The Corners Traverse

Prelude:

You'll have to forgive all of the trip reports... I got lazy and haven't posted anything for the past 2 years! Anyway, the Corners had been on my list to explore for a while, but I just hadn't gotten around to it until this year. The Corners Traverse connects East Corner, Corner Peak, NW Corner, and Meridian in the Gore Range. There's no 13ers or 14ers on the route, but what the traverse lacks in elevation, it makes up for with its solid rock quality and complete lack of people. To a certain extent, you could almost think of it as a miniature Ripsaw, but slightly more challenging, shorter, and with more solid rock. Ultimately, it's a great traverse that should be on the list of anyone looking for quality scrambling routes of the easy 5th class variety and seclusion.

Approach:

The trail starts at the parking lot just outside of Piney River Lodge. Similar to the approach for Ripsaw, follow the trail past the campsites and find the climber's trail that ascends into the basin below Knee Knocker Pass. Once in the basin, cut to the left and follow the path of least resistance (low-angle grass) towards the saddle between Mount Powell and East Corner. I personally don't recommend climbing the first, minor tower between the saddle and East Corner. There's no benefit to climbing it, it involves steep and committing 5th class downclimbing, and there's a couloir that provides easy access to the East Face of East Corner with no additional vert or mileage.

Route Information:

Mileage: Approximately 13 Miles
Elevation: Approximately 5000'
Class: 5.easy

Exposure: Extreme
Rockfall: High (There's a decent amount of loose rock to be cognizant of, especially when moving up the various ledges and grassy dihedrals of East Corner. Generally speaking, if it looks big and solid, it probably is and vis versa).
Route-Finding: Very High
Commitment: High

East Corner

The East Headwall leading up to the summit ridge of East Corner looks very imposing, but a series of very reasonable dihedrals and ledges provide 3rd/4th class access to the ridge above. The routes was fairly meandering, but intuitive. Once on the ridge, the scrambling is straightforward to the summit of East Corner.

Corner Peak

From the summit of Corner Peak, continue along the ridge until you encounter a cliff just before the saddle of East Corner and Corner Peak. This is the crux of the route if staying on the ridge. Drop South, but not too far, looking for about a body-width crack that offers a fun stemming challenging through the cliff band. Follow the crack down to the a ledge that you can follow out onto a separate face. On the separate face, there's a descending, stair-step downclimb that descends diagonally to the base of the cliff band. From here, we traversed below a series of spikey pinnacles that looked particularly difficult to get on top of (though wouldn't have been a bad downclimb on the backside) to a prominent col below an East-facing headwall that would take us to the summit of Corner Peak. The climb up to the summit of Corner Peak is similar to the climb of the initial headwall at the beginning of the traverse.

NW Corner and Meridian

The initial ridge from Corner Peak is rugged (Class 3 with maybe a Class 4 move or two), but soon eases to Class 2 terrain with occasional Class 3 scrambling up to the summit of NW Corner. From NW Corner to Meridian, the terrain is largely Class 1 tundra plodding. We descended West of off the summit of Meridian, following a grassy, low-angle, West-facing rib into the trees to intersect the Soda Lakes Trail. Calling the Soda Lakes Trail a "trail" is a bit of a stretch. It took us a while to find, was overgrown, and had a good amount of deadfall covering it. The GPX track follows the trail as shown on the map. It's in the general vicinity, but it took some time to find, wasn't always straightforward to follow, and didn't line up very well to the mapped trail (at least on Caltopo). In fact, once we cross over a rib around the 10,900' contour that marked our descent back down towards Piney River Basin, the trail turned in a direction that wasn't mapped. Rather than follow the trail to who knows where, we decided to leave the trail and head straight down the hill through grassy aspen groves until we intersected the main trail that goes between Piney River Lodge and the Peak C Climber's Trail.