10/15/2020 Route: Southeast Slopes Posted On: 10/16/2020, By: khavos Info: Road to TH and most of the trail is dry. Some avoidable snow in the trees before you pop out above tree line. |
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10/9/2020 Route: Southeast Slopes Posted On: 10/9/2020, By: coopereitel Info: I did Oklahoma coming off of the Massive SW Slopes to make for a longer day. The cutoff from the main trail is well marked. You go up to a big boulder then there are a handful of cairns with a faint trail behind (there should be a picture below). This is at 11,600' just like Roach's description. Then the a stream crossing or two and further snaking through the woods. The trail segments I followed took me to the avy path. I placed a rock on top of a topless tree where I went out of and back into the woods and this seemed to be a good spot. Go up the path then to the base of what I will name the "Suck Gully." It was steep and loose, but really not all that bad. Then at the top it is self-explanatory to the summit. There is no register that I was able to find fyi. The descent of the gully was some fun scree skiing. Then follow the route in, out. I detailed this in the report for Massive but just as an overview: 4x4s can make it to the TH and other cars to probably .4 miles below the TH. You will see what I am talking about and can make your own call. This made a pretty good add on to Massive, also so you don't have to make a special trip for a Centennial. |
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10/3/2020 Route: Southeast Slopes Posted On: 10/3/2020, By: durkan Info: Pup and I didn't see a soul once off trail all day. Fun bushwhacking from the trail to treeline. There does seem to be a trail that goes to summit once you gain the ridge after the slopes, but after ascending the said 'fun' southern slope, I opted to ascending and descending the larger talus since it was mostly stable. Coming back from injuries, but 5 hrs round trip. Smoke was definitely denser out west, but ok in that area today. |
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9/18/2020 Route: Direct Ridge from Massive Posted On: 9/18/2020, By: Eli Watson Info: Mt Massive SW Slopes > "Massive Green" > "North Massive" > "North North Massive" > Mt Oklahoma from 10,200' on Halfmoon Rd Nothing new to report on Massive SW Slopes. Other users have done a good job of detailing the conditions recently. No secret that it's one of the few dry routes in the Sawatch by now. Ridge to "Massive Green" > "North Massive" > "North North Massive" has less trivial snow to cross. Felt comfortable without traction 12:30 - 1:30 PM in my Mutants but be careful. "North Massive" summit register needs fresh paper. Ridge direct to Oklahoma is nothing short of spectacular. Seriously so much fun. Choose-your-own-adventure on the down climbs from "North North Massive" to the saddle low point. Can traverse around on the right if you want to avoid some committed down climbs. Nothing over class 4 in my book but debating climbing grades is all the rage right now. Can get as spicy as you please, but the ridge really lends itself to staying on the ridge crest on stable rocks. Climbing Oklahoma's summit ridge is a buffet of 'choose-your-own-adventure'. Either hang down to the right to avoid real scrambling to ascend snow-pocked class 2 scree and talus, hang left from the saddle low point to keep it class 3 and sneak around to Oklahoma's easier ridge, but true scramblers will feast on the ridge proper. Oklahoma's standard route descent was the loosest rock I experienced all day. Alpine tundra is prime time red right now, but the willows are still green even at 12,000'. Air quality was meh. An excellent Trip Report for this route can be read here: https://www.14ers.com/php14ers/tripreport.php?trip=20539 Will upload photos when I get to a full computer. |
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7/12/2020 Route: Southeast Slopes Posted On: 7/12/2020, By: Scott Conro Info: Route is dry, but we had mosquitos swarming us all the way to 13,500ft! Bring bug spray or an extra liter of blood! |
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7/3/2020 Route: Southeast Slopes Posted On: 7/3/2020, By: Dan_Suitor Info: Creeks are running full. There must be a mineral in the creeks which make the logs/rocks super slippery. One snow field I started to cross was very punchy. After a few post holes, I decided to go around it. Not much of a detour. Beautiful views from the top. |
