HikerGuy posted an excellent trip report of a snow climb of Gladstone’s east face in July 2019. He commented: “I have a suspicion that even in dry conditions this would be a good route.” In September I confirmed HikerGuy’s suspicion and climbed Gladstone’s east face after the snow had melted. This route is a reasonable alternative for those who want to avoid the narrow, loose, and dangerous north ridge.

After reading HikerGuy’s report, JChitwood contacted me to suggest we try Gladstone from the east. We camped out near the Cross Mountain trailhead on September 9. JChitwood is an astronomer-extraordinaire and identified numerous stars and constellations in the night sky, which is exceptionally brilliant at 10,000 ft. far from city lights. Unfortunately, he was not feeling well on September 10, so didn’t reach the summit until a month later. But he went far enough to help me scout a route.

Gladstone comes into view after turning left onto the Lizard Head trail from the Cross Mountain Trail.

From the Lizard Head trail, the best route up the mountain is not obvious.

As the crow flies, Gladstone is less than 1.5 miles from here, but my GPS hiking distance was closer to 2.5 miles. There is a faint trail partway down into the basin, but there is no established trail across the basin or up the mountain. Lots of easy options for crossing the basin. The main issues are how much elevation you are willing to lose and how much you want to be on grass vs. rock glaciers (more time on rock glacier if you stay high). The descent into the basin is about 400 vertical feet.

I took a route similar to HikerGuy across the basin (per his GPS track). But my route from the basin to Gladstone’s southeast ridge was east (left) of his. After the snow melts, there is a well-defined gully with stable rock and some grassy steps that provides a comfortable route up to the southeast ridge. After reaching the ridge I followed it toward the summit to about 13,700 ft., then traversed over to the northeast ridge on a clearly defined ledge, as shown in my route photo above and in HikerGuy’s final photo. Once on the northeast ridge, two hundred feet or so of boulder hopping takes you to the summit. This ridge is relatively stable, unlike the famous north ridge.

As a cautionary note, there is some disagreement about my description of the gully as a comfortable route to the ridge. When JChitwood climbed Gladstone in October, his climbing buddy christened the gully: “Golob’s Gully of Doom” (that’s Golob, not Gollum). However, both returned safe and sound, so were not literally doomed. Take his description with a grain of salt.

To sum up, even though this route has more mileage (13 miles on my GPS), more vertical (4700 ft), and more off-trail boulder hopping than the standard route, I recommend it as a reasonable alternative. Both routes share the disadvantage of extended lightning exposure. Even though the east face route drops off the mountain more rapidly, it rises back to a saddle near Lizard Head and stays high on a ridgeline for about a mile as it drops from 12,000 to 11,600 ft. A thunderstorm was moving in from the west during my return, so I had to race my geezer ass as fast as possible until below treeline. When I finally hit the trees, I took a long break to bask in the satisfaction of Centennial #98.