Wheeler Mountain

Route: South Ridge
Posted On: 7/1/2026, By: cdgibbons
Info: Summer Conditions. Very, very smoky in the morning. No one else on the mountain above the lake. On the route...I found the climber's trail from the lake to the saddle well cairned and easy to follow. The second half of the route above the saddle kicked my butt a bit; I was definitely not on the easiest route. I ascended class 3 gullies and ledges to a point, which was not the summit, and offered no safe passage to the summit with my skill level, so retraced my steps and probably still climbed too high as I didn't find the Y in Bill's photo. Needed to stay lower than I thought. Nothing crazy, but sustained, tedious class 3. 

Route: drift to wheeler
Posted On: 6/8/2026, By: zootloopz
Info: Drift to Wheeler took my crew and I 3.5 hours one way. Easy start off of drift but quickly become convoluted and time consuming. Tons of loose rock, trust nothing. Stuck as close to the ridge as we could most of the way, which was possible for all but 4-5 gendarmes. A mild amount of snow but no traction needed. 

Route: Traver/McNamee/Clinton/Wheeler
Posted On: 6/12/2026, By: Maddyleane
Info: Parked at Montgomery Reservoir, walked up the 4x4 road to lake. Lots of water on the road but easy to navigate around. Followed standard route up Wheeler except for when we reached the saddle, I mostly stayed ridge direct for the class 3 portion. I would recommend ILO following the track if you don't mind some exposure. The rest of the route to Traver was straight forward. Some C2+ on the way to McNamee but not difficult. Note: we stayed further south of the standard Clinton/McNamee/Traver track to get back down to the lake after Traver to avoid snow. 

Route: North-East Couloir
Posted On: 4/12/2026, By: Geckser
Info: Arthurspiderman and I skied Drift Peak and Wheeler Mountain today. We started from the car around 6:45 and walked along the reservoir until we made it to the West shore. There was almost no water in the reservoir (for some reason) which made travel very easy.

From the West side of the res it was nearly continuous and well frozen snow to the base of the Hyper Drift Face on Drift. Pretty steep at the top and the snow was still very solid by the time we went up (and down). Coverage was better than passing and the booter went quick. I was happy to have crampons + axe. Arthur left his axe in the bag. The line was short, skied well but definitely heads-up at the top when skiing hardpack.

With a little rock hopping we were able to ski back to the base of Wheeler. Some fun skiing and some pushing. We booted from 12,200 to the top of the prominent North-East Couloir on Wheeler. Great booting conditions and we set a solid booter that will be deleted in about 30 hours. From the top of the couloir it was about 100 vertical feet to the top of the peak but somewhat technical. Took us about 15 minutes from top of couloir, up to Wheeler, and back down.

Skiing was quite good on soft, consistent snow. Continuous skiing on cool features back to the reservoir. From there it was a quick walk back to the now open Blue Lakes TH. 

Route: South Ridge
Posted On: 7/18/2025, By: Danger_D
Info: Only a couple trivial snowfields on the way up to Wheeler, but the road to the lake is very wet. Lots of rock-hopping and bypassing giant puddles, and even being careful I managed to soak my socks.

If you are doing the loop with North Star, Ridge to North Star doesn't have any mandatory snow, but there are muddy sections near the cruxes which made some of the exposed slabs a little more precarious. 

Route: South Ridge
Posted On: 7/13/2025, By: durkan
Info: Crossed a couple small snowfields after the unnamed lake, but supportive. For the most part, well cairned after that as well. 

Route: NE Couloir from Blue Lakes
Posted On: 5/26/2025, By: slawrence2011
Info: Started from the gate below the dam at 5:50, snow became continuous at 11,8 right after the upper lake, started skinning from there, to 12,5. Switched to crampons and made it to 13K up the apron before getting the ice axe out for the ridge push to around 13,5. The summit scramble felt a bit stout in plastic boots, but it would probably be class 2+ or 3 without snow, took around an hour both ways with some exploratory up and down attempts to get through. Got to ridge at 9:50, Started skiing right before 11, back to car at 12:30. Saw a couple skiers on Cristo dropping around noon. 

Route: South Ridge
Posted On: 10/7/2024, By: nedryarson
Info: Route still completely dry. Was able to summit with my dog, this is definitely the top end of what I'd bring him on. Another climber went for the northern "summit" shown on some GPS maps while I topped out at the summit described in the 14ers route (above the white Y rock). It did seem slightly higher. The Wheeler Lake road is really something else, a couple obstacles had us laughing out loud. Plenty of impressive rock-crawler vehicles made it to the lake in the afternoon. 

Route: South Ridge
Posted On: 8/20/2024, By: jpacheco1982
Info: Went up the ridge direct from the saddle as opposed to following the route on 14ers.com that traverses the west side. The ridge direct route had fairly sustained class 3 scrambling with a few class 4 moves one can do if they choose (we did these). There were some very narrow areas with good exposure if stay ridge direct. Rock on this route was pretty solid. 

Route: South Ridge
Posted On: 8/4/2024, By: dwoodward13
Info: Summer Conditions. Only 5 or so spots on the road where you need to bail into the trees/willows to escape the water. Steeper section of road heading up to Wheeler Lake has water running down, but minimal enough you can just walk on rocks. Scramble portion was a bit longer than I expected, but good cairns for route finding. Some bigger loose stuff so check your foot/hand placement. 

Route: Wheeler to Traver
Posted On: 7/30/2024, By: 14er101
Info: Road still has lots of water, but it was all easily avoidable.

Route is in summer conditions. Lots of fun class 3 between Wheeler and Clinton. 

Route: South Ridge
Posted On: 7/15/2024, By: edmdais1
Info: A lot of the road to Wheeler Lske is still full of water. Lots of bypasses through the willows. One section is a flowing creek. That is the most tricky bypass over heavier flow and it was hard not to get wet. 2 or 3 snowfields between the upper lake and the saddle. Like previous report-ridge is snow free. Lots of loose rock tho. Beautiful area and peak 

Route: South Ridge
Posted On: 7/6/2024, By: stomblin7
Info: Road is full of standing water on and off almost from trailhead. Nearing the basin, the road is a raging river that it is difficult to cross without getting wet. We opted to bushwhack a bit for much higher ground to safely cross but others just walked through it soaked feet. We were able to find better crossing on the way back for us. Trail has quite a bit of snow moving up into the basin above the lakes to the saddle. We did not end up putting on spikes, but they wouldnt be a bad idea. Most of the snow was supportive but it definitely was softer and slick afternoon. Another party had a few post holing steps. Ridge was completely dry and easy scrambling. Some loose rock but nothing too crazy. The basin was absolutely gorgeous and so fun to hike. 

Route: South Ridge
Posted On: 11/18/2023, By: artemavovk
Info: Road to the lakes is mostly clear with a few spots that require selective foot placement to avoid the worst of the ice;
Postholing starts just past the lakes; microspikes kinda help once you're on the saddle 

Route: Traverse from North Star
Posted On: 9/18/2023, By: CarpeDM
Info: The snow that fell toward the end of last week had largely melted in the key places for the North Star, Wheeler, Clinton loop on Sunday. Most of what remained was between Wheeler and Clinton and was not a problem. No winter gear was used (spikes, axe, etc). See Clinton conditions report for pics.