Mt. Antero

Route: West Slopes
Posted On: 5/16/2025, By: mmasongeo
Info: Parked at Baldwin Gulch TH. Route 277 is mostly clear of snow to the junction with 278. Just a little ways up 278 snow starts to fully cover the route and it is mostly continuous snow from there. I was able to ski from the pass at about 13k down the broad gully that meets up with the route at the base of the switchbacks around 12k. Coverage seems very sparse on the upper mountain so I left my skis at that pass and summited on foot. There is better snow coverage on the east side coming from Little Browns Creek. I was ultimately glad to put on my skis at all on the west side, as the options are very limited and quickly disappearing. The little snow that does remain on the upper mountain is still enough to pose a slipping hazard when solid, and postholing problems when soft. And descending 278 without floatation could be challenging. 

Route: West Slopes
Posted On: 5/11/2025, By: spen_c_boy
Info: Started from the 2WD TH at 3:15am today. Made it to the summit at 8:45am. Ended up back at the car at 1:15pm. 5.5 hours up, 4.5 down, total of 10 hours. I followed the same set of snowshoe tracks from the last person who hiked (see their trip report from May 8th). To echo what the last report says, there is intermittent snow on the road starting at about 2 miles. The trail is completely covered in snow after the stream crossing at approximately 3 miles. The road to ridge line is likewise completed covered in snow. I alternated between micro spikes and snowshoes; however, snowshoes were the biggest help - especially in the afternoon when the snow softened up. Spikes were used to cross the ridge line after I ditched my snowshoes at the beginning of the ridge. Wish I took more photos. My butt got kicked today. It goes without saying but the snow up there made for a much more difficult day than otherwise. This photo is from the summit looking back over ridge line. 

Route: West Slopes
Posted On: 5/8/2025, By: Will_E
Info: The first mile or so of 277 is dry, then intermittent snow. I put snowshoes on around 2 miles up. Snow was pretty gloppy below treeline, got a little better above. I went straight up my usual snow gully, then went straight up the ridge all the way to the top of the road, was in snowshoes all the way to this point (around 13,700'). Left snowshoes there and made my way across the ridge, which was also holding a lot of snow. No traction used today. 

Route: West Slopes
Posted On: 5/3/2025, By: sean23
Info: Mostly continuous snow above 11k. The lower part of the winter/spring variant is melted out, so it’s probably best to stick to the standard route. Higher up, there’s enough snow and rock to bypass the road if you’d like. I brought snowshoes, but managed to avoid wearing them 

Route: West Slopes
Posted On: 5/4/2025, By: butlerer
Info: Beautiful day with good/decent conditions. Hiked the west slopes with the bestest hiking companion (see pic 1). OnX says the RT was 15 miles, 4963', and 11 hours. Car to summit in 6 hours, and 5 hours on the return trip, including the post-holing from ~ 12,100-11,400 even with snowshoes. First mile or two of the 4WD road is dry, and some trailblazer previously drove the road up to Baldwin's Gulch (~10,840'), and this makes for a consistent ish packed track for the ~2.5-3 miles up the road to the creek. Put spikes on after the creek, kept them on to the summit and back down to about 12,100 where I switched to snowshoes around 130 pm in the soft snow, and I was grateful for the spikes in many spots through the switchbacks up the West slopes and up the ridge to the summit. Fyi, there's a set of tracks going pretty much straight up the West slopes. On the ascent, I stuck to the switchbacks for a more gradual incline for all but the last switchback where the slope angle and snow made me a bit avy-nervous, and I took the shorter line away from it. On the descent, the snow across the first and third switchbacks (the only ones I tried) was a sheet of ice. My dog slipped when we started out across the first switchback and pulled me about 8' down the gully--totally my fault for neglecting to take his boots off first. Poor guy didn't stand a chance on plastic covered foot-sleds. We took a direct descent to the left of the gully to avoid the steep, slippery stuff, and met back up with the trail around 12,400'. From there it's some tolerable post-holing until about 12,200, where I put on snowshoes until about a half mile before we reached the creek. Could've taken them off earlier, but I wanted to save my dog from 4-legged post-holing where I could make a trench. If you're up this way soon, there's a person on the FB CO 14ers group who lost a black bag with a sleeping bag in it along the start of the road. I didn't see it, but maybe you will. 

Route: West Slopes
Posted On: 4/29/2025, By: chadahooche_
Info: Splitboarded the West Gully of Antero. Summited and then started riding about 1,000ft from the summit. 1,500ft of the descent was great, then we got back onto the jeep road and kept nosediving in the soft snow as it was melting fast underneath creating a non supportive layer. See POV video here: https://youtu.be/3Tc6K37ryEM 

Route: West Slopes
Posted On: 3/24/2025, By: Jonathan Deffenbaugh
Info: Long day. Had snowshoes and microspikes for the road going up to treeline. Once at treeline, ended up climbing the main west gully to the highest switchback where I reconnected with the main route, following the road to its endpoint around 13,700'. From there followed the ridge direct to the summit, with only a few sections of postholing in the rocky sections where I veered off on the east side. Beautiful sunset views on the way down. Roundtrip 15.5 miles with 5,200' elevation gain. 

