El Diente Peak

Route: South Slopes
Posted On: 7/19/2020, By: joeygoat9
Info: The snowfields between Kilpacker basin and the ridge were soft enough at 6 AM to walk up in just boots. You could walk around them if you wanted to. The Mt. Wilson turnoff isn't really distinguishable unless you're watching the route description closely. We overshot and ended up backtracking across the slope. On the north side of the ridge right below the summit, the gully is still filled with snow. Our moves around it were class 4 but not too bad. Only saw occasional cairns on the way up but the route description makes it clear where you need to go. Traverse to Mt. Wilson is snowfree. If you need to bail like we did, the gully about 80% of the way across worked well for this - just loose and steep class 2. 

Route: North Buttress
Posted On: 7/19/2020, By: abreibart
Info: El Diente-Mt Wilson Traverse Navajo Basin T.H. First: Kudos to the USFS San Juan NF for maintaining that trail in such awesome condition!! They did an incredible job clearing avalanche debris from the 2019 slides at the switchbacks (R3-D3 slide path). Thanks. Also, trail is not cupped or eroding like a lot of wilderness trails. Way to go!! Trailhead and hiking trail conditions: Friday-two overnight vehicles in parking lot and saw two campers in the Basin. At around 1 mile from the bridge, saw bright eyes in forest looking at us around 3:30 AM. We think it's a bear. Overall 5 cars in lot and one truck in parking area 0.1 miles from the T.H. Saturday: 25 backpackers and 20+ day hikers. Main lot still had capacity. We saw a few more tents. Route: Took north buttress, which Sonja navigated from the terminal moraine up valley of the lake. Solid rock and fun. We ended at El Diente, which has no register inside the tube. No rockfall to worry about and we were the only ones on the route. Ridge was fun and solid. No snow and no people. Sonja navigated the entire way and we made it to the saddle to Mt. Wilson, where we saw a young man and dog from Moab. Fun rock to top. The cap on register needs replacing if anyone is up there (see pic). The fun began from the saddle to the basin. The descent is the hardest part. We went straight down from the saddle. Rock scree is miserable and loose. Snow is at least 35 degrees and an ice axe likely won't stop you on a glissade. If you use snow field, you need crampons. We knocked some rock off but we kept out of each other's path. We heard rockfall from the northern slopes but saw no climbers. Awesome route and climb. Recommend: Navajo T.H in one day and the North Buttress. Be prepared for miserable downhill which is worse than Vestal gully between it and Arrow. Bring ice axe and crampons if you plan to hike snowfields. 

Route: North Buttress
Posted On: 7/11/2020, By: Unknown
Info: Buttress is dry and traverse is mostly summer conditions minus a few sections that can be avoided 

Route: Mt. Wilson and El Diente Traverse
Posted On: 7/6/2020, By: Trotter
Info: Went up El Diente south slopes, traversed, then down Mt Wilson southwest slopes. El Diente south slopes almost entirely summer conditions, a few flat snowfields down low, no problem crossing in trail runners. Right below the summit block is very sketchy snow, but you can bypass it with a couple class 4 moves. Traverse is mostly snow free, but the few patches of snow remaining are very sketchy. Slip on them, and you fall and probably die. Recommend spikes or ice axe. Mt Wilson southwest slopes is a mixture of very loose talus and scree, and then steep snow. No easy way to bypass the steep snow. Its getting too suncupped for glissading, but remained very icy and slippery. Need ice axe to descend safely. 

Route: North Slopes
Posted On: 7/6/2020, By: CO_Wolfe
Info: Snow is present in most of couloir. It's icy in spots and climbable in others, but it's hard to know which is which. We stayed on the right (west) side of the couloir on the way up, scrambling on rock and putting crampons on for parts where we had to cross snow. The ramp at the top where you turn right is also 90% snow covered and is just as steep as the couloir, so use caution. Once you get to the ridge, the route becomes 10 times more enjoyable. The rock is solid, snow patches are few and small. Near the very summit, I chose to do an easy class 4 move to avoid snow in the final 100 feet. Weather and time weren't on our side for the traverse to Wilson, so we descended the north slopes as well, hugging the rock on the opposite (east) side. This is some of the loosest rock I've ever climbed. Lots of rockfall, both from our group and natural. We took turns descending each section so that two of us could hide out and avoid rockfall from the third person. Add me to the list of people who can confidently say that you shouldn't climb this route. Photo 1: View of the route from the bottom showing the extent of the snow coverage Photo 2: The only snow we crossed on the route above the couloir. Might be able to cross below it, but there was more exposure there. Photo 3: Mt. Wilson and El Diente from the Gladstone-Wilson Peak saddle. You can see there is still snow to cross on the Mt. Wilson north slopes route as well. 

Route: North Slopes
Posted On: 6/29/2020, By: austinpavlas
Info: Climbed El Diente via the North Slopes (snow climb) on Saturday. Started from the Rock of Ages trailhead (climbed the whole group). There were not snow until about 11,500. From 11,500 to the RoA saddle there is a few snow patches that are no more that 200 ft across. Avoiding them would not be worth it. We started at 3:30 am, so all of the snow patches were rock hard and I would not have felt safe crossing them without some form of traction. There was minimal snow from the RoA saddle to the base of the North slopes of ED. Snow was fantastic until around 8:30 when it started to soften up. 

Route: North Buttress
Posted On: 6/26/2020, By: Christensenje
Info: Pretty dry all the way up. My partner and I are not extremely cautious climbers but we did feel the need to put crampons and have an ice axe for one small snow crossing after the catwalk, before the crux. I'm glad we had them. We also took the alternative class 3 as another person said as there was still snow around the class 4 chimneys. Very doable and fun route if you have mountain experience but do not underestimate the exposure at times! 

