"Campbell Creek Peak"

Route: From 13801
Posted On: 7/2/2025, By: ScottLovesRMNP
Info: Snow cornice right off 13801 made for a bit of a dicey drop-down from the summit, but soon you are on cruiser gentle grass, and just a small band or two of snow to cross in the basin on the way to the peak. The real interest here is: how to get down! This has been discussed recently in the forum. Re-ascending the slope off the side of 13801 is going to involve almost 1,000 feet of extra up and down….even more than the climb up Campbell Creek Peak from the basin! Having returned from sea level just four days earlier, I didn’t want extra altitude, so I took my chances descending the Campbell Creek drainage. Ultimately I was happy with this choice. Didn’t find the bushwhacking very bad. It gets more annoying towards the bottom, but it really doesn’t last that long in the grand scheme of things. I’ve definitely seen worse. The MAIN concern I had was how to get across the raging river at the bottom. I knew I was taking a gamble, but I knew that bushwhacking upstream to Grizzly Gulch for about a mile was always a possibility and wouldn’t be too bad. Fortunately I didn’t have to. Just 100 feet upstream from where Campbell Creek pours into the main river parallel to the road, there is an excellent log that was secure, dry, and walkable, so I used that to get back up to the road. 

Route: from Grizzly Gulch
Posted On: 7/12/2024, By: 9patrickmurphy
Info: I went up 13,801 from the unnamed rubberducky-shaped lake in Grizzly Gulch. Gaining the upper basin above the lake is the hardest part of the day by far, on shifting scree and talus. Luckily, it is short-lived, and soon you are on a grassy ridge headed towards the summit ridge of 13,801. I opted to drop into the Campbell Creek basin via Whiley's suggested game trail descent which worked very well. The grassy grunt up "Campbell Creek Peak" is short and easy enough. I ran into Tom Frahlic on the summit of "Campbell Creek Peak" who had taken the ridge, and said it was a tedious choss pile, which jives with reviews I have heard. Dropping into the basin is most likely quicker. (Tom also took a different ascent route than I, opting to grunt up an avalanche gully towards 13,801's north ridge. Having looked at this gully on the hike out with him, I think my ascent was a better, if looser, option). Based on Ben and Whiley's extremely negative review of descending Campbell Creek back to the Lake Fork, I followed their advice and went up and over 13,801's north ridge to go back to Grizzly Gulch. It is 600' of easy grassy slopes to get up to the summit of this ridge, and a scree gully soon presents a quick and easy descent to the rubberducky lake. 

Route: Boulder Gulch ascent, West slopes descent
Posted On: 4/18/2024, By: SnowAlien
Info: Not an easy peak to get to, but very aesthetically pleasing, although I skied down the most boring way (Campbell Creek gulch). In retrospect, l should have gone up that way as well (Cinnamon pass gate is open), but didn't want to deal with the fast running cold Lake Fork creek early in the morning, so went with the familiar Boulder Gulch option (aka Handies winter route). Besides, the steep icy, frozen corn west slopes are typically not an ideal ascent route without ski crampons. Started from Cataract gulch TH and booted up mostly dry road for almost 2 miles, then switched to skinning once the road got shaded. Saw a month old snowshoe track busting up into the Boulder Gulch. The snow is a nuisance enough to warrant floatation currently, but melting fast below 11k. Lots of dead fall and tiny aspen trees. Drainage finally opens up after 11.2k. Once higher up in the basin, I spotted a dry shoulder leading to the rotten towers on the ridge, so skis went on the pack. Was thinking of skiing up and over into Campbell Creek drainage to avoid the towers, but spotted a faint game trail. Crossing the slope under the towers on the south side was a bit sporty for sure with high exposure, was glad the snow has warmed up enough to be edgeable. Carried the skis for a short bit through dirt, then was able to ski across to the saddle with CCP (don't even think about the cliffs below the traverse, haha). The hike from the saddle was pleasant and uneventful. Was disappointed to see fairly poor winter-like coverage on the western slope, but given the late hour of the day, I was glad for the safe escape and sadly had no time to check out the 3 prominent steep chutes off the west ridge that looked like they went (not connected to the summit though). The rest of the Campbell Gulch ski was fast and pleasant, getting me down to the Lake Fork creek from the summit in 45 minutes. The bottom 500 feet was heavy slush skiing as the snow was very saturated but no whoomps or slides, just some rolerballs. Stayed on the skiers right side of the drainage until the very bottom, as it was more shaded, and the creek is already flowing in the last ~500 feet. Got the ski boots wet in the Lake Fork creek crossing, but glad to have brought lightweight TX2 approach shoes and dry socks, so the 1.5 hr hike back was uneventful and very scenic (bucket list). Finally got to do some actual sightseeing vs typical white knuckle driving (and dodging 4x4) on the pass. Road appeared to be in better shape than last summer, even saw a WV bug past the difficulties. Enjoyed the closer look at the incredible looking cliffy east face couloirs, but the bottoms have already slid. West side/CC gulch currently provides the most continuous ski descent from the summit. (photos are of poor quality as the phone got dipped in the different creek the day before). 9.5 hours, 4,300 ft and ~10 miles. 

