Mosquito Peak

Route: Loop: Kuss, Mosquito, Treasurevault
Posted On: 10/15/2024, By: greenschist
Info: I hiked Kuss, Mosquito, Treasurevault, and Tweto from Mosquito Creek TH today. Dry nearly everywhere, except for a few small snowfields on the north ridge of Mosquito. All snow was avoidable. It was fairly warm out until the clouds rolled in around 10. At about 11:30 it snowed for an hour, but nothing collected. 

Route: Loop: Kuss, Mosquito, Treasurevault
Posted On: 8/9/2024, By: ejfred
Info: Apologies for the lack of pics. As one would expect, summer conditions up there although there are a bunch of snowfields on N/NE facing slopes. Driving up CR 12, crossed a handful of large puddles, several inches deep and 2-3 car lengths long. I think passenger cars would struggle with that, as well as a few rocky sections of the road. Subaru Forester did great. London was a fun hike up, a few "false summits" that wouldn't have been so if I'd been a bit more up on the route description. Dropped my pack at the saddle and went up. Really enjoyed that one. Kuss was a bit of a slog up a boulder field. One of the tougher sections of the hike for me. Kinda cool to see the weather station at the top. Mosquito was surprisingly calm for being the ranked 13er of the group. You could go up the initial ridge and then cut directly to the west on the final approach, or find some trail segments, a couple of cairns and grassy sections in the "hypotenuse". Going down Mosquito was a bit trickier, as it was another boulder field and required some route finding. Took me a bit to get down. Treasurevault probably took me 10-15 minutes to ascend from the saddle with Mosquito. It was more straight forward than I had expected. Decided to tack on Tweto at the last minute. It was relatively straight forward, just a lot of gain from the saddle with Treasurevault. Going up, it looked to me like there was a false summit straight up, and the true summit over to hiker's right. But the bump straight up was the true summit. Going down Tweto took a bit of route finding to line up well with the descent off Treasurevault. Once in the basin, the route description encourages to keep to hiker's left, otherwise you could encounter a steep slope. Not only that but you would cross 2 creeks and hit a ton of willows on the way down. Staying closer to the base of Buckskin / Loveland Mtn above is a great idea. Overall, a great day! I started in the dark at 5:00 AM and got back to the car around 11:30 AM. With London and Tweto, probably saw about 11 miles and 3,500 feet of gain, (just a little more than the route description). 

Route: Loop: Kuss, Mosquito, Treasurevault
Posted On: 5/5/2024, By: B_2
Info: Edit: sorry didn't realize my pics didnt go until today. The 12 is dry to the split. Continuous snow begins about 1/2 mile up the high road. Its melting out fast, but drifts prevent driving further up than the usual winter parking area at this time. All of the area peaks are still skiable from the top including London, Kuss, Mosquito, Treasurevault, Tweto. Tweto south face is debatable. Very sharky-looking. Theres a skin track near the mine. Thanks to whomever put that in. The cornice is actively collapsing all along the ridge line, especially between Kuss and Mosquito, but there are some spots to drop in on each peak. The high basin is becoming very thin, making the exit tougher. We were able to ski back to the Mine from Treasurevault by staying high but it was a lot of traversing/poling/picking lines through the bare spots, with a few short walks over the melted- out terrain features. 

Route: Loop: Kuss, Mosquito, Treasurevault
Posted On: 2/9/2024, By: Will_E
Info: The trench that Kyra and Ryan put in last weekend was visible for a mile or so, then faded. I parked at the turnoff for Cty. rd 696, Google says it's 2.5 miles from the summer TH. I used snowshoes from about a half mile in until well past treeline, trail breaking was pretty average. Left my snowshoes and booted up TV and Mosquito first, then back and hit Tweto, I didn't use any traction today. On the way back there were skin tracks on the lower section of the road. Slightly warmer than forecasted, and winds were mild. Nice day. Grateful for the beta from Ryan and Kyra, I wasn't sure what Mosquito looked like for winter. 

Route: From Mosquito Pass side/Tweto saddle
Posted On: 2/5/2024, By: kyrawhitworth
Info: We parked the car at the snow plow turn around at about 11,000ft. We noted some slides on surrounding slopes and gave the ones off of Tweto and Bucksin a wide berth. We skinned up to 13,400ft and dropped our skis as the ridge had some drifts to avoid and was decently dry after that point. We hiked over Treasurevault to Mosquito and back in our ski boots just fine, no traction needed. Our skin track was very hard earned as the snow was really thick and dense (my guess is due to the high moisture in this recent system). This also made the ski down not super fun with a lot of sinking and scooting along. There were a couple spots we took skis off and walked a bit due to rocks and dirt up high/above on the road. We put skins back on at London Mill and headed to the car. 

