6/22/2025 Route: Southeast Ridge Posted On: 6/23/2025, By: Tony1 Info: Below 12,400' it is mostly dry with a few very wet and muddy spots and a couple of minor snow crossings. Above 12,400' we found snow coverage to be quite significant on both headwall areas, but flatter areas are mostly dry. There is one last exposed snow crossing just before the summit, which can be bypassed on precarious talus (pick your poison). Snowfields were mostly supportive through the afternoon, except at the edges. Gaiters would help to an extent. Depending on footwear, the wet feet spectrum goes from likely to guaranteed. |
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6/21/2025 Route: Fletcher+Drift Traverse Posted On: 6/21/2025, By: EmmaClaire5280 Info: Climbed Fletcher Mountain and completed the Drift Traverse. The route is mostly clear, with only a few intermittent snowfields remaining. However, the lower section of the trail is saturated and flooded in places—waterproof boots are a must. Despite the wet start, conditions higher up are excellent, making for a rewarding traverse. |
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5/17/2025 Route: Southeast Ridge Posted On: 5/17/2025, By: infinitealpine Info: Fun snow climb in just about perfect conditions. The freeze from the past 2 days really helped with firm supportive snow. I used spikes beginning at the split for the alternate ridge route/standard route and didnt use crampons and axe until the final ridge ascent from 13,400. Don't underestimate that ridge! Highly recommend the ridge ascent, as described in the CMC Colorado Snow Climbs book. For the descent, I mostly went down the middle of the basin. 6.4mi, 2752ft gain. Solo climb, ran into 2 skiers that approached from Mayflower Gulch. |
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5/8/2025 Route: Fletcher+Drift Traverse Posted On: 5/9/2025, By: jacolc Info: Approached for Drift via MonteCristo Creek and climb east couloir to south ridge snow 45deg. Flotation needed after recent storm. On traverse 6-18inches of fresh snow, full winter condition except warmer temp. On descent from Fletcher initially used crampons and switch to snowshoe. |
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5/3/2025 Route: Southeast Ridge Posted On: 5/3/2025, By: notidealbutfine Info: Gate closure is located about .35 miles above the Quandary TH. Started at 5:15AM. Road is mostly dry to the dam. Continuous snow starts above the dam, but I was able to keep trail runners + spikes on until ~13,300, just below the SE ridge. Used ski boots, crampons and axe to climb the ridge to the summit. Dropped in at 9AM and skied from the summit down the SW ridge and cut back across to my up track. Managed to ski a continuous line to just above the dam. Snow above tree line was a mix of wind blown powder, ice, and breakable chalky crust. Saw at least a dozen small wet avalanches on the way up and down, mostly on the south face of Quandary. 9.78 miles / 3,133' gain / 5 hours, 42 minutes |
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4/12/2025 Route: Southeast Ridge Posted On: 4/12/2025, By: 14er101 Info: Parking still a quarter mile up from normal Quandary spot (and will be for awhile as expected). Was able to ski almost continuous from summit to car, with a brief section of walking by the dam. I skied around 8am, very hard pack all the way down. Crampons were incredibly helpful from 12300 to the summit in the morning. Someone had recently skinned all the way to the summit. |
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9/1/2024 Route: Southeast Ridge Posted On: 9/1/2024, By: Rampaging Baloths Info: Snow in the rust gully and higher up. Choose your own adventure though all the way up. Lots of optional and fun class 3-5.0 ledges I entertained myself on the way up. Also plenty of class 2 bypasses on dirt and ledges and talus for getting out of the initial gully. Trailhead got full quickly on this holiday weekend. That being said we found that there were only 2 groups on Fletcher today including the one I was in. Lots of ants on quandary. Overall a nice day. Fletcher is a new favorite of mine for sure! |
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8/1/2024 Route: Fletcher+Drift Traverse Posted On: 8/2/2024, By: Logan5280 Info: Completed a nice link-up of Fletcher, the traverse to and from Drift, up the West Ridge of Quandary, and down the Cristo Couloir. The Blue Lakes Trailhead road is gated at the usual place, ~3/4 of a mile below the dam. The road is in good shape; my Prius made it up with with minimal difficulty. In the dark, I somehow managed to miss the Quandary turn on my way up the basin, and bushwhacked past the Wheeler apron, approaching the Fletcher amphitheater from the south. This ended up being an excellent mistake because the wildflowers in the basin past the lake are in full bloom and incredible right now. The Fletcher amphitheater is pretty much completely free of snow in all the necessary places. The traverse to Drift is dry as well. I did the standard route on the way there, then the 5.2 variation on the way back. Both have some pretty questionable rock quality, but the variation is more solid, and quite a lot of fun. I dropped down towards Quandary before re-ascending Fletcher. The West Ridge is completely dry, and has its usual fair share of loose rock. There's definitely some interesting scrambling near the crux section by sticking close to the ridge crest as well. I was initially skeptical of dry descent of Cristo, and was definitely correct to be because, in my opinion, that descent was heinous. It's over 2,000 feet of loose, moving talus and scree skiing, even on the rib just west of the fall line of the couloir. In my opinion, it has rightfully earned its spot in the 50 Classic Talus Tumbles of North America. If I were to climb the West Ridge again, I'd much rather descend the ascent route, or descend the East Ridge and just walk the road back to Blue Lakes. Despite that, still a fun link-up to get a centennial, with a decent amount of scrambling throughout. |
