Mt. Elbert

Route: Northwestern Gullies
Posted On: 5/24/2025, By: jtfoss1
Info: Leave your skins at home! Road clear of snow to the trailhead. Only the far southern side of the southern of the two gullies had snow mostly to the top. Short hike to the summit ridge. We waited for a few hours and dropped around 130 - hard pack up top and corn everywhere else. 

Route: East Ridge
Posted On: 5/25/2025, By: MaddieGeurts
Info: Started at 6:00 am. Snow very slushy on way down, Post-holed eveen with snow shoes over the last snow field. Trail is dry below tree line. Snow was frozen on the way up. 

Route: East Ridge
Posted On: 5/25/2025, By: zackj99
Info: From the South Elbert TH. Started at 6:30AM and that was too late to get going. Didn't bring flotation and certainly should have. Light post holing on the way up and some of the worst ever on the way down. Ended up sliding down to tree-line to then improv back to the trail at around 11k. Back to the car at 4PM. Recommend an early start and snow shoes for a bit. Summer is coming! 

Route: East Ridge
Posted On: 5/18/2025, By: Kirbyrichard
Info: Road to upper trailhead was completely clear. Trail mostly snow free and dry to treeline. Mixed trail conditions near/above treeline, some patches of snow, would bring spikes. Brought the skins but didn’t really find consistent snow til maybe 13,000 ft or so. Saw several hikers with no floatation make summit. Skied surprisingly good snow off the summit and in the box creek couloirs after a couple days of storms and cold weather. Some postholing on the hike down as the snow softened but it was quite manageable. Great day on the mountain! 

Route: East Ridge
Posted On: 5/13/2025, By: Ptglhs
Info: I went up via 125c and joined the black cloud trail. That trail from cosgriff is still mostly snow covered with a few bare patches. East Ridge route is intermittent snow above treeline. Especially above 135 there are sections of the trail that are clear followed by deep snow and post-holing. I left the summit by 8:15 and by the time I was below 13,000 ft, even on a cloudy and cold morning, I was still punching through. Area immediately below tree line was sloppy and I was punching through even with snowshoes on it. Not enough snow to ski, though I did glissade about 400 ft. Wait 3 weeks or bring flotation. 

Route: East Ridge
Posted On: 5/10/2025, By: notidealbutfine
Info: Started 1.2 miles below the 4wd trailhead. The road up to the 4wd trail is definitely subaruable, but it rained a lot the night I arrived and I wasn't able to get up the difficult section about .6 miles up the road in my stock CRV with 8" clearance. Definitely doable in a similar vehicle when dry if you pick a good line. Road is dry as a bone today. Wore trail runners all day, added spikes right around treeline. Didn't use skins all day. Was able to ski directly off the summit, following my up track for the most part. Skied continuously to just below treeline, then back to running shoes on mostly dry trail. Fantastic quiet day on Elbert. 13.41 miles / 4,678' gain / 7 hours, 10 minutes 

Route: Box Creek Couloirs
Posted On: 4/18/2025, By: Sumsumthepanda
Info: Post hole city. Was able to get to upper trailhead in stock 4runner and started hiking around 3:30. Decent amount of snow at TH, but not enough to put skis on for. Ended up skinning at close to 12k. Was not long after this we started postholing with skis on. Reached the ridge around sunrise and thats when the wind got really nasty, forcing a decision to turn around. Once the snow had warmed, we post holed nonstop on the flattest terrain, resulting in me postholing my entire splitboard in snowboard configuration. Definitely wait until snow pack consolidates more, or simply melts. We at least got some good low angle skiing in, but much of the trail had wind striped snow with rocks poking out. It is also worth noting that it rained at camp at twin lakes the night before, which could have been a factor in snow conditions. 

Route: Box Creek Couloirs
Posted On: 4/12/2025, By: coflosmo
Info: Got within sight of the 4WD th in a 4Runner, last 300ft is messy. Conditions were nice and hard early below tree line. Spikes up and skis down, but you’ll want snowshoes if you’re anywhere near snow after 12. Summited at 1030, 3hr from car. Thought it was a little late but high winds slowed warming and ski conditions were great. You can ski from the summit, through the chutes, and to the pond for a continuous 1700ft. A total of 3 parties met at the bottom of the runout and we grouped up for the final descent, (Joe send those videos!) Ski conditions were poor and sketchy from here; trapdoor snow and bad postholing for a lot of the ridge trail. Hard to time the good corn up high with solid conditions below. 

