Bald Mountain

Route: Boreas Pass/Black Powder Pass TH
Posted On: 6/30/2025, By: GSODJA
Info: Summer conditions for the route except for a few snowfields at some of the false summit approaches. All snow fields were @20-100 feet in length. Should be completely snow free in a week or so. 

Route: Southwest Couloirs
Posted On: 5/31/2025, By: GreatGlissader
Info: Good snow climbing conditions! Parked at Boreas Pass TH. Gate was open and road is clear of snow to the couloir turnoff. Hiked up to about 11,600ft and dropped in the drainage and hiked a little more in the drainage to get to the start of the snow. Snow was firm and good the entire way up. Took the left branch that goes directly to the summit. Couloir didn't start to get sun until about 8/8:30. Right branch that goes straight to saddle is melted out up top. Snowshoes were still useful on the decent through the trees. 

Route: East and South Ridges from French Creek Basin
Posted On: 6/1/2025, By: soccern23ny
Info: Did not take snow shoes or spikes. Trail is mostly snow free/ avoidable until the creek crossing. From there trail is lost at times due to snow/errant snow tracks. Intermittent stretches of snow on the trail at this point. Snow was post holey at times and in some spots very consolidated and could be walked on. Stopped at French Pass. East ridge of Bald had some snow but a line snow free could be followed mostly to the top. 

Route: North Ridge
Posted On: 3/3/2025, By: ColoNativeGal
Info: Perfect day, in fact is was a bit too hot for a winter summit, lol. Very mild winds going up, picked up a little on the way down, but nothing over 20mph. Used snowshoes up to the lower weather station where we stashed them. My partner booted up to the little wood shack, then put hers on. Instead of following the road we followed the ski tracks, but stayed climbers left (skiers mostly go right) to the lower weather station, then headed SW to get on the summer trail and start up the ridge. We had spikes but didn't use them. We used our ice axes over one bulge b/c of the angle and hard snow and if you fell you'd be going down the east side for a several thousand feet on prone avy slopes. We could have put our spikes on too, but for 10-15 feet we just used our axes. On the way back we went up a different angle (where if you fell you'd just fall to the little saddle) and I just used my poles; my partner went up first and used her ax. Great day and fantastic views. Pics will give you beta on the conditions (until this next storm). daway8's trip report from Jan 2021 was super helpful and I agree with snow and some narrow points I would not want to be up there in high winds. From the lower weather station down, we took the skier shortcut and went almost straight down, stayed a little climbers right to be out of the way of the skiers. We had the mtn to ourselves, but there was a good ski crowd enjoying the day on that part of the mountain. See daway8 trip report for exact map location of skier area. Also found these abandoned skis just above the fencing starting up the first bump (see photo). 

Route: East and South Ridges from French Creek Basin
Posted On: 9/25/2024, By: HikesInGeologicTime
Info: Sporadic, avoidable patches of snow, but to judge by the white visible on north-facing slopes, best to expect more if coming from the north/Summit Co. side. Coming from the south is a great way to avoid crowds - I saw no one on the route all day. Some annoying sidehilling on talus a ways above French Pass to take the most direct route to Bald; the sidehilling aspect might potentially be reduced if going more toward Boreas first. A pleasant route overall, though. 

Route: North Ridge
Posted On: 8/23/2024, By: cdgibbons
Info: Summer conditions. Gate is open and the dirt road to the second parking area is a bit rutted with the recent rain, but entirely passable with AWD and moderate clearance. No one else on the mountain today. Despite clear GPS and route description evidence to the contrary, in the fog, the southern sub-peak looked higher to me, so I hiked over there too. It's not, of course, but my GPS marked it as just 4 feet lower, so I'll bank that as insurance for future LIDAR revisions. Added about 200' total and a mile to my day. There's a large summit cairn over there along with a well-curated cross that someone built from the rocks. 

Route: North Ridge
Posted On: 6/15/2024, By: spong0949
Info: As of 06/15 the gate to the upper trailhead is closed so have to use the winter trailhead adding .7 miles both ways. North Ridge route has minimal snowfields to cross and didn't need spikes. Near summer conditions. 

