Weather report was great and it proved to be a beautiful day in the Herman Gulch area. I set out at about 6:30am to climb The Citadel, Hagar Mtn and Mt Bethel. I originally planned to take the Dry Gulch route and climb Bethel first, but after seeing that the road into dry gulch was gated about 1/2 mile back on I-70, I opted for the CDT route through Herman Gulch. Not sure this was the most efficient decision, but it all worked out.

After a little over and hour into the hike I entered the basin near Herman Lake and was rewarded with awesome views of my first objective. The Citadel looks awesome from every angle but I was a little concerned the snow might be an issue up high since I didn't bring microspikes. Turned out to not be a problem.

Nearing the pass, The Citadel continues to look impressive.

From here I decided to go for Citadel and Hagar first and if I still felt strong, I could get Bethel on the way out. The hike up the ridge was not overly eventful until I reached the rocky outcroppings. Moving to the left across a small scree field, I found the correct gully just prior to the Citadel-Hagar ridge. While there are some sketchy sections on this mountain I found this gully to be a low class-3 at worst. Not too bad! On the summit, I ran into Eric relaxing on top. After comparing itineraries, we decided to team up.

After an uneventful descent to the Hagar-Citadel saddle, Eric and I continued up the Hagar ridge. This can be kept class 2+ even though it looks sketchy from the saddle. There are nice, natural ways to navigate around the worst parts. The "knife edge" was overrated. I don't think I really would have called it that and found it easy to navigate.

After a quick return to the saddle we again ascended the loose scree field, walked past the gully on The Citadel and soon found ourselves back on the path. Mt Bethel is climbed via a nice meandering ridge on a well-worm path. There are 2 major false summits on this ridge that force you to gain/loose about 400 feet. The second can be easily traversed. The final ascent up Bethel is a very steep walk that got our hearts racing but the view from the top were incredible.

Once at the top we debated how best to descend. Bethel is VERY steep in all directions but we really didn't want to walk back down the ridge the way we came which would add several miles to our hike. Looking at the contour lines on the map, we decided the east ridge offered the most shallow descent and would take us close to the car. Most of the ridge is a steep meadow with about 100 feet of loose scree in the middle. Once we hit tree line we continued down the ridge through a mostly open forest. Towards the bottom there was a bit of blow-down but not enough to cause any serious delays. We pretty much walked right into the parking lot.