Route: Box Creek Couloirs
Posted On: 4/6/2025, By: Veory
Info: Pretty nice conditions in the Box Creek couloirs, a little firm up top but soft snow for most of it. Wintery cold up there today with the wind, colder than some of my proper snowflakes this year. Was able to drive about half a mile up the south trailhead 4wd road, a few people made it considerably past that. Walked up the road with skis on shoulder for a bit, then kept them on to the summit. Ridge itself would be tough to ski with several rocky sections. Pretty cruiser to the summit though, a little under 5 hrs for us. Was able to traverse back to the route with some shuffling and never took the skis off to get back to the ridge after the chutes. Dropped into the basin and had some bushwack skiing back to the trail. 7:40 RT. Great day with great folks! 

Route: Box Creek Couloirs
Posted On: 4/6/2025, By: ballardwf04
Info: All-time conditions out there. We were able to drive to just before a stream crossing on the 4WD road, cutting off probably 1.5 mi of hiking. Ascended via a variation of the E ridge route listed on onX as "South Mt. Elbert Trail." Shorter route but overall not worth it for the amount of bushwhacking we had to do. Connected w the E ridge just before the saddle and crossed over to the couloirs. After digging a pit (photo attached), we assessed avalanche conditions were safe enough for an ascent and ski and then bootpacked up the main couloir highlighted in blue in Bill's photos of the Box Creek couloirs. Hard work! We gained the summit around 1:30 and met two fine gentlemen who were also dropping Box Creek. We skied down far skiers right between two huge rocks. You can spot our tracks in the final image. Skiing was all time- knee deep powder all the way. By the afternoon, much of the lower portion was melted out, but we were able to make it all to the way to the car without transitioning. Sharks to be found on the way from summit to couloir entrance and on the way out of Box Creek basin. Classic day! 

Route: East Ridge
Posted On: 3/25/2025, By: HikesInGeologicTime
Info: Wind and heat have not been kind to the snow on this one. The theme from when AndyFromDenver skied on 3/16 of it being technically possible to ski from the summit to 13.3k still applies, arguably with more force: it is doable as long as you are okay with straddling/stepping over varying amounts of rocks and tundra to connect patches of snow. Snow quality and quantity improved the farther we dropped below the summit (although we did give up and carry skis between snowfields below 13.3…until we reached treeline. What had been merely slightly punchy but bootable crust overnight turned into the bastard love child of quicksand and a half-melted Slurpee in late afternoon. Partner and I marveled that we experienced every kind of postholing imaginable - boot, snowshoe, ski, and full body. Still nice to get this ski off the bucket list, even if it did turn out to be way less boring than anticipated. 

Route: East Ridge
Posted On: 3/16/2025, By: andy_schlichting
Info: Update from the recent post that said you can ski from summit to car--no longer the case (perhaps you could find a way in avalanche terrain). I had to carry skis from 13300 to 12900, but got some great turns in above and below that. Conditions are variable below treeline. Anything from powder to mashed potatoes to crusty ice to tree wells. The road up to the summer trailhead is melting fast. Lots of mud and some sheer ice spots. Great meeting the couple from Oklahoma that camped up there! 

Route: Northeast Ridge
Posted On: 3/14/2025, By: tothestars
Info: Fastest conditions I've seen this winter for hiking. The trench is well packed other than some deep foot prints through the meadow that you need to navigate around. Lots of snow melted out of the meadow after treeline. Nice route pretty straight up Elbert around 12k through snow that's a quick ascent. Used snow shoes for first 4 miles on the way up but didn't use them at all on the way down - that's how well packed it is. I did use microspikes as it's bit icy. Beautiful almost-full moon sunset descent. 6:25 total time (4:12 to summit) from South Elbert trailhead. 12.5 miles 

Route: East Ridge
Posted On: 3/11/2025, By: jeffh7
Info: It was possible to ski from the summit to your car without taking your skis off if you manage to pick the right bands of snow to follow and don't mind dodging/hitting some small rocks. Pretty patchy above 13k. Added photo of La Plata North Couloir / Sayres BM. 

Route: East Ridge
Posted On: 3/1/2025, By: kevancdee
Info: Not continuous snow, snow on summit but a little gap before snow continues. Have to boot a few rocky bits to connect snow fields if skiing. Trail is very well packed in by snowshoes. Snow below treeline is crusty and punchy making for a very exciting ski. 4x4 road is snow covered solid about a half mile from the parking.