Peak 9

Route: From Spruce Creek TH
Posted On: 1/29/2025, By: Will_E
Info: Did 8 and 9 from Spruce Creek TH. The trail towards Francine's Cabin was well trenched, after breaking off the snow was very firm, barely felt like trenching today. I went up the slope to the Peak 10 ridge, snow was bulletproof. Left snowshoes on the Peak 10 ridge, on the way to 9 I went way too high towards 10 before dropping down to the 9-10 saddle. No issues getting up to 9, from 9 to 8 I wasn't expecting the short bit of ridge fun, it was great. After making my way to 8, I looked for an easy way to circumnavigate around 9, didn't look doable so I went back over 9 on return. Nice day, other than the cold and the wind. No traction needed today. 

Route: From Peak 10
Posted On: 12/8/2024, By: Veory
Info: See peak 10 report: https://www.14ers.com/php14ers/peakstatus_entry.php?recnum=31030 

Route: Colorado trail
Posted On: 11/3/2024, By: tdawg012
Info: The ridge between Peak 8+9 is mostly clear with some drifting on Peak 9. The colorado trail from Copper mtn parking lot is mostly snow covered and especially deep in shaded sections from the wheeler trail junction onward. Gaiters were nice to have. I didn't use snowshoes but could have on the trail. The upcoming week will make it much snowier 

Route: East Ridge from Ski Area
Posted On: 7/12/2024, By: cdgibbons
Info: Summer Conditions. 

Route: East Ridge from Ski Area
Posted On: 6/24/2023, By: HikesInGeologicTime
Info: Snow from summit to ~12k still that is getting harder to connect at its lowest but can be done by skiing carefully through a couple patches of grass. Road to top of Mercury is slow going but Suburuable. It is gated not far above that, so might as well park there. Intermittent snow on the road, one patch having been quite literally dug out to make a hiker-width path, but snow on either side was supportive enough even in late morning that it makes for less annoying travel with skis on your pack. My return to the road from where I removed my skis involved sidehilling while crossing short sections of sloped snow, some rock-hopping, and a short stretch of willow-bashing while I worked to maintain elevation. It was short enough not to be overly dramatic, but an easier time seemed possible if I had either hiked back up to the ridge to rejoin the road or hiked down to intercept the ski area boundary and then followed that back to the road. Peak 8 looked and sounded better for hiking than skiing, and Peak 10 is still holding snow but has evidence of slide activity and appears that it would require more schlepping skis than actual skiing. 

Route: Peak 8 south and 9 east gully from top mercuchair
Posted On: 6/16/2023, By: VeraUndertow
Info: Started from the top of Mercury super chair, road was free of snow the whole way and pretty smooth till just past the overlook. From here to the lift is a 1/4 mile or so of rocky road but still subaruable. I parked here and hiked in ski boots up the road for a bit to get above tree line before contouring around the basin between 8 and 9 to get to the drainage of the lake just south of 8. The middle was the longest continuous band of snow on 8, so I skinned up that using ski crampons, which were helpful since the 1-2 inches of new snow hasn't bonded to the old snow and was sheering off. From the bottom of the continuous snow to the summit of 8 was at least 1500 ft of mostly smooth snow, with just one flat section where the lake is. I made the 13,003 ft (LIDAR) summit and got ready to ski in a cloud, which didn't seem to be clearing up so I skied following my skin track as reference till I got below the cloud. It was surprisingly good skiing for the middle of June, with only a little bit of avy debris near the top of the line. From the bottom of the line off 8 I hiked over to the start of continuous snow which follows the north side of the east ridge all the way to the summit. This line was probably 1500 ft of continuous snow as well, I skinned up to the summit of this one as well with ski crampons on again. This line skied well for the first 1000 ft before it got sloppy at the bottom. I pulled off to catch the wheeler trail so I wouldn't have to skin up to get back to my truck since the lower snow wasn't skiing that great by this point in the day. Overall a really nice day of mellow skiing, other than fighting the glop monster all day, but it was a good leg work out of nothing else. Start 7:30 AM, summit of pk 8 around 10, summit of pk 9 around 12 and back to truck around 1 pm. 

Route: East Ridge
Posted On: 11/5/2020, By: Brian Thomas
Info: I recommend microspikes for the road from lower Spruce Creek TH. The Wheeler Trail is mostly dry, as is the descent to the Peak 9 / Peak 10 saddle. 

Route: South Ridge, East Ridge
Posted On: 9/21/2019, By: supranihilest
Info: South Ridge from Peak 10: quite easy and pleasant after the hellscape that is Peak 10's north slopes. An easy jaunt from the saddle and really nothing steep or particularly loose. East Ridge to Wheeler Trail (or wherever): also quite pleasant. There's actually grass on this! Nice! The east ridge and east slopes are quite wide open and aren't very steep. There's plenty of soft dirt that likes to suck your feet down into itself but otherwise there's very little rock to avoid, almost no terrain that you have to skirt because it's too steep or loose, whatever. The road to the ski resort is painfully obvious and probably makes for a quick descent. I went down the Wheeler Trail to Spruce Lake Trailhead and the trail is faint slightly southeast across the road. If you find yourself going uphill or downhill on the road and you're instead looking for the Wheeler Trail you are in the wrong spot - the Wheeler Trail ascends briefly across an easy ridge and then descends to Crystal Lakes and Crystal Creek. 

Route: Tenmile Traverse
Posted On: 7/9/2019, By: jfm3
Info: I summitted via the Tenmile Traverse (north ridge ascent, south ridge descent). My route was completely dry. There is one spot just below the summit with a class 3 knob of rock that is directly adjacent to snow. The east face of the peak has a large snowfield and cornice. I saw 3 people with skis on the east side of the peak. Photo is of Peak 9 and Peak 10 from the top of Peak 8. 

Route: North Ridge from Copper
Posted On: 7/5/2019, By: Chicago Transplant
Info: Started at the Far East lot (Copper) and hiked the Colorado Trail. No significant snow below the Colorado Trail/Wheeler Trail split. The "K" chute avy debris is cleared, the "Y" chute is still full but there is a flagged path through it and its easy to follow without any log scrambling. A few short snow crossings below the split from old avys. Put on gaiters at the split, the Wheeler trail crosses a creek on snow then enters the forest again and has some very deep drifts across the trail that I was postholing through between about 11,250 and 11,500. After maybe 10 minutes battling this section the trail aspect improves and the snow crossings get easy again. 2 short snow crossings above treeline, the trail goes all the way to the 8-9 saddle. Dry ridge from here to the summit, 8 is dry too. One short easy scrambling section on the Peak 9 ridge crest between the false summit and true summit. Could by pass it on snow, but keep in mind that is a cornice if you do so. Overall a pretty dry route except for that one short deeply drifted section of the Wheeler Trail. Descended from the 7-6 saddle and the Colorado Trail had no larger drifts like that. Photo 1: "Y" Chute debris Photo 2: Deep drifts on Wheeler Trail Photo 3: Wheeler trail above treeline Photo 4: Peak 9 overview (from 8) Photo 5: Short scramble Photo 6: Peak 8 overview (from 9)