I found myself on a higher trail, I believe it leads to North Halfmoon Lakes. I looked down and there was another trail which ran alongside the creek. I scampered down and took it. It came to a nice waterfall. Continuing I came into an avy runout with deadfall. I followed the slope up from there. This ran parallel just south of the standard route. I only crossed the creek once. On the descent I followed the standard route and without question the ascent route was much easier. |
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Route: Southeast Slopes Posted On: 7/18/2022, By: PikaSteve Info: Both creeks are low enough to have plenty of log or jump crossing options. Flowers and mosquitoes are both in plentiful summer conditions. Be prepared for lots of loose dirt and small rocks on the “grassy” slope. |
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Route: Southeast Slopes Posted On: 7/4/2022, By: mijoflynn Info: Both the grassy slope and the southeast ridge are now free of snow. |
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Route: Southeast Slopes Posted On: 7/5/2022, By: two lunches Info: the first creek after the split from the North Halfmoon Lakes trail was high and fast following the monsoon surges this season. because the log crossing was too icy to cross safely early in the morning, our group ended up walking through about 6-8" of water in a gentle spot on our ascent (but the log was thawed out by the time we headed back). the "grassy" ramp out of the basin is definitely more rock than grass, and microspikes were extremely helpful both ways. at the top, there is one deep (but short) snowfield to circumnavigate to reach the true summit, but easily avoidable. |
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Route: Southeast Slopes Posted On: 6/13/2022, By: kwhit24 Info: Hiked the loop with Deer and K49. Only unavoidable snow is shown in the previous post. There is a little at the top too. On the approach to Deer the snow is avoidable and all Class 2+ until the last 100' from the summit. Still some snow which requires some maneuvering leading to more difficult moves but they are short. No snow over to K49 or on the ridge coming off K49. There is snow to navigate when heading back into the basin but we were able to avoid it all just barely before or creek crossings 12.71 miles; 5,011' gain; 9 hours 20 min Start about 5:30am; Mt. Oklahoma 8:30am (15min break); Deer Mtn 10:45am; K49 12:30pm (20 min break); TH 3:00pm |
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Route: Southeast Slopes Posted On: 6/13/2022, By: jbealer Info: Almost all the snow can be avoided. depending on the time of day and your skills you may want spikes and an axe or you might be fine in your shoes and nothing for the one snow field up the final slope. |
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Route: Southeast Slopes Posted On: 5/15/2022, By: k_fergie Info: Thanks SnowAlien for that photo of Oklahoma, its in fat! Was feeling very tired after 3 straight days of skiing 13ers and was considering bailing on our Sunday plan of Oklahoma, that is until we saw how good it looked. Skied great at about 945 AM after an hour waiting for it to bake, nice soft corn. We thought that timing was good. Although, we watched another party drop around 1045 with binoculars from the valley and it looked like they were able to avoid letting it get too sloppy. Easily drivable to the French/Casco TH. Higher clearance 4x4 could get to North Halfmoon creek no problem. Snow in the trees was absolutely awful. Post holing to the hips, switch to skis, post hole in skis. Skinned from ~11k to 12.5k, then booted the SE face. Excellent coverage, best I've seen it in the past couple years that I can remember. Tried to get creative to eek out more snow on the exit, ended up having to ford north halfmoon creek (which is flowing very high), a true adventure |
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Route: Southeast Slopes Posted On: 10/31/2021, By: Anima Info: The North Halfmoon TH is still accessible by vehicle. There were two cars, a 4runner, and a truck, parked there. The route has a light dusting of snow on it for the first mile and beyond that, there were 6 to 12 inches of snow. The steep grass slope that starts at 12,700' is actually fairly dry, but the ridge above holds considerable snow. |
