6/20/2018 Route: West Face Posted On: 6/21/2018, By: smrcka Info: Dry trail conditions and no snow encountered except the white gully which still had plenty of good snow. Snow was dense but softening on the surface by 10am. The rock is still loose ;) |
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6/11/2018 Route: West face Posted On: 6/11/2018, By: RWinters Info: Most of the bottom third of the white gully is melted out. Upper two third's snow was/is bulletproof before sun hits it. Some reports can be confusing which gulley to take so I can simplify it. Once you are in the white gully The first chance (gully) you get to go right, do so. It will put you on the south ridge less than 100 yards from the summit. |
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5/19/2018 Route: West Face Posted On: 5/19/2018, By: RyGuy Info: Less snow than usual on Thunder, should be doable with decent snow for another week or two. From Maroon Lake, the trail has some mud and snow starting just above the lake. Then lots of snow/ice and from just below Crater Lake to the Thunder turn off. The snow was supportive in the predawn hours, but in the early afternoon, it meant a lot of postholing. Snowshoes wouldn't help, don't bother bringing them. Once you get to the turn-off, keep going for several hundred yards and you will find a good snowbridge to get across. From the creek crossing, quite a bit of snow all the way to just below the summit. Crampons and ice axe are needed almost immediately. Once you reach the summit ridge, not much snow left, but plenty of loose rock. It's a class 3 jaunt up to the summit from there. Take your time and make sure the rocks you are stepping on/grabbing are solid. |
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5/16/2018 Route: White gully Posted On: 5/16/2018, By: cottonmountaineering Info: Crossed snow bridge over the main creek a little bit farther than the regular turnoff. Bottom of white gully is melted out, I went up a grassy ramp onto a ledge system and traversed up and left into the white gully. The direct top out is kind of melted out, so went to a snow ramp leading right just before the summit. A couple of class 2+/3 moves to reach the summit from there - one ledge traverse with snow and one big leg up on the ridge. Snow was in excellent shape, but was a little featured for the last 500'. Did not need snowshoes, postholed a number of times in the valley but the snow is sporadic getting to the base of the route. |
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7/23/2017 Route: White Gully Posted On: 7/24/2017, By: Shattuck311 Info: White Gully still holds a bit of snow. On the way up, we skirted on the right (south) side, and this wasn't the wise move. Stay on the left (north) side of the snow in the gully on the way up when avoiding the snow. A bit difficult finding the trail at 10,500' right after the stream crossing, as it's all snow. We ended up hiking the trial to 10,600' and cutting over there. Other than those two patches, all is dry. |
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6/10/2017 Route: West Face Posted On: 6/11/2017, By: ColoradoKid Info: Mostly continuous snow south of Crater Lake. Snow bridge still intact just before the Maroon Peak junction. Will need to hike a little to reach the gully out of Shoemaker Basin but otherwise snow is nearly continuous from the valley to just below the summit. Ridge is clear of snow and presented no surprises beyond a couple 3rd class moves. Firm snow in the morning that significantly softened by mid-afternoon. Never needed snowshoes. If you've wanted to climb Thunder Pyramid with a little less rock "thunder", recommend getting there soon. |
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6/3/2017 Route: West Gullies Posted On: 6/3/2017, By: benglish Info: On hard snow from the creek to the saddle. Softened up on descent. Happy. To have a second tool for several spots. No floatation needed. Final ridge was dry and LOOSE. |
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6/25/2016 Route: White Gully / West Face Posted On: 6/26/2016, By: Jon Frohlich Info: Still a snow climb but won't be for much longer. You can get about 1400 feet of snow climbing right now. Snow does not go all the way to the saddle. You have to do about 200-300 feet of climbing on loose junk once you get off the snow. Summit ridge is dry. |
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6/12/2016 Route: West Face Direct Posted On: 6/13/2016, By: yingyangsoup89 Info: Was able to climb the west face direct to the summit. I believe the line to the summit will be gone this week though, but the snow that branches right to the ridge will be around a couple more weeks. Hit the face at about 9:30 am and the snow was bulletproof. The sun began to hit it around 11 am when it started to soften up. Very steep finish at the top. Scrambled down the ridge and eventually got back into the couloir on the descent. Shoutout the guys that kicked steps up the west face direct during memorial day weekend. Made it a little easier on the calves. No snowshoes needed on the approach as the remaining snow fields were supportive. Raging river that needs to be crossed but luckily there was a solid snow bridge. Get it. |
