6/9/2014 Route: Southeast Slopes Posted On: 6/10/2014, By: joelmpaula Info: The road to the TH is dry. The trail is mostly dry for the first mile. The SE slopes and East face and completely snow covered from the summit down to the basin. The snow is holding up well. If you are looking for a good snow climb and or ski get it before the sun does. |
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11/9/2013 Route: Southeast Slopes Posted On: 11/9/2013, By: Jay521 Info: Much the same as Mrickers reported. I put in a new trench but it might not last. Snowshoes DEFINITELY required and spikes very helpful for the "grassy slope". |
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11/2/2013 Route: SE Slopes Posted On: 11/2/2013, By: mrickers Info: Snow the entire way...waist deep wallow fest in some parts. Spikes were useful on the steep grass slope. Slowshoes highly recommended. Trench won‘t be there for long, so go get it. |
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6/23/2013 Route: Southeast Slopes Posted On: 6/24/2013, By: smrcka Info: Large snow fields above 13,000‘. |
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6/16/2012 Route: Southeast Slopes Posted On: 6/18/2012, By: Matt Info: All the snow is gone and creek crossings are low along the route. It‘s good to go. |
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6/1/2012 Route: Southeast Slopes Posted On: 6/2/2012, By: JosephG Info: No special gear needed. Several small snow fields on the final 800‘ to the summit. Traction can be helpful (to preference), but can be surmounted without. Snow offers postholing. There is a decent use trail through the trees. Where it is absent, bushwhack north/northwest and you will figure it out quickly. First stream crossing is small. Be sure to head left (west) when facing Oklahoma‘s east ridge‘s headwall to start your ascent. |
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5/5/2012 Route: Southeast Slopes Posted On: 5/5/2012, By: CarpeDM Info: Headline: Posthole purgatory even with snowshoes. Details: For the first mile, you can completely avoid any snow. Then, there are occasional short patches of snow covering the trail. Also, about 3 or 4 downed trees to maneuver around. As you get further up - past the turn-off for Massive's SW slopes - snow gradually intrudes. But the bushwhack is the real problem. From where you leave the trail to about 11,900, there is intermittent snow and dry ground - making it hard to keep snowshoes on and hard to keep them off. Above the bushwhack (~11,900), it's all snow to the ramp at 12,700 - and this part was fine with snowshoes. The ramp is dry, but heavily eroded (mercifully relatively short, though). Above the ramp (13,100 to summit), it's snow again with some rocks poking through. For ALL the snow, bring flotation. I stashed my snowshoes at the bottom of the ramp and regretted it. Coming back was absolutely brutal postholing even with flotation. On my way in, I had met a guy coming out who had done a night hike; he said he was postholing even at night (he didn't have flotation). Oh, also, I left the trail too early which - in the grand scheme was really only a minor problem in itself. But the consequence was that I couldn‘t find the most efficient way back to the trail on the way down. I ended up relying on the map in the GPS, which showed a trail that didn‘t exist - causing me a BIG headache on the way down. Pic 1: Typical conditions for most of the trail past Massive SW slopes junction. I did lose the trail briefly a couple of times due to snow. Pic 2: Overview of the portion of the route that is above the bushwhack / creek crossings. Pic 3: The dry, loose ramp Pic 4: The summit pitch. The several groups of rocks sticking out helped cause some postholing. |
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4/7/2012 Route: Southeast Slopes Posted On: 4/8/2012, By: Matt Lemke Info: Mount Oklahoma didn‘t look like it had been climbed anytime in the recent past. We were able to get within 1 mile of the N Halfmoon Creek TH in a Rav4. We had to plow through a bunch of small snowpatches though. We got about 1.5 miles past the Massive TH before a larger snowfield stopped us. The trail up Halfmoon Creek towards the lakes was largely covered in snow...but nice and firm early. The trail was easy to follow to the Mt. massive South slopes trail junction but after that the trail was often hard to find and we ended up just heading straight up the valley on the path of least resistance. Once we got close enough to Oklahoma, we just started climbing firm snow slopes. The standard route has you head up a slope that breaks the upper and lower cliff bands on the east and south faces of the mountain. We just decided to head straight up some slabs near some steep couloirs to gain the East Ridge sooner. We had lots of 3rd class with a couple 4th class slabs to climb. Once on the gentle E ridge, the final 700 feet was a slog up firm snow to the summit. We descended the standard route...got a few great glissades and slogged out. Below treeline much of the snow did soften and we postholed a little but it could have been much worse. Careful and light stepping was very helpful. I felt very tired from my BIG DAY in the Mosquito Range the day before and it took up 5 hours to ascend Oklahoma from where we parked...very slow for me. First photo shows Mount Oklahoma from the trail at about 10,800 feet. Red was our ascent route...green our descent |
