10/23/2021 Route: West Ridge Posted On: 10/24/2021, By: NittanyLion14er Info: Ridge from Pacific dry until low point then snow filled ridge up to dry summit. Ridge/trail down to bowl is snow-filled with some tops of rocks exposed. 90% of trail under snow until down to bowl. Trail along stream packed snow until tree line, traction not needed but would be better. |
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7/17/2021 Route: Mayflower gulch up, mayflower traverse to Fletcher Posted On: 7/19/2021, By: slawrence2011 Info: Traverse in good condition. Tat and rap rings on third and fourth gendarmes. Definitely needed the rap off four. We roped up for an easy pitch up four, and the Crux pitch up 5. Easier than 5.7, but loose rock made very sketchy. Didn't summit Fletcher or drift due to thunderstorm, descended steep talus and scree fully right past Gendarme 5. |
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7/14/2021 Route: West Ridge Posted On: 7/14/2021, By: PikaSteve Info: Summer conditions with 50 yards of willow obstacles and one snowfield. Lots of empty trailhead parking spots at Mayflower Gulch less than ten minutes from Copper Mountain. Only saw two other hikers after I crossed the willows. Beautiful summit views and many flowers made it easy to forget about the rain. Just after the mine gate, the trail starts from the far corner of a square of black sand. As the trail enters the willows, beware of ten yards of very boggy mud. In some places, my poles sunk in over twelve inches before I searched for a different place for my next footstep. Then forty yards of branches, wet leaves, water flowing on the trail and two short jumps across creek channels. Poles, waterproof boots and quick drying pants are helpful. One short snowfield remaining on the ridge at about 13,400. Snowfield is about 100 feet long, but only about 15 feet long where it meets the ridge. I went below the snowfield on the north side on the way up. On the way down, I could see that the snow barely crosses over to the south side, so I did a short slightly exposed bypass on the south side. Although hard to see from below, two higher snowfields do not fully extend to the ridge crest. |
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6/20/2021 Route: Northeast Slope Posted On: 6/21/2021, By: Dan_Suitor Info: Note, I did this route backward when descending from Pacific Peak so there were a few places I was a little off-route. There was a river crossing near the lake which was running high (see pic). There may have been a way around it, but it appeared to me that the path crossed it. I went straight across, fortunately with the gaiters my feet stayed mostly dry. The basin had quite a bit of snow in it. For the most part, I was able to traverse the snow easily. Near the edges I post-holed a few times. Again, the gaiters saved my ankles from getting snow packed. The headwall has snow from top to bottom and is unavoidable. I picked the line to the far right (when looking at it from below). It was later in the day. The top few inches of snow were soft and underneath was solid. Fortunately, I brought my axe and microspikes. I toe kicked rather than plunge stepped as I felt this was safer and a ride to the bottom would have sent me into a boulder field. The microspikes did a sufficient job, but crampons may have been more advisable, especially if you go early and the snow is frozen. The top of the headwall to the summit could be achieved without traversing any snow. |
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6/17/2021 Route: V-Couloir Posted On: 6/18/2021, By: Wallowa Info: Scoped out the V-couloir from the road with binos, hoping to do a ski the next AM. Surprisingly, the couloir seems pretty melted out and discontinuous. I did not ski it this morning as a result. |
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6/14/2021 Route: West Ridge Posted On: 6/14/2021, By: -wren- Info: Some unavoidable snow. I came down this after summiting pacific then Atlantic from 10-11 am. Around 10:30 was just about as late as I would have liked to be on the spookiest snow covered section (see picture) which seemed ready to collapse, slide right off the ridge and possibly take you with it if it's soft enough. A couple tentative steps and I was feeling good about the supportiveness of the 20-30 feet on this section, but probably 30-45 minutes later and I would have slogged all the way back to pacific and gone down it's west ridge to get back to my vehicle. The other snowy spots are just short obnoxious sections of knee deep postholing that don't warrant snowshoes. If you're gonna do this in the next week or so, do it early. The traverse from pacific is basically snow free. |