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5/30/2016 Route: West Face Posted On: 5/31/2016, By: Nathan Hale Info: Snow coverage became mostly continuous after Crater Lake, though even in the afternoon we didn't posthole too much. There was almost continuous snow from the valley floor to the summit, though the ledge you cross to gain the white gully was dry. Other than that it was 3000'+ of continuous snow climbing. The snow was pretty hard in the morning, so we waited on the summit for about two hours for it to soften before descending so that we could do some glissading once we got to the slightly lower angled stuff. This worked out well and the glissading was good. The postholing once back down in the valley wasn't present, but not as bad as I would have expected. I'm planning to right a complete TR on this later this week. |
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7/28/2015 Route: standard Posted On: 7/28/2015, By: illusion7il Info: All clear |
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6/21/2015 Route: West face/White gully Posted On: 6/21/2015, By: SnowAlien Info: Excellent conditions for climbing, but not so much for skiing (upon seeing the conditions, I left skis at the bottom). No snow/avoidable snow to about 12.5k, then runneled/muddy/rock infested snow to about 13k. Good snow to about 13.7k. Dry after that, summer conditions on summit ridge. Route finding is very confusing, preload the route into your GPS to avoid disappointment. USA Keller has excellent track in her trip report. Maroon creek is raging. If you have any aspirations for staying dry, bring a raft. Saw a party heading up Bell Cord, hope they were successful. Snow in the White gully (Western aspect) was in excellent shape (still firm around 11am) due to radiant cooling. Ridge to Lightning still holds a good amount of snow. 12.5 hrs RT. |
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6/8/2013 Route: std Posted On: 6/10/2013, By: Rainier_Wolfcastle Info: After mistakenly climbing unranked pt 13,820 (center left of pic #3) last Saturday, I had to give Thunder another shot. It was shocking how much snow had melted in the past week! I maybe stepped on snow for 20 steps until crossing the snow bridge where you leave the West Maroon Trail to head up towards Thunder. Leave the snowshoes at home! Snow is mostly avoidable until getting to the two short steep gullies getting you up to Len Shoemaker Basin. I used crampons/axe to ascend these, but scrambled on the rocks to downclimb them later in the day. Pic #1 shows much of the route from the edge of the Len Shoemaker Basin. The "White Gully" is not so white any more (diagonal left to right in upper middle of photo). From ~11,200 to ~12,500 I did not use the points, just climbed grass and rock ledges. Pic #2 is from a little further up. At 12,500, I put the points on and followed the gully up and to the right (learning from last week). The snow was good, unless you get within 4 feet of rock (which many times was hard to avoid)...then you punch through. The gully breaks into a bunch of fingerlike couloirs above 13,200...I'm not sure what the correct one to take is, just not the middle left one :) ! It was dry, loose scrambling to the summit from here. Pic #3 is from the summit looking at unranked 13,820 to the left and on to Pyramid to the right. Pic #4 is of (from left to right): Maroon, N. Maroon, Snowmass, and Capitol. For the descent, I took the ridge North to the saddle (site of our wrong turn last week). Then it was a scree run for 500 or so feet. From here it was a mixture of face-in cramponing, glissades, and scrambling down to treeline. |
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6/1/2013 Route: West Face / White Gully Posted On: 6/2/2013, By: BobbyFinn Info: Firm snow on the approach in the morning, no flotation needed. We were hiking out in late afternoon and even then, we didn‘t use flotation and the snow was mostly supportive. There was some postholing after descending out of the approach gullies, but it wasn‘t worth the weight of snowshoes for us and it‘s a short distance anyway. You might make a different decision. We had continuous snow almost all the way to the top of the ridge. No significant difficulties on the summit ridge (there is exposure and some class 3 moves). There are a few small cairns to follow. The creek crossing snow bridge is in good shape. There is minimal snow until past Crater Lake. The gully itself has slide debris in it and while a member of our group did ski it, it didn‘t look like great ski conditions. I‘m not sure if there will be a trip report or not. Image 1: TP; the black line points out the summit Image 2: On the face on the way down. Stay to the right of the right to left descending rib above the two folks in the pic. USAKeller has a TR with some good pics showing the route, though we did not take the right spur shown in her image #1; instead we headed more directly up the face. |
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7/11/2012 Route: West Face Posted On: 7/13/2012, By: rockymountaindiva Info: After crossing stream, make sure you go far enough up the trail until you see the cairn for the turnoff, see trip report at http://www.summitpost.org/tea-party-on-thunder-pyramid/800159. No snow gear needed, traversed about 10‘ of snow at one point but it was soft enough to safely cross with hiking boots only. |
