Quail Mountain

Route: West Ridge
Posted On: 5/25/2025, By: cloudkicker
Info: Sheep Gulch to Hope Pass to Quail. Did the whole thing in my trail runners. Brought spikes but did not use. Leave the snowshoes at home. Sheep Gulch TH to Treeline is 99% dry. From Treeline to Hope Pass is 90% dry with 1-2 mildly sketchy snow crossings (mellow but may give some pause). Poles recommended. From Hope Pass to Quail summit is 99% dry other than two flat low consequence snow crossings right below the summit. The summit register is dry and sturdy with a beautiful and functional Pilot G-2 gel pen inside. It could probably use a few more pages of paper. Special shoutout to Copernicus Browser for having the latest satellite imagery allowed me to cherry pick a route with 0 suffering and 0 postholing. 

Route: West Ridge
Posted On: 1/28/2025, By: Will_E
Info: Beautiful day on Quail, started a little cold until the sun came out, 21 degrees and just a light breeze at summit. I parked a mile or so before Missouri Gulch TH, but honestly could have driven all the way to Sheep Gulch, the road is well tracked (I've had bad luck on that road so don't push it). I'd guess the road is tracked to Winfield. I put snowshoes on at Sheep Gulch, took them off a short distance in, lots of breaks in snow coverage down low. The trenching through the middle and upper section of treeline was pretty juicy, a little tougher than average. From Hope Pass on the route is mostly dry. 

Route: West Ridge
Posted On: 11/5/2024, By: sarahmariekirk
Info: Climbed Quail on Saturday - a surprising amount of snow despite the minimal snow totals overall, and we put the first tracks in of the season, although now they are sure to be completely covered! The snow started about 1 mile after the trailhead, and got to be about ankle-deep around treeline. There were some drifts that we had to trench in, that went to mid-shin and were forming wind slabs, but easy to navigate and did not need or use traction at all. The mountain will definitely be looking different after these storms. 

Route: West Ridge
Posted On: 8/4/2024, By: cdgibbons
Info: Summer conditions. Pretty decent trail almost all the way from Hope Pass; it follows the ridge until 13,000', then cuts into the Southwest face until 13,200', then follows the ridge to the summit. Summit register was among the most robust I've ever seen- an indestructible metal canister bolted to the rock with a huge chain. In the event of an apocalypse or holocaust, written records of infrequent ascents of Quail Mountain will be well preserved. 

Route: North Ridge
Posted On: 2/24/2024, By: Geckser
Info: Pretty dreamy conditions for a Sawatch Winter ski. I highly recommend this line if you are interested in a fairly mellow Sawatch ski on a yellow avalanche day. Did it with Arthurspiderman, a big step up from most of our Sawatch skiing so far this year. We started at the Willis gulch trailhead, there was 99% continuous snow from trailhead to 12,100. At the start of the trail coverage is middling, but there was a solid trench. Once you get past the first mile the coverage gets fairly good. We reached about 10,300 before switchbacking through the forest and catching the ridge. The ridge to treeline was about 20-25 degrees, soft snow and strong coverage. One of the best mellow forest skis I have had in the state. From treeline we put runners on and it was mostly dry, we made pretty quick work of that section. Really fun descent. Definitely some caution required in the forest below the ridge toward the basin. 

Route: West Ridge
Posted On: 11/17/2023, By: rachel
Info: Intermittent sections of snow, mud, and dry trail. Did not use floatation, traction or gaiters. Sunny, calm, and warm day. 

Route: West Ridge
Posted On: 10/19/2022, By: Jan van Tilburg
Info: No snow on route to summit that I could see. (did not summit this peak) 

Route: West Ridge
Posted On: 6/10/2022, By: HikerGuy
Info: Summer condition from Sheep Gulch TH. 

Route: NW Slope
Posted On: 5/23/2022, By: jwin17
Info: Started from the Interlaken TH to get some more miles in, and took the Interlaken/CDT trail to connect with Willis Gulch. Trail essentially dry until connecting with Willis Gulch. Followed some faint bootpack and skin tracks up to around 11k, where everything disappeared. Broke trail from there until treeline, with a healthy mix of ankle deep snow and then spots of knee/hip deep postholing. I don't carry snowshoes, but due to spring conditions I doubt they would have done much good. Once at treeline opted to deviate from the typical Hope Pass route, and just picked a route up the NW Slopes (will add Strava track in photos) to gain Quail summit. Good snow coverage, allowed for some good kick stepping on the way up. Winds were howling at the summit, so decided not to try and push over to Hope. As expected, snow melting fast and turning wet and slushy on the descent. Tracked 17.5 miles, 4.3k gain. 

Route: West Ridge
Posted On: 12/4/2021, By: Carl_Healy
Info: Beautiful day! Temps in 30s and 40s and wind no worse than 10 mph (15mph a few times). Entire route essentially summer conditions. Whatever snow there is is avoidable or not a problem. No gators or traction used, and definitely no flotation. This is a copy of the Hope report, which is just as applicable. 

Route: West Ridge
Posted On: 6/18/2021, By: brauda02
Info: Dry. Be careful to follow the cairns after Hope Pass. I followed a game trail and got off route onto some really loose stuff. Summit register needs to be refreshed. 

Route: West Ridge
Posted On: 5/30/2021, By: gluckhikes
Info: A couple patches of snow on the climb from Sheep Gulch to Hope Pass. Completely dry from then on. Climbers trail is easy to follow while climbing, but it's a little braided and more difficult to keep track of while descending. 

Route: West Ridge
Posted On: 5/22/2021, By: Sglm14
Info: Did Quail today. Snowshoes not needed at all. Microspikes helpful in some sections. Hopeful couloir looks like it's in really good condition 

Route: West Ridge
Posted On: 4/24/2021, By: angry
Info: From th to treeline, stretches of dry sections with intermittent long sections that are snow covered. Continuous snow coverage from treeline to ~12,400. Gained the ridge via a direct line through loose talus, kitty litter and snow rather than head over to hope pass. Was able to glissade about 1000ft on descent and booted back to th. Summit register is falling apart, needs pen/paper. 

Route: East Ridge from Columbine Mine
Posted On: 8/23/2020, By: madmattd
Info: Mild 2WD road to the upper switchbacks (~11,000ft, ~3mi from the end of the road), a little clearance would help in a few mild spots but otherwise in very good shape (14ers.com 1.5 road difficulty). Not really any public parking in this area. Above there, 4WD and clearance recommended, though I think a solid driver could get an Outback/Forester type vehicle up there with care (I would place this as a 3.5 road difficulty). No issues in a stock Tacoma, we did air down a little just to smooth out some bumps up high but not entirely necessary. There's room for 5-6 vehicles at the end of the road at 12,500' where there are signs stating no vehicular traffic beyond (foot/bike/etc all good). This was a really nice and easy route to Quail from the end of FR 398 (Lost Canyon Road). An access road (closed to public motorized use) continues to the 13,120' knob where a couple radio repeaters are located. From there there's a short steep drop (~200') on talus, then a nice tundra walk to the base of Quail and a simple final ascent. Old use trails (from miners?) much of the way. On the way back we skirted around 13,120' to the South on grassy slopes, which saved having to ascend the steep talus. Smoke was pretty thick in the morning, could barely see Belford/Oxford and Elbert. Better in the afternoon and even some blue skies above. ~4.5mi, 1600' ascent round-trip for Quail from the road.