9/24/2011 Route: Harvard and Columbia Traverse Posted On: 9/24/2011, By: djkest Info: Some snow and light ice on the traverse, mostly as you start to ascend Columbia. The upper portion of columbia has a good amount of snow but all the rocks are mostly visible through. Boots will get wet, makes it a little trickier. |
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9/3/2011 Route: South Slopes Posted On: 9/11/2011, By: RockyMountainMustang Info: Trail in great shape. Weather pretty cold before sunrise, dress for winter. Bear Lake is a pleasant detour. |
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7/19/2011 Route: South Slopes Posted On: 7/20/2011, By: mrschaible Info: Clear all the way to the summit. The trail is drying out, but it is still very wet around tree line. You will still have trouble staying dry crossing the stream above tree line as the river water level is quite high. We were able to navigate all the water hazards and stay dry in trail running shoes. |
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7/16/2011 Route: South Slopes Posted On: 7/17/2011, By: fleetmack Info: went up today. muddy and lots of water on trail (above timber), you have 2 choices 1) stay on trail with waterproof boots and not ruin tundra 2) go off trail, stay dry regardless of boots, ruin tundra honestly, i think #1 is correct, but perhaps deep mudprints impact the trail more than non-mudprints impact the tundra? I have no idea, it‘s your judgment call. I chose #1. stream crossings are high but passable if you are both patient and stable... else they may be an issue snow is easy to go up on, but if you want to keep the environment in tact, you should probably glissade on the way down (as the up-snow route is probably off-trail and you‘ll be trouncing the greens and wildflowers to go around the schnee). It‘s quite steep in the "snowfields", but I‘d guess that‘ll be gone in a week or two. Is this mid-July or late-May? Tough to tell... But happy to call it "late-July" if that means more snowboarding days than hiking/climbing days!! To each his or her own. Ala Presto: happy trails |
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7/10/2011 Route: Harvard and Columbia Traverse Posted On: 7/10/2011, By: iquack08 Info: Did Harvard first then Columbia. There was still a large snow field on the slope leading up to the summit. Halfway through you have a choice: continue on the bootpacked snow or start scrambling on the rocks. I did choice #2 without any problems. The one major stream crossing was pretty dicey; it was running high without an obvious crossing point. Also, the trail was really muddy. The trip over to Columbia was exhausting. There were still about 3-4 significant snow fields on the back side. The snow was still solid even around 11ish. It was possible to drop down and avoid most of the snow, but it would require a good amount of regaining elevation. I decided to walk on all the snow fields with just my boots. A good amount of scrambling was also required to reach Columbia. The way down Columbia had a lot of loose rocks/talus. Somehow I did lose the trail after treeline, after glissading down a short patch of snow. When I pulled out my GPS, I realized I deviated from the path by a good distance in such a short time. Make sure to keep a eye out for the trail near treeline, because I was following the cairns. Start from the TH: 5 a.m. Harvard summit: 9 a.m. Columbia summit: 11:30 a.m. End: 2 p.m. This was a long and exhausting hike. Make sure to start super early, because I probably got lucky with the weather. When I was close to reaching Columbia, there was significant cloud cover and getting worst. Up next, Antero tomorrow. Not toobad to finish the Sawatch Range in two weeks (- Holy Cross). |
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7/1/2011 Route: Harvard and Columbia Traverse Posted On: 7/2/2011, By: blacomb Info: Started from Frenchman Creek and did both Harvard and Columbia. There is a good amount of snow and it‘s easy to get off-trail. We went around the snow in many cases and added a good amount of time to the hike that we hadn‘t planned. We were able to glissade down from Columbia and save collectively a 1000 ft. or so of downhill on the knees. Roundtrip time was 10 hours and we only spent 10-15 minutes on each peak. |
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6/23/2011 Route: South Slopes Posted On: 6/28/2011, By: racineflatlander Info: No snow at TH. Drive up to TH was no problem. Encountered snow fields on trail at about 3 miles in. Snow continued to get very heavy and completely covered trail. Lots of post holing. Above tree line was pretty much solid snow. Was fairly solid early in morning but afternoon descent was bad with very soft snow and post holing. Made it to 13,225‘ at 12:30 and decided to call it a day. Steep slope with snow before ridge and no traction devices plus another 1.5 hours to summit made the decision to quite easy. Horn fork basin is totally filled with snow and Bear Lake looks still totally frozen and snow covered. This trail will take several more weeks before it clears. |
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6/21/2011 Route: From Pine Creek Posted On: 6/23/2011, By: Exiled Michigander Info: The north slopes route from Pine Creek is clear of snow except for a few small pockets of snow near the summit. We did not use snowshoes, crampons, or even microspikes. The standard route via Horned Fork Basin still looks very snowy, and a climber we met on the summit confirmed a considerable amount of postholing via that route. Nevertheless, he also reached the summit without snowshoes. Although the north slopes route is snow-free, don‘t enter into it lightly. It requires a lot of bushwhacking and pathfinding and took us about 11 hours from Little John‘s Cabin on Pine Creek. Images 1 and 2 were taken hiking up the north ridge. Image 3 was taken from the summit looking down into the Horned Fork Basin. Image 4 is of the connecting ridge from Harvard to Columbia. |
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6/10/2011 Route: South Slopes Posted On: 6/12/2011, By: gprandall Info: I hiked in to Horn Fork Basin on Thursday, June 9, and camped at about 11,580 feet. From approximately 11,000 feet up, the trail up Horn Fork Basin is invisible under 1-3 feet of snow. Some climbers are still using snowshoes, which could be useful for traveling after 12 noon or so. In the early morning, the snowpack was frozen hard enough to walk on, punching in occasionally. There is a fairly packed track up to the Mount Columbia turnoff. As of when I walked out yesterday (Saturday, June 12) not enough people had gone up to Mt. Harvard when the snow was soft to pack in a track. The last 800 feet up the south ridge of Mt. Harvard is largely snow-free. I used crampons and an ice ax for the steep slopes heading up to the south ridge, but it was well before sunrise on a cold night, so the snow was frozen hard. |
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2/12/2011 Route: South Slopes Posted On: 2/13/2011, By: cheeseburglar Info: We dragged a sled past the summer trailhead a little ways and camped where the trail has some sidehilling issues. We broke trail through deep snow all the way to the lower basin. Up high everything above a hard wind crust seems to have been blown away or was in the air at the time. Some nice little snow twisters. We turned around at ~12,900 due to time, avy terrain, and wind. |
