6/18/2012 Route: South Face Posted On: 6/18/2012, By: MOffutt Info: Still recommend ice axe on BHP, pretty much everything else is dry. On small snowfield to cross. Snow was pretty slushy coming down around noon. |
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6/10/2012 Route: South Face Posted On: 6/11/2012, By: Iman86 Info: We climbed the standard route on the Needle yesterday, June 10th. There were a few short snow traverses on the trail to BHP with a largish one leading to the constriction. An axe was enough, traction optional. Above the constriction the route was free of snow. The East gully has some water/ice, but it was avoidable. The Class 4 direct East gully route had a ribbon of hard snow/ice. We took the standard route via the west gully. Again there was minor, avoidable ice. Remainder of route to the summit was dry. I did the climb in Trail Runners. Jenny will be putting up a TR later today with pictures and further information. |
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11/13/2011 Route: South Colony Lakes Approach Posted On: 11/15/2011, By: mountainmicah83 Info: Went up for a conditions check and a full moon hike. We had to put on snow chains just past the lowest 2wd th due to icy road. About 3/4 mile past where the road takes a sharp turn and it says no parking all over we were stopped. Looks like that‘s where everyone has been stopping. There were old 4 wheeler tracks from there to somewhere between the rainbow trail head and the upper (new) trailhead but there was crusty heavy knee deep snow on the road from there all of the way up to the upper TH. We did a full moon hike so no real great pics. It was so windy even below treeline that we saw several trees being blown down the wind (scary) and our snowshoe track was completely blown in on the return. We made it to the old 4wd TH after seeing the last signs of recent human activity more than a mile below. The snow was about 3‘ there at that time. We also suprisingly saw some wolves up there that decided to stalk us for a while. Be careful up there. Those looking for humboldt beta, the east ridge was looking pretty blown clean by the wind. It looked like Broken hand pass was holding a good amount of snow. |
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10/2/2011 Route: South Face Posted On: 10/3/2011, By: LynnKH Info: Perfect conditions on the Needle. A small amount of lingering snow near the top of BHP made for 1 or 2 interesting moves in which microspikes were helpful; ice axe would be completely unnecessary. Water running down the east gulley was easily avoidable. The west gulley was totally dry. Gorgeous, warm, blue bird October day with very few people in the area! |
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9/24/2011 Route: Ellingwood ledges Posted On: 9/25/2011, By: skitexas Info: All standard route belay stations and first 5.5 pitch are covered in snow/ice, dramatically increasing difficulty with limited protection opportunity. Upper 5.7 pitches relatively snow-free. Took us 3-pitches with a 60m to the 3rd-class gully. |
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8/7/2011 Route: South Face Posted On: 8/10/2011, By: apasquel Info: went up the west gully and it was great...I felt the rock (conglomerate) was solid...there were jugs the entire way up the scramble. This route is solid!!! |
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7/27/2011 Route: South Face Posted On: 7/27/2011, By: mrschaible Info: Clear and dry all the way to the summit. |
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7/8/2011 Route: South Face Posted On: 7/9/2011, By: mrschaible Info: Route is doable in summer gear (no axe or traction devices). Only small amount of snow in the broken hand pass. I did the climb in trail running shoes. |
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7/2/2011 Route: South Face Posted On: 7/2/2011, By: Nelson Info: For comments on Broken Hand Pass see my comments on the Peak. The Needle is, for practical purposes, snowfree. The exception is the dihedral going up the east gully. The first half has dirty icy snow. This will be slow to melt. |
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6/25/2011 Route: South Face Posted On: 6/25/2011, By: Joe W Info: The east and west gullies have small amounts of snow.Ascended climbers right of east gully to the summit ridge,crossed no snow.The descent was standard west gully to east gully,at crossover was three feet of snow. |