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4/10/2021 Route: West Ridge Posted On: 4/10/2021, By: jwin17 Info: Beautiful blue bird day. Winds picked up once you gained the ridge, and only got worse as you summited, but nothing necessarily overbearing. Snowshoes not needed this morning and everything was still firm for the descent. A couple post holes, but nothing that would warrant the burden of snowshoes. Spikes and ice axe will be enough. |
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4/9/2021 Route: V couloir Posted On: 4/9/2021, By: macg91 Info: Started at the Quandary TH. Continuous snow from there onward. Climbed and skied the V couloir. A few inches of powder from earlier in the week made for pretty good ski conditions. Was able to ski continuously back to McCullough Gulch TH, then had to skin back up the road. |
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3/8/2021 Route: West Ridge Posted On: 3/9/2021, By: 2020DD74_summit Info: Backpacked in to camp on the slope below the pass. I was post holing to upper thighs in places with a heavy pack. Maybe if you are day-packing it, you will be fine. I was too whipped, so we camped and then trekked back across the deep snow in the gulch to come back out in the morning. Looks fun if you can get across the deep snow easily. |
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1/16/2021 Route: West Ridge Posted On: 1/17/2021, By: pbergmaier Info: I'd consider it still "early" winter conditions. The road up to the gate by the mine cabins is hard packed, we walked it with just boots. Flotation is needed just beyond the cabins through the willows and up to the base of Atlantic's west ridge. We stashed our snowshoes there and continued up the ridge proper on very thin, windblown snow only partially covering the scree and grass underneath. We booted it up, although I threw on my microspikes and thought it helped a little. The snow was a bit deeper along the narrower sections of the ridge higher up. No big cornices, but definitely a few wind slabs in some spots. We didn't need any flotation along the ridge. There was one slightly dicey section crossing angled, hard-packed snow, about 50 ft long, just below the "crux" of the route at 13,300' that is described in Bill's route description. Going up that section, I only used my spikes, but on the descent I put on my crampons and felt much more secure. We all had our ice axes and agreed an axe was helpful to have for that one section as well. A fall there off either side would probably require a self arrest. Too windy to spend much time on the summit. There really isn't anywhere up there right now to seek shelter. Again, still not a ton of snow at this point, but definitely enough to warrant bringing all the necessary winter mountaineering tools for a few spots. Also had good views of Pacific and Fletcher, both of which looked quite bare on the west side. We didn't get a good view of the east side due to clouds. |
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12/20/2020 Route: West Ridge Posted On: 12/20/2020, By: bmcqueen Info: Nailed the last fall 2020 summit on this one today. Whoever wants a blue snowflake tomorrow will be treated to a fresh trench. Wore snowshoes across the willows. Once to the ridge, it's a mix of rock and snow. |
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12/14/2020 Route: West Ridge Posted On: 12/15/2020, By: CaptainSuburbia Info: The Mayflower Gulch Road was well packed to the 4WD parking. We put snowshoes on here and trenched through fresh snow to reach headwall. The headwall was a mix of talus and deep snow pockets so kept snowshoes on until reaching the ridge crux which required a class 3 move to get over. Wore crampons from there to summit. Lots of deep snow to trench along the entire ridge. |
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11/6/2020 Route: Southeast Slopes Posted On: 11/6/2020, By: benmangelsdorf Info: Some snow throughout, but nothing really all that bad yet. The headwall gulley has a fair amount of snow right now but it can pretty much all be avoided. |
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9/24/2020 Route: West Ridge Posted On: 9/24/2020, By: dhagan Info: Dry. |
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8/5/2020 Route: West Ridge Posted On: 8/5/2020, By: Barnold41 Info: Good stuff. Snow free. Summit to myself. Quandary was busy. |
