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North Star Mountain

Peak Condition Updates  
2/1/2020
Route: Southeast Shoulder
Posted On: 2/1/2020, By: Trotter
Info: Hard boot pack all the way until mine gate at ~12k. Above that is mixed rock, hard slab snow, and soft snow. We dropped snowshoes and postholed some, but never above calf deep. Spikes were helpful on the hard slabs. Only made it to 13k, the winds were blowing really hard with dangerous gusts on a narrow ridge. But, ridge looked typical, mixture of exposed rock and some cornices. Ice axe would be a good call. 
1/15/2020
Route: Southeast Shoulder
Posted On: 1/16/2020, By: TheAmateur
Info: got lucky with nearly no wind but didnt make the summit because snow wasnt in good condition. 
12/24/2019
Route: Southeast Shoulder
Posted On: 12/24/2019, By: LetsGoMets
Info: Solid boot pack to the gate at 12kish. Flotation could be helpful depending on temps to the ridge (I brought none). Agreed with last report from there, crampons and axe were helpful to summit with mixed scrambling conditions. 
12/12/2019
Route: Southeast Shoulder
Posted On: 12/12/2019, By: CaptainSuburbia
Info: Walked road all the way to no trespassing gate without snowshoes. Took wind blown slopes straight up from there to first summit on ridge at 13400 ft. From here to actual summit crampons and axe were nice to have. Lots of snow on ridge and deep in spots. Mostly bulletproof snow to climbers right with ankle breaking postholing here and there. 
3
9/23/2019
Route: Southeast Shoulder
Posted On: 9/23/2019, By: supranihilest
Info: An incredibly tedious route. Take the road for several miles (stay left at the first junction; the downloadable route GPX on this site does not show the first mile of the road, for some reason) to where the road splits at some downed mining buildings. There will be a gate, it has a "Private Property" sign but the gate was wide open and I don't know how you'd climb the peak if you stayed off, so just ignore it. Take the right branch here, the left branch skirts far below the ridge. March up the slope which is amazingly uniform in both angle and terrain consistency, taking either old mining roads (they snake and twist and merge and split all over the place) or cairned trail segments towards the eastern point on the ridge. This is the one marked on topo maps as the summit, but the summit is still over a mile away. The terrain in between each of the three high points is just a ton of Class 2 granite and it's exceptionally tedious going across the entire ridge to the true summit, which is the farthest point. Retrace your steps on the ridge to the second/middle point, then keep an eye out for smashed up mine buildings and a trail that goes below the eastern point on the south side of the slopes. This trail goes right past the highest mine building (which is complete ruins at this point; be wary of rusty nails) and traverses the hillside so you don't have to regain the final point. From there join back up with the nest of mining roads back to the main road and to Hoosier Pass. 
7/20/2019
Route: Southeast Shoulder
Posted On: 7/22/2019, By: kevin777r
Info: More or less summer conditions. Walked through a few patches of snow on the ridge, but never wore/wanted traction and probably could have avoided them if I had wanted to drop lower 
6/3/2019
Route: Southeast Shoulder
Posted On: 6/3/2019, By: davisrice4
Info: Snow from trailhead to summit of Northstar. Well packed down, spikes may be helpful. Skiing was good around 9:30. 
5/16/2019
Route: Southeast Shoulder
Posted On: 5/16/2019, By: pgerskovich
Info: Snow all the way from the parking lot to the top. I needed to use snow shoes to not post-hole. There is a cornice near the east peak you must get around. I found a path on the left side. I did not go to the true peak across the ridge to the west side because the ridgeline snow conditions looked too dangerous this time of year. I returned folllowing the top of the ridge on Hooiser Pass (rather than the snow covered road) because of less postholing. Nice climb. 
4/21/2019
Route: Polaris Couloir
Posted On: 4/22/2019, By: Giant hills
Info: Parked a little over 1.5miles from trailhead snow bank blocking road. Flotation used to apron. Some dry spots here and there on the upper road but pretty much continuous. Snow was ok in the couloir small rock band sticking out in lower mid portion near that snow is shallow and easy to poke rocks unless further away. We took the right exit on the upper Y split. Snow was harder but still not bad. Left exit didn't seem as filled in and looked a little less steep. Started snowing pretty good when leaving so this might all be different now 
4/7/2019
Route: Southeast Shoulder
Posted On: 4/7/2019, By: osprey
Info: We started at 0645. Carried snow shoes but never used them. Ditched the shoes near the gate and put on either spikes or crampons. Very windy above the gate such there were ground blizzards heading up to the ridge. Wind tapered off later in the day. Some easily avoided cornices. Saw two people ascending Cristo and later skiing down. This is a beautiful ridge with no major difficulties making a great snow climb and is a most pleasant outing. The high light of my day was when a fellow osprey flew immediately overheard. We chattered excitedly for a few seconds and caught up with each other's family and then parted ways. Osperian is a compressed language such that we can exchange large amounts of information in brief bursts. 
2
4/6/2019
Route: Southeast Shoulder
Posted On: 4/6/2019, By: stefan_SCHWEIZER
Info: Really warm in the sun. The snow was mostly very supportive in the AM. Even at noon I was not breaking in much. I was wearing microspikes and snowshoes, which were helpful for the hike down. 
2/12/2019
Route: Southeast Shoulder
Posted On: 2/12/2019, By: glenmiz
Info: Good day to be out today; wind wasn't too bad. Snow was firm almost everywhere - just a few soft spots. I used snowshoes on the way up to the ridge but spikes would have been sufficient. Switched to spikes on the ridge and felt better with my axe on the narrow parts of the ridge. 
2/9/2019
Route: Southeast Shoulder
Posted On: 2/9/2019, By: graberz
Info: MAde our way up the road and had to re break trail about 5 inches fresh. As you moved higher there was wind blown areas with mixed postholing. We used micro spikes only although snow shoes could've been used early. There was some decent traffic on the way down so the trench should be in place up the road. Windy and cold but very fun day. 
2/2/2019
Route: Southeast Shoulder
Posted On: 2/2/2019, By: Vincopotamus
Info: Firm snow along the whole route with minimal post hiking, no need for floatation. Microspikes were handy but very little ice along the route. 
1/27/2019
Route: Southeast Shoulder
Posted On: 1/28/2019, By: Giant hills
Info: We wore snow shoes from parking lot to the ridge. We jumped on the ridge proper instead of following the road and it was very straight forward. Could possibly follow lower road until next storm, looked pretty bare on the descent. Hard packed/wind blown snow on the lower part of the ridge and exposed dirt and rock with a faint trail to follow. Once on the ridge above the bowl it was continuous snow the whole way to summit. Nice little boot pack should be in place. Super super windy. We wore crampons because some spots were pretty hard packed and micros werent biting to well.we used our axe' s also. These gave us better traction and more stability to fight the wind. Great conditions and day. 
1