Route: West Slopes
Posted On: 2/22/2025, By: GreatGlissader
Info: Heads up, this gulch (I'm sure other gulches too) can get cold. Started at 14 degrees at the TH, then at the road junction around 10.9k my thermometer read -20 degrees F around 7am. Seems like this happens on calm days. This happened last year too. Also, big ice patch on the road about .5 miles up. It's the whole width for about 10 feet, unavoidable. so bring something for that. 

Route: West Rib
Posted On: 1/17/2025, By: Chipmunk
Info: Took advantage of the nice weather yesterday to tag a winter summit of Antero! There were myriad foot, snowshoe, skin, XC ski, and even tire tracks up the first 0.1 miles of road to the big ice patch. The ice is not as solid as it looks - my foot punched through in the morning. The foolhardy vehicle backed down from there and other tracks slowly dissipated over the next mile until all that remained was the skin track of the person in front of me. Snowshoes went on at 0.8 miles. I tried to be courteous and broke my own trench until the snow became too deep, then merged into the skin track. Snow coverage on the road was good with only a few open spots. It was chillier where the road approached Baldwin Creek, and I got some white mascara and frosted tips that were last cool in the 90s. Ditched snowshoes at the base of the west rib and hiked up on snow and talus. Added microspikes at 12.8k. The skier skinned up the gully to the south of the rib. I am guessing they used ski crampons. We both cut the corner using an old mining road to the start of the summit ridge scramble. I stayed mostly on or to the right (east) of the ridge, a little class 3. More talus hopping directly to the summit. A summit descent is not quite in yet, but the skier made some turns down to the east, booted back up to the ridge, then skied down the mining road and dropped into the gully north of the rib I ascended/descended. We never actually crossed paths all day, but their turns down the gully looked quite nice! I left spikes on all the way back to my snowshoes, and snowshoes all the way to the car. 11.13 miles, 4,879 feet. 4:25 to summit, 2:30 back to car. 

Route: West Slopes
Posted On: 1/9/2025, By: elevatedtv
Info: Shout out to Headsizeburrito for the conditions update, inspired me to make the most of a weather window. Decent trench from TH to treeline, flotation still required. West Slopes are still a grind with pockets of wind loaded snow, esp. North and East aspects, but generally ankle-deep or less. Ridge had deep pockets of powder, sticking to rock is the move. 

Route: West slopes (winter variation)
Posted On: 1/3/2025, By: headsizeburrito
Info: Successful summit, took the same route as supranihilest in the report posted 01/15/2020 in case anyone is looking for a handy .gpx file. CR162 was plowed to the trailhead, although the pullout hadn't been plowed and had several inches of snow, not an issue. There was a faint but helpful trench up CR277 that looked to be a couple days old with about 3 inches of fresh snow on top, I wore snowshoes from the start and repacked it. The faint old trench disappeared at the 277/278 junction when you cross Baldwin Creek (which was an easy crossing, it's pretty well bridged with snow). From here the snow was softer and deeper, typically ankle to mid-calf. Approaching treeline I occasionally ended up knee deep, but fortunately these were fairly limited. Stashed snowshoes at treeline. Booted all the way up to the sub peak with the random mining stuff. The summit ridge is actually a little tricky here. I also put on microspikes. The wind loading on the eastern slope of the ridge made me nervous so I stayed ridge direct as much as possible on the rocks, which means class 2 and a little easy class 3 scrambling. Fortunately this section is fairly short, as the ridge gets steeper it's back to talus and it's easy to stay ridge direct on dry ground, or on the boundary between dry and a trivial bit of snow. After getting back through the slightly tricky bit of ridge I kept my spikes on all the way down to treeline, which was helpful because it's quite steep and there is just enough snow to slip on when descending. Snowshoes back on at treeline all the way to the car. 

Route: West Slopes
Posted On: 11/2/2024, By: josephsiefers
Info: Only went to the river crossing at 10,800. Full on winter conditions. Road was quite icy in spots. Might be drier above treeline. 

Route: West Slopes
Posted On: 10/12/2024, By: leesnj
Info: Small amounts of ice present on the mine roads (due to the streams freezing overnight). The summit and summit ridge is completely dry. 

Route: West Slopes
Posted On: 10/8/2024, By: NativeTransplant
Info: 100% dry with no snow or ice. Stock tacoma made it to 12k easily and could probably make it to 13k if you want to shorten it even more 

Route: West Slopes
Posted On: 9/29/2024, By: AndrewBV22
Info: Traditional route ascent today. Streams were passable and easy by foot and the route was clear of snow and was relatively dry.