Route: Southwest Couloirs
Posted On: 6/3/2024, By: LSUExplorer03
Info: Boreas Pass Rd was 100% plowed/melted, but gate was still locked unfortunately. We decided to leave snowshoes at the car, which was a good move. The approach from the road to the base of the couloir has spotty snow and was post-hole-y, but wasn't too bad...better than carrying snowshoes. The couloir was in perfect condition for climbing. Nice freeze Saturday night into Sunday and continuous snow all the way up. We didn't get into the couloir until probably 8am and the sun was just starting to hit it. By the time we got to the top, the snow was starting to soften, but overall still very stable for crampons. I'm not sure of these exact numbers, but the bottom 60% of the couloir is probably 35 degrees or less, very mellow. The top 35% ranges between mid-35 to low-40 degrees. Then the last 5% gets steeper...I'd say low-mid 40 degrees. There was about a 20' tall section at the top that had to be in the mid-50 degrees range - I'm assuming where a cornice had formed during winter. I should note that we took the left Y branch of the couloir. Only other thing to note is that there a pretty large cornice on the left side of the left Y branch of the couloir that was slightly concerning. On the way down, we came down the other side of the couloir (the right Y branch). We walked down the top/steeper section because the snow was still pretty firm, then glissaded down the rest. 

Route: Southwest Couloirs
Posted On: 5/27/2024, By: Wildernessjane
Info: Skied the Southwest Couloir today. We were in a rush to get ahead of traffic so we dropped in at 11:00. The top third was still pretty firm but the middle and lower sections skied nicely. I think if we had been able to give it another hour it would have been really nice conditions. Despite the snow being firm, the top section still skied pretty well. Boreas Pass road is still closed at the winter gate. We carried skis and boots until we got to the water tower and then transitioned over to skinning. Snow was more or less continuous from this point on. Skied right off the summit. Coverage was great and we had the place to ourselves :). 

Route: Southwest Couloirs
Posted On: 4/20/2024, By: GreatGlissader
Info: Road was packed by skis, snowshoes were helpful on the road after the foot traffic stopped. No trail to the base of the couloir so snowshoes were very helpful and probably needed. Got into the couloir around 11800. Snow in the couloir was good, mostly half/full boot steps with occasional deeper steps, didnt notice any signs of instability, but the bombs going off at Breck still made us jump. We went straight up the couloir instead of going left like in the route description because it looked like more continuous snow. Took the North ridge down. Stayed on snow and kept crampons on the entire ridge down to the weather stations at 12600. Did some road walking to get back to the TH. Fun day. 

Route: North Ridge
Posted On: 2/23/2024, By: Will_E
Info: Road to the gate was well plowed this morning, and semi-dried out this afternoon. There's a great trench that I followed until just before treeline, I used snowshoes to get up to the ridge and left them. Ridge is mostly windswept, with a few big drifts. I didn't need any traction today. Cold, windy and blustery today, views opened up about halfway down. 

Route: North Ridge
Posted On: 2/14/2024, By: Archie57
Info: Climbed this in the afternoon, summited a few minutes before sunset. Flotation recommended at least up until ridgeline, I postholed quite a bit up the slope just above treeline because I didn't take any. Snow conditions along the ridgeline were super variable, but on the whole there was significantly more loose snow on ridge proper then I was expecting, seems like a thin crust formed over a bunch of powder preventing any from blowing away. I climbed Peak 1's north ridge the day before and encountered even worse climbing conditions there, triggering a few small windslabs up high. Fantastic views of the Tenmile and south park from Baldy, and a wonderful sunset quickly appreciated in the cold wind. 

Route: North Ridge
Posted On: 11/4/2023, By: stomblin7
Info: Chilly and windy today but otherwise a beautiful day out. Slopes on the ascent to the ridge are holding some snow but not yet deep, so we never opted to put the snowshoes on. The ridge is patchy on and off with snow, just have to be careful through the talus. We did not need to use any traction. 

Route: From Boreas Mountain via the ridge
Posted On: 10/17/2023, By: Makbrad
Info: We hiked Boreas Mountain from Boreas Pass first then took the ridge over to Bald Mountain A and down the Black Powder Pass trail. The shelter on Bald Mountain A is full of drifted snow. Most of the ridge to Boreas is dry and snow patches are avoidable except for some pockets of snow holding in the talus on the north-facing slopes. See Boreas conditions report for photos. 

Route: Duke and Chicken Strip
Posted On: 7/7/2023, By: Makbrad
Info: Climbed what was left of Duke on July 4th and descended Chicken Strip. Duke is out for the season (unless you love suffering for silly snow projects). The upper portion of Chicken Strip is disconnected, but there is a decent amount of snow remaining in the middle. Melted at the bottom. Some locals were out for their holiday tradition getting sun-cupped turns on the strip! The ridge to Bald Mountain from Boreas is mostly snow free and avoidable with the exception of a couple of snow patches that will melt out soon.