6/17/2024 Route: Columbia and Obstruction from the East Posted On: 6/17/2024, By: Skimo95 Info: Climbed obstruction as a stand alone, it was about 6.2mi 4,100 to the summit. I experienced full on summer conditions, and have to say its quite an anticlimactic summit. The SCL road is probably the roughest Ive seen it, would not take anything less than a true 4x4 up it. Not many bugs at all but that should change soon. More marmots than people on the trail this day. |
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9/25/2023 Route: Columbia and Obstruction from the East Posted On: 9/26/2023, By: Trotter Info: Tedious scrambling over ridge to bears playground, especially with the north side of the ridge holding quite a bit of patchy snow. Rest of route snow free for now. Aspens and tundra are about 33% turned. |
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7/1/2023 Route: Columbia and Obstruction from the East Posted On: 7/3/2023, By: IHikeLikeAGirl Info: Summer conditions. Several, flattish snow fields to cross and some downed trees on Humboldt trail, but nothing too bad. |
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8/30/2021 Route: Columbia and Obstruction from the East Posted On: 9/1/2021, By: supranihilest Info: I started at the 2WD trailhead; if you're able to drive to the 4WD trailhead that will save approximately 5.4 miles and 1,200 feet of gain round trip. From the upper trailhead I took the now closed road to the lower/upper South Colony Lake trail and took the upper trail to the saddle with Humboldt. Here the trail ended and the scrambling began. The ridge west from the Humboldt saddle is a bit tedious. There's trail segments on the south side of the ridge to the high point and then it's Class 2+ or Class 3 scrambling up and over and around a ton of small points along the ridge. The route variously took me on top of the crest, below on the north side, and below on the south side. Nothing harder than Class 3 with uncareful route finding. Once in Bear's Playground I tried sticking to tundra as much as possible on my ascent up "Obstruction" which was Class 2 from the Playground. |
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6/23/2021 Route: Columbia and Obstruction from the East Posted On: 6/25/2021, By: mtnkub Info: Summer conditions. No snowfields left on route. |
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6/6/2021 Route: Columbia and Obstruction from the East Posted On: 6/6/2021, By: LetsGoMets Info: Some small snowfields to cross on the entire route, but easily done in trail runners from S. Colony Lakes. Planned Columbia Point, but the East face of Kitty Kat was holding a lot of sun baked snow on the east slope, and combined with some incoming weather decided to punt in that after Obstruction. |
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7/24/2020 Route: Columbia and Obstruction from the East Posted On: 7/24/2020, By: JasonKline Info: Summer conditions. The winds were brutal. |
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7/2/2020 Route: Columbia and Obstruction from the East Posted On: 7/4/2020, By: cougar Info: Summer conditions from Columbia |
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5/10/2020 Route: Columbia and Obstruction from the East Posted On: 5/11/2020, By: angry Info: This one is dedicated to my friend oldmanforest. ;) Majority of route is dry. There is some mud and puddles on the way in and various snow patches between 10,800-11,300. Did not use traction/flotation. Areas with snow were supportive. Ridge from Humboldt saddle to Bears Playground is time consuming. Cruiser from Playground to summit. |
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4/15/2018 Route: Columbia and Obstruction from the East Posted On: 4/15/2018, By: Marmot72 Info: From S Colony. I appreciated the tracks from all the hikers nabbing Humboldt! Bears Playground is more tundra than snow; south face of Obstruction is patchy snow and the ridge line to the summit has mostly thin snow between the rocks with one nice, firm snow bridge between the false summit and summit. Intended to continue over to Columbia, but it was nearing 11 am and the snow was looking treacherous in the blazing sun. |
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7/23/2016 Route: B-line from bear's playground Posted On: 7/23/2016, By: fakejox Info: This season, I've heard folks describe the mosquitos near S. Colony Lake as "world-class". If this is true, then the mosquitos at Bear's Playground are "apocalyptic". Seriously, I was swatting ten at a time and aspirating them as I went up Obstruction, and still getting swarmed on the summit. Totally unreal--bring your bugspray! Otherwise the route's completely dry and replete with wildflowers. |
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9/12/2015 Route: Columbia and Obstruction from the East Posted On: 9/17/2015, By: TallGrass Info: Clean and dry. Stay on the ridge from Bears Playground to the saddle with Columbia. Summit register tube broken on the glued end. Can bypass on the way to or from Columbia by following the cairns across Bears Playground. |
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5/28/2012 Route: via South Colony Trailhead Posted On: 6/1/2012, By: Eph 2 5 Info: The ridge from the Humboldt saddle to Bears Playground is dry. There was one spot roughly halfway across the ridge where a rock rib blocks easy passage along the top of the ridge. I downclimbed pretty far on the south side to get around it. On the way back I went on the north side of the rib and had to step a few feet across a small snowfield with some exposure to get back on solid rock. I might have missed an easier path. Getting up to Obstruction from Bear's Playground was snow-free. |