Route: From Point 13,795
Posted On: 10/18/2020, By: supranihilest
Info: The initial descent off Point 13,795 is on annoying talus. We knew the ridge between 13,795 and "Campbell Creek Peak" is a difficult and loose mess, so we tried to go south around all the towers on game trails but the slope was steep and extremely loose. We reascended to the ridge and discovered a faint game trail near a small bump of rock (prior to the nasty towers) that descended into Campbell Creek's basin. This trail was a godsend. We took it into the basin then crossed the basin on tundra and though a couple of boulderfields then took the middle trail (out of three, one on top of the other) up to "Campbell Creek Peak"'s southwest ridge. This avoided any scrambling, though the ascent was somewhat loose. The remaining hike to the summit was easy. Here's where things went wrong. Instead of ascending to Point 13,795's north ridge and descending back into Grizzly Gulch (read up on how to do this! There is ample information.) we decided to descend Campbell Creek. Bad idea. Do not descend this way! It goes but man does it suck hard. The initial section through the basin is easy enough, then it starts to drop. There's thick stands of willows prior to the forest, and the forest is steep. We stayed mostly on the west side of the creek, descending steeply, until we were only a few hundred feet from the bottom and a couple of tenths of a mile from the road, then sort of got stuck. We tried crossing into a secondary drainage to the west and were met with basically vertical slopes running all the way to Lake Fork Gunnison River. No bueno. Same deal attempting to go directly to the road - cliffs hundreds of feet high. We tried crossing the creek and descending the slopes on the east side but they were covered in willows and avalanche debris and very steep, too steep to be safe. Descending the creek directly was not an option because it was raging and the rock smooth as glass. Numerous cliffs and slabs guarded the lower portion as well. We managed to find a steep descent on the western side of the creek below a waterfall, then took an exposed, gravel-covered ledge/slab to another steep descent (still on the creek's west side), which eventually relented into "just" a massive pile of avalanche debris. We crossed this and were fortunate to find a solid log across Lake Fork Gunnison River, then we hiked the road back. The lower portion of the creek was all very steep, rather exposed, and either covered in loose rock and/or avalanche debris. Several of the GPX tracks we had appeared to simply cross vertical cliffs. We aren't sure how. Research 13,795's north ridge descent as it's almost certainly a far better and safer way down, even taking into account the extra elevation gain you'll have to eat to get up and over it. 

Route: Grizzly Gulch/Campbell Creek
Posted On: 8/18/2018, By: JasonKline
Info: Summer conditions. Totally dry. You can find plenty of nice game trails in the upper portion of Campbell Creek, but the lower section is a total mess (at least the way I went).