Route: Mt. Wilson and El Diente Traverse
Posted On: 6/26/2020, By: Christensenje
Info: Needed crampons and axe on the initial gully crossing into the notch and a small down climb right after. Maybe didn't need for down climb but it was nice insurance to have. After that you can go without. We pulled them out one more time near Wilson right before the climb up the final gully at the saddle. Some nice boot pack but again extra insurance is always nice. 

Route: North Slopes
Posted On: 7/2/2020, By: jmcguire1969
Info: The North Slopes route is in great shape. This is a snow climb. You can remain on snow almost the entire climb, for 1500+ vertical. We climbed the lower apron with microspikes then switched to crampons for the upper couloir. We were on the snow at 5am and it was nice and hard, ice axe and crampons are a must! As we neared the top, the snow became softer and kick stepping became the norm. Route finding to the summit was pretty straight forward. There are a couple patches of snow to navigate on the final summit push but we were able to walk through them. This is a long and committing route but way better than hiking talus. Enjoy! 

Route: North Buttress
Posted On: 6/22/2020, By: yeshecanney
Info: Completely dry on Navajo Lake approach and entire north buttress. Need to cross short (30') snow section 200' beneath summit at the top of buttress where it meets couloir to the west. Axe is helpful here for security. Slab traverse at top of buttress is still snow covered, we took route up and right (photo 19 in route description). 

Route: Mt. Wilson and El Diente Traverse
Posted On: 6/16/2020, By: bmcqueen
Info: I did El Diente from Kilpacker Sunday, then traversed to Mt. Wilson. There is still quite a bit of snow on the southern aspect of El Diente - I was in my crampons from the turn-off to about 13,300', then worked my way on rock to the Organ pipes. From there, a little more snow to traverse before the gully that leads you back to the ridge. Crampons went back on for the snow on the north side of the ridge up to the summit. The traverse to Mt. Wilson is mostly dry. There were a couple of minor snow crossings with low consequence where I didn't put crampons back on, but two spots where I stopped and put crampons back on, including the final north side traverse just before the last saddle - I would not have wanted to be on that without axe and crampons. 

Route: South Slopes
Posted On: 5/26/2020, By: MichaelWG
Info: Not going to post a trailhead report but FYI, road is totally clear and in good condition up to the trailhead. A little bumpy but made it there in a Sprinter without any issues. Sedan would be tough but a small SUV would be fine. Hike into kilpacker was free of major snow, but there were some patches to walk through in the woods. There was some more of this intermittently between the meadows at 10.8k where people camp through to the basin itself. Once in the basin it's mostly all snow with dry patches here and there on the talus. We wore our crampons once we were in the basin and just stayed on snow. The south slopes are still pretty much fully covered in snow, which makes for a good snow climb (crampons and ice ax definitely needed). There was a decent overnight freeze and it stayed cloudy all day so the snow was in perfect condition. We got to the top of the ridge where you flip over onto the north side for the last 50 feet to the summit, and it was so covered in snow that we opted to turn around. It's probably doable, but we've summited El Diente before so saw no reason to risk it. The traverse looked fairly dry and doable looking at it from ED, but looking back at my pictures from Wilson it actually looks a lot snowier than I'd remembered. It'll probably be a bit spicy for the next few weeks. If anyone wants pics of a particular aspect, let me know and I can see what I have. (Will post a separate report for Mt. Wilson in a sec) 

Route: Mt. Wilson and El Diente Traverse
Posted On: 2/22/2020, By: ScreeSurfer
Info: I took advantage of the perfect weather window and the "generally safe" avalanche status and climbed Mt Wilson with an out and back traverse to El Diente from the Cross Mountain trail head . I followed a very packed trench up towards Lizard Head peak before donning showshoes and making a traversing descent into the Slate Creek drainage. Snow was actually pretty firm with maybe 6" average punch through. In the drainage leading up to Gladstone Peak, pretty much followed some faint tracks which must have been laid the day before by Coloradokid. Left the snowshoes at the turn up towards the Eastface route of Mt Wilson. A mostly dry scree field allows you to gain ~500 feet before crampons are required for the rest of the route. Snow varied between firm to say 4" toe kicking steps with an occasional foot deep pocket. The overnight freeze must have helped firm up the snow as I felt safe topping out in the couloir. The traverse was in fine shape with a mix of snow and rock. Northside snow felt firm and southside was a bit wet and deep with slower going. I definitely felt most comfortable on the rocky ridge when feasible. On the return trip, bypassed the Wilson summit with nice snow filled couloir leading to the saddle. Stayed on snow the entire way down to stashed snowshoes rather than the scree slope. 

Route: South Slopes
Posted On: 11/9/2019, By: Vincopotamus
Info: Some inconsequential or avoidable patches of shallow snow from TH to ridge, might as well be dry. On the shaded/north aspects of the ridge there is fresh, unconsolidated snow that made things a little spooky. Carried an axe and microspikes, but never used them - though the spikes would probably have been useful on the north side of the ridge 

Route: South Slopes
Posted On: 10/15/2019, By: CO_GPS_Guy
Info: South Slopes route (E2) is clear of snow (or easily avoided) from 12,600' trail turn off to the summit. Dry, firm climbing conditions the entire way. Snow fields below 12,600 turn-off firm and no traction needed. Camped in Kilpacker basin near the creek which is flowing strong. Two waterfalls south of the trail along the way to the turn off are frozen in the morning - some slight water in the afternoon. Estimating night time temps were in the teens - froze water bucket quite nicely. Bluebird day - just a touch of wind. 9 folks on the summit - 4 from the Navajo Basin Side. Only folks we saw all day.