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3/9/2024 Route: Southeast Ridge Posted On: 3/10/2024, By: DanielL Info: Fresh snow during the week made for an interesting ascent of Fletcher Mtn! There is a lot of snow on the south and southeast aspects and we saw a fair amount of loose slide activity. The Blue Lakes road is plowed for perhaps 1/4 mile above the main Quandary trailhead and can be skied to the upper TH. We ascended by following the Quandary West Ridge route to 12.3k and then, to avoid the loaded slopes leading up to the Quandary-Fletcher saddle (pic #1), we turned left and ascended a steep but slightly less loaded option to get onto a high ridge just below 13k (pic #2). This was quite tedious and we would have benefited from use of crampons. Once up this, we followed gentler terrain to the southeast ridge of Fletcher (pic #3). The final 500' to the summit was challenging with the fresh snow, and we used crampons for the final 150' or so as the ridge is corniced and piled up with snow (pics #4-6). We descended by the longer but safer Monte Cristo creek drainage. It is hard to put into words the beauty of the untouched snowscape under the jagged ridgeline of Drift, Wheeler, and North Star as we traveled through (pics #7-8). We got a good look at Quandary's Cristo couloir. It is filling in nicely though a bit rocky near the top (pics #9 and #10). |
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12/31/2023 Route: Southeast Ridge Posted On: 12/31/2023, By: Veory Info: First big winter summit of the year. Lots of mixed talus hopping and varied snow on the approach. Road was skinnable/ skiable all the way to the dam with the exception of a short dirt patch. Not much skiing to be had above that, although if you want to haul them up you could do short runs on the south side of the ridge. Ridge was a mix of hard pack and softer stuff. I used crampons, partner used snow shoes and both worked about equally. Did not follow the summer route, went up the ridge to the SW of the basin. Snow was neither deep nor reactive. |
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11/11/2023 Route: Southeast Ridge Posted On: 11/11/2023, By: two lunches Info: not my cup of tea but probably someone elses mix of bare rock & grass, slabby, and unconsolidated trapdoor snow. flotation optional, traction and axe recommended. |
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8/1/2023 Route: Southeast Ridge Posted On: 8/2/2023, By: Istoodupthere Info: Nasty storms brought snow to Hoosier pass on the evening of 31st. There was so much water in the basin that it buried the trail approaching the rust colored gully which was completely snowed over. I ended up following the trail in this area that goes up to the right. There are a couple cairns at first. I just kept going up to the ridge crest below Quandary. I believe this is the way in the Quandary description that youre told to avoid. I would agree with that. Many loose areas and a few class 3+ moves. Traversed across and up to the summit of Fletcher without issue. On the way down, I ended up taking a direct route from the edge up the upper basin, to where I started heading up toward Quandary. I just zig zagged down the rock ledges. A couple easy class 3 moves and some fun scrambling. The lower portion has some loose talus. To me this seemed like a preferable route as opposed to going up the loose rust gully. My route was 7.6 miles. Not what I had planned but nice to knock out a couple easy centennials during monsoon season on my visit. |
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7/22/2023 Route: Fletcher+Drift Traverse Posted On: 7/22/2023, By: Phill the Thrill Info: 100% summer conditions now. We carried axe and spikes and never took them out of the pack. The route-finding on the class 3 bypass on the Fletcher/Drift traverse is more difficult than I expected. Bring your A game. |
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7/16/2023 Route: Fletcher+Drift Traverse Posted On: 7/16/2023, By: bsiegs Info: A few snowfields remain on the way up to Fletcher. Most can likely be avoided if you really wanted to just stick to the rock, but I had my spikes/axe and climbing them was cruiser. Snowfield running up to the saddle between Fletcher and Drift, but there is no need to step on snow on the traverse itself. Quick heads up, the rock quality was shit all day, but in particular when skirting around the "bypass" (see route description) on the right, there's a really loose, microwave size rock balanced there that's sitting right above the line where most climbers will probably scramble back up to the ridge..(see picture, not the best, but hopefully enough of a caution). I tried to secure it in there the best I could, but the thing has heft. Wear a helmet. Got 5 good glissades on the way down! |
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7/16/2023 Route: Fletcher+Drift Traverse Posted On: 7/17/2023, By: sarahmariekirk Info: Climbed Fletcher and Drift yesterday via the traverse. There are a few snowfields to mitigate up to the saddle between Fletcher and Quandary, and I had microspikes and an axe, but felt it was easy enough to avoid them all on the way up by sticking to rock. The traverse itself is completely snow-free, but like the person who posted also yesterday said - the rock quality is terrible. Theres an abundance of loose rotten rock on this route. Along the traverse, theres a sidehilling section with extremely loose rock, but the class 3 sections proved to be pretty solid. Beautiful day overall. We glissaded down between Drift - Fletcher saddle and again down below. Hardly saw anyone all day! |