Atlantic Peak

Route: West Ridge
Posted On: 7/13/2017, By: TheseThousandHills
Info: Still a few places where snow must be crossed, but can easily climb without traction. A few small glissades left if you take an axe. 

Route: West Ridge
Posted On: 6/16/2017, By: Count40
Info: Pictures of basins, Pacific, Atlantic from Mayflower Hill. You can see for yourself, but, briefly, still lots of snow in basins and on north side of the ridge, when starting up to reach the ridge proper. Cornices on portions of the ridge. 

Route: West Ridge
Posted On: 6/8/2017, By: JtheChemE
Info: Mayflower road is a slushy postholey mess even at 6am. Still possible for an easy creek crossing on snow, but not likely for much longer. Broad slop to gain the ridge is largely dry, ridge proper still going as mostly snow. Heading down by 8am, the ridge was already approaching slurpee status. 

Route: West Ridge
Posted On: 5/27/2017, By: koeffling
Info: Quite a bit of snow in the basin and on the ridge. A bit slabby even with the cloud cover and snow today. Only a couple of inches of new snow today. We turned around ~13,300ish on the ridge at a snowy knife edge. It wasn't consolidated and firm enough for my taste. White out conditions on the descent made for adventurous ridge walking. 

Route: West Ridge
Posted On: 5/17/2017, By: Vertical Wanderer
Info: Still lots of snow, and the recent wind has made some sections of the ridge a little spicy! I'd say there are a couple of class 3 moves but only because I chose to go over steeper rocks than steep snow. Still lots of fun, but be sure to bring traction and either trekking poles or an ice axe. It would not be difficult to slip and go for a long slide down either side! 

Route: West Ridge
Posted On: 3/19/2017, By: Trotter
Info: Trail up the road is hard packed. The field and forest across mayflower creek is mostly boot packed, but snowshoes in the afternoon are a must. We were sinking knee deep even with snowshoes. The hike to the ridge, and the ridge iteself is half snow and half rock. Traction is needed. There are several narrow spots with a lot of exposure on the ridge. Watch for cornices on a couple of them 

Route: West Ridge
Posted On: 1/29/2017, By: maurer_kg
Info: Wow, this ridge is looking great since the last storm. Nice snow cover everywhere. Snow is reasonably soft, making for easy, secure travel across the ridge. Most of our group used microspikes or mountaineering boots on the ridge with no problem. Snowshoes were useful on the approach and also across the first plateau leading up to the ridge climb proper. 

Route: West Ridge
Posted On: 12/24/2016, By: jmhasse01
Info: Three of us climbed the West Ridge of Atlantic Peak on December 23rd, 2016. We approached the ridge from Mayflower Gulch on skis and broke trail the entire way. We had a favorable CAIC forecast and used Caltopo to plot a reasonable safe route through the avalanche terrain surrounding Pacific Creek to gain the ridge. Once on the ridge we found variable conditions, alternating between deep snow and light snow over talus. We carried ice axes and crampons but never needed to use them. Microspikes might be nice, but not required. For photos and a trip report, check here: http://www.carpemons.com/2016/12/west-ridge-of-atlantic-peak-december.html 

Route: West Ridge
Posted On: 7/27/2016, By: flyingmagpie
Info: Climbed Atlantic by the standard "West Ridge" route. Was uncertain about conditions, so carried an ice axe and traction. Found out I didn't need either. Remaining snowfields are avoidable by passing above or below them. Only one snowfield, which Bill's route description calls the "crux" of the route, laps over the ridge east to west and completely covers it. I passed below that one on the east side. Even though this route is only 4 miles round trip, it feels longer because of the steepness and relative difficulty of the terrain once you leave the use trail and start up the talus. Found the use trail just fine after crossing the creek through the willows. If you look closely at the willows you can see at least a couple places where other climbers have been going through them. Waterproof boots are helpful here so you don't soak your socks right at the start. Use trail is right where logic says it should be. Finding it saves some time. Once you are on the talus, you have to pay close attention to your feet to avoid loose and tippy rock. I got going about 6 am from the end of the Mayflower Gulch 4wd road. Summitted about 9, was back to the Jeep about 11:30. When I started out it was cool, even cold in the valley, but as I began to parallel Pacific Creek I warmed up and the sun got high enough that I could take off a t-shirt. One of the problems with this route is that with an early morning start, moving west to east, you are climbing directly into the sun. Hard to scout the route ahead. By the time I summited, the sky had become overcast, and ten minutes after I got back to the Jeep, a light rain began falling. Lots of snow remains on the east slopes of Atlantic this year, below the summit and extending along the ridge toward Fletcher. That's why I decided on the West Ridge route. This climb took enough out of me that when I looked at the distance to Pacific, and judged the sky and weather, I ruled getting two peaks this day completely out. I was tired, didn't really have the energy, and though there was no thunder, I didn't want to descend slick rock if it did shower. 