Route: Loop: Kuss, Mosquito, Treasurevault
Posted On: 9/24/2023, By: donovanrice
Info: Some snow on north ridge of Mosquito. Otherwise snow free. Added London, Tweto, and Arkansas. Thought about adding Buckskin and Loveland, but neither gaining Tweto three times nor descending a steep gully off Loveland sounded fun. You could save yourself one trip up Tweto by traversing some less than ideal talus and scree between Maclaughlin Saddle and the saddle between Tweto and Arkansas. 

Route: Loop: Kuss, Mosquito, Treasurevault
Posted On: 8/20/2023, By: madmattd
Info: Looped with London and Tweto. No snow on route, a little damp in places on the 2 roads above the lot but nothing remarkable. Wind was a bit obnoxious (20+ mph from the East) both ascending and descending Mosquito, making the descent on the loose scree towards Treasurevault even more "entertaining". 

Route: Loop: Kuss, Mosquito, Treasurevault
Posted On: 8/5/2023, By: ae_gentry
Info: A beautiful day on the 13ers Kuss, Mosquito and Treasurevault. A little wind, but no storms. The approach road and trails were a bit wet, but the rest of the hike was clear. 

Route: Loop: Kuss, Mosquito, Treasurevault
Posted On: 7/16/2023, By: coclimber2
Info: Summer conditions. Did London to Kuss, Mosquito, finishing up with Treasurevault. No snow on route that wasn't avoidable. Road from Cooney lake down to the mine was very wet with large sections of road completely submerged. Aside from the roads, trail was dry. 

Route: Loop: Kuss, Mosquito, Treasurevault
Posted On: 7/9/2023, By: cardgenius
Info: The descent off Kuss is dry. One small patch of snow on the ridge to Mosquito summit. Snow was still firm and the sun cups made for easy travel. Didn't have spikes. 

Route: Loop: Kuss, Mosquito, Treasurevault
Posted On: 6/24/2023, By: cougar
Info: Did the loop including London and Tweto. Both roads from the parking area are streams with lots of water. The deep puddle just below the parking spot is still there, and gets deeper during the day. There are some snowfields in spots, up past north London Mine. Ridge to London is mostly all dry and any snow is avoidable. More snow on Kuss, especially on the summit, but rather firm. East slopes of Mosquito still have a lot of coverage from summit, can probably get a 1000 foot vertical run. Most of the unavoidable snow is along the ridge from Treasurevault to Tweto, less while ascending Tweto. Postholed a bit there. I didn't use traction but found poles helpful. The stream in the road going up to the London mine had an iced over surface in the morning. Very windy day. 

Route: Loop: Kuss, Mosquito, Treasurevault
Posted On: 6/19/2023, By: sarahmariekirk
Info: Climbed London, Kuss and Mosquito Peaks today (in that order). Started later so snowmelt along the road caused a sloppy mess, but got by today in trail runners. The last 200 feet on Kuss is snowfields but are very slushy and traction was not required. Snowfield up Mosquito is about 300 feet, and traction was not required but probably would have made the ascent easier. Great day today. 

Route: Loop: Kuss, Mosquito, Treasurevault
Posted On: 6/11/2023, By: _coloradical
Info: Date Climbed: Sunday, 6/11/23 London Mtn -> Kuss Pk -> Mosquito Pk -> Treasurevault Mtn Started at the East Mosquito Pass 2WD Parking. The road up Mosquito pass is slowly melting out, but is pretty packed in about .5 mile in with a nice stream flowing through it. Once at the saddle, London Mtn is a nice long ridgewalk, a couple small patches of snow but nothing to be concerned about. The ridge heading to Kuss has a patch of snow for the last 100-200', traction can be helpful, no need for crampons. The same goes for both Mosquito and Treasurevault. Both mountains have rocks that you can walk until the final 100'-200' where you will need to walk on snow. This is a pretty easy group to snag right now with the current conditions. 

Route: Pass/East Slope
Posted On: 6/11/2023, By: PeakMiller
Info: I skinned up Mosquito Pass from the west side. Traversed around Kuss and then splitboarded down the east side of Mosquito Pk. Used the pass to get back up and then rode down the road until I ran into a crew with shovels. Thank you to them for clearing out the pass for the marathon next weekend. 

Route: Loop from West Mosquito Pass
Posted On: 2/25/2023, By: daway8
Info: Continued in boots from Kuss - mix of snow and rocks with plenty of trap doors. On return put snowshoes on coming back up Mosquito and between Mosquito and Kuss took narrow path of snow on east edge of ridge - much faster that way but a little like a live version of Mario Cart since you have to hug the exposed rocks so as not to risk plunging through cornices. I carefully inspected from both directions before risking it (I'm well aware that cornices break significantly far from the edge - once or twice I did veer briefly back onto the rocks in spots that were too risky).