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6/27/2020 Route: Southeast Slopes and South Ridge Posted On: 6/27/2020, By: supranihilest Info: Nice trail to the ridgelet that gives access to the upper basin. A couple of minor creek crossings. A GPS is useful in finding the ridgelet. There's one creek crossing off-trail that's just below a gorge - the log I crossed on was like ice, super treacherous. The upper basin has a couple of snowfields, one unavoidable. The gully to the upper slopes is steep and stupid loose. It was quite slow going. The upper slopes have a giant snowfield still, and the snow was very posthole-y. No traction or axe needed though. Short, dry hike above the snow to the summit. The south ridge (to Deer) is dry and all Class 2. A bit loose in spots but kot as bad as it looks. |
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6/22/2020 Route: Southeast Slopes Posted On: 6/23/2020, By: mountainman102 Info: Road is dry all the way up to the 4WD lot, but we parked below that. There were a few patches of snow (Image 1) that were mostly avoidable until over 13,000 feet. Here, there was one large snowfield (Image 2) with some rock patches. We had crampons and ice axes, but only ended up using the axes (nice to have the extra-security). On the descent, we hiked down to the right (East) skirting almost the entirety of the snow only crossing about 20 feet of it in which we post-holed. If you do not mind walking a little further, the snow is getting close to being completely avoidable. |
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6/20/2020 Route: Southeast Slopes Posted On: 6/21/2020, By: arianna2 Info: Quite a bit of snow above treeline yet. You probably can hike most of it on Rock but I preferred walking on the snow. Spikes needed. A good freeze the night before made the snow conditions perfect so no postholing for us but i imagine that is variable. Don't let your hat fly off when you're glissading, it's a b**** going back up😄 |
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6/15/2020 Route: Southeast Slopes Posted On: 6/16/2020, By: kkirch Info: Very little snow below treeline, not even particularly wet or muddy. Was able to easily find spots to jump over for the two creek crossings. Final 700ish feet to the summit is on low angle snow, I felt better donning spikes and brandishing an axe. |
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6/7/2020 Route: NE Bowl/Halfmoon Lakes Posted On: 6/8/2020, By: TaylorHolt Info: Still skiable. Mostly continuous from the summit to the start of the NE Bowl (one short section of dry booting before the drop off the ridge). Still two nice continuous lines from the top of the ridge down to the lower lake. Below the lakes there's not enough snow left to do anything on skis. Never used skins; hiked to the lakes and then used crampons up the bowl to the summit. Snow is melting quickly though, so these lines may only be good for another week max. |
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11/23/2019 Route: Southeast Slopes Posted On: 11/24/2019, By: angry Info: Continuous snow, varied from 6 inches to over 2ft. Snowshoes necessary, broke trail all the way to summit. |
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10/14/2019 Route: Southeast Slopes Posted On: 10/14/2019, By: Trotter Info: No snow on route below 12,000. Above that is patchy snow that is mostly avoidable. No traction needed. Best to stick to route. Do not try to drop off north side of the east ridge towards the lakes. Its extremely loose. |
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7/27/2019 Route: Southeast Slopes Posted On: 7/29/2019, By: E_A_Marcus_949 Info: Unfortunately we fully complete this climb as the first creek crossing (per route description) was impassable without fording barefoot and hoping you wouldn't fall due to the rapids and swiftness of the current. Up until this point, Massive trail is in good condition. For the avy debris area, keep right. You'll stay in the right direction toward the Massive trail junction. The sign pointing toward Massive is likely destroyed under a large snow drift/avy debris. Continue across that for Oklahoma. We relied upon the GPX file, which was useful and the trail past the Massive offshoot had some spurs (which are wrong, don't make our mistake and follow those). On the way back it was clear where we missed the trail, however, having the GPX was useful and the trails were overall, easy to follow. |
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7/13/2019 Route: Southeast Slopes Posted On: 7/13/2019, By: dwoodward13 Info: 3 or 4 decent sized avy debris crossings while still on the trail to the lakes. Nothing to difficult to pick thru. We never found a real trail once leaving the main trail. Bushwhacking and piecing together game trails was not bad. We found good spots to cross the two smaller creeks before they merged, although they still are running pretty high. Grassy slope was dry, but continuous snow from the ridge to summit. We both used spikes and hit the snow field around 7 and would not have wanted to be any later. Snow slope is very suncupped so hard to get a good glissade, but got a few small ones in. Great day in an amazing basin. |