Route: West Ridge
Posted On: 6/27/2016, By: AyeYo
Info: Road is clear to the gate. Route is snow free with two major exceptions. 1. The normal ridge approach slope still has a large snow field. It was a post hole fest at 9am, so I backtracked and went up the nose of the ridge, which is dry. 2. The knife edge just before the summit remains. At 11am the snow was bullet proof. I attempted to walk in someone's prior (very shallow) steps, but couldn't get more than the point of the axe in. I attempted to also use their axe holes, but most of those were equally shallow. Kicking steps was impossible and micro spikes provided almost no purchase. I turn around half way across. With crampons it might have been possible to face in and side step using the pick of the axe instead. There is a class 4 bypass to the south, but the rock is lose. The guy that did it in trail runners a couple weeks ago either has massive balls or much softer snow. 

Route: V couloir
Posted On: 6/20/2016, By: SnowAlien
Info: So we went to ski Fletcher from McCaulough gulch. Y couloir looked melted out at the choke and other lines didn't look very appealing. At the same time, Atlantic was staring at us straight in the face from the drive in. Yo, money, what should we ski? I think we should ski the money line. Sure enough, it was right on the money (fat and smooth and in from the summit). In better shape than last time I skied it. We skied down to about 12k, so still about 1,800 ft vert, although the flat part is pretty grabby on the skis due to dust. TH access : Technically, McCaulough gulch TH is still closed, but the current gate closure is only 0.5 mi from the actual TH. It took us 3.5 hours to the summit. 

Route: West Ridge
Posted On: 6/12/2016, By: JtheChemE
Info: Road open, but drivable ~1/4 mile. Crossed creek east of the drainage confluence, lots of water moving. Ridge holding only snow only at the usual winter knife edge locations & summit. Ridge doable in trailrunners with an early start and the proper approach. 

Route: West Ridge
Posted On: 2/22/2016, By: AlexeyD
Info: Made it to a few hundred feet below the false summit before turning around after encountering a really sketchy snow section. Basically, it was a knife edge with a cornice on one side, and really loaded, unstable snow on the other, extending right to the top. Guess my concerns about the recent very strong SW winds loading usual aspects proved right. See photos for detail (though they don't quite capture the whole story). Also: we ended up contouring too far left (north) around the nose of the ridge, rather than simply head up at its lowest (and probably safest) point. We gained the ridge via a broad snow slope from a point near the Mayflower Hill-Atlantic saddle. The slope itself seemed fairly stable (drift pattern suggests wind was blowing across the slope, rather than loading from the top), but some parts along the traverse seemed a bit suspect. Suggest following the line shown in David Cooper's book, rather than going as far left as we did. We wore snowshoes almost the entire time. A few sections along the ridge have rocks interspersed with snow that made it quite awkward with snowshoes on, but the amount of crusty, posthole-able snow made us reluctant to remove them. Guess it's a bit of pick-your-poison from the 12,400' shoulder onwards. Despite not summitting, it was a gorgeous day up there with beautiful weather and stellar views. 

Route: West Ridge
Posted On: 7/15/2015, By: jwagner
Info: Atlantic‘s west ridge is mostly snow free. We crossed one unavoidable 60 foot section about 300 feet from the top. It is soft and there are steps in it that make it mostly easy for experienced person to walk across without traction. It is an exposed steep cornice on the south side and a moderate snow slope on the north side. The rest of ridge is mostly snow free and you can walk around the sections that aren‘t. 

Route: West Ridge
Posted On: 6/22/2015, By: BagginPeaks
Info: Traversed from Pacific over to Atlantic ans descended the west ridge. Lots of snow on this ridge still, most avoidable, but I ended up doing a lot of class 3 moves below the ridge to avoid the snow. Talus hopping on the way down sucked.. The start of this ridge and most of it on the way to the summit is large loose talus with very faint trail segments.