Spread Eagle Peak

Route: non summit from Lakes of the Clouds
Posted On: 6/29/2025, By: pbradley14er
Info: I did not summit, but got decent views from Lakes of the Clouds. The ridge between "Peak of the Clouds" and Spread Eagle Peak looked clear. There are snow patches above the upper Lakes of the Clouds that would require going through or around. Strong winds (50+ mph gusts) and lack of time made me turn around there. I tried Gibson Creek trail, and one would really need a GPS with the old topo map on it. There is a good trail that suddenly peters about about 0.4 miles up. Also, the road to the Gibson Creek trailhead is in good shape. No real ruts. 

Route: East Ridge
Posted On: 2/23/2025, By: kyrawhitworth
Info: Had a routefinding error at the first stream crossing—don’t follow the tracks leading left! Cost us about an hour to get back on track. Trenched through really variable soft hip to knee deep to crusty and supportive snow for six hours to drop snowshoes (wallowing). Very steep and no real snow up to Spread Eagle. We continued on to Peak of the Clouds—there was some snow but it was shallow and inconsequential. It took us about 2.5 hrs to go out and back. The crux is a weird downclimb shortly after leaving Spread Eagle and we kicked in steps on the left. In total 13hrs, roughly 5800ft, and 8.7 miles. Insanely amazing weather day! Total aside—if you were the person who postholed our trench into oblivion down low near the stream before turning around, why tho? 

Route: East Ridge
Posted On: 10/28/2023, By: Cide
Info: Route was completely dry, though that probably is changing currently. Trail up Gibson's Creek is incredibly straight forward, do note the trail crosses the stream at least 3 times.. The turn up the hill to begin the ridges is bushwhack but w/ an incredible amount of game trails to help. Very solitary day for me. Don't let any pretty chill metrics fool you, this is a tougher-than-I-thought-it-would-be day that hits you with steepness and doesn't let go. Please bring a new summit register booklet. The pipe is in the summit cairn but w/ no more real paper to write on for many more coming through. Keep the old summit log if you do, you definitely would have earned it. 

Route: East Ridge
Posted On: 10/14/2023, By: Jan van Tilburg
Info: Brutal climb. As soon as one leaves Gibson Creek to ascent the ridge it is very steep. And for the most part it stays steep all the way to the summit. (Gaia recorded 6.22 mls with a 4,140ft elevation gain) And the first mile is pretty flat! To gain the ridge I climbed the North facing slope which held some snow. Easily avoidable. But on the way down I did not wanted to deal with any snow on a steep slope, so I took the other side of Gibson Creek. Also steep, but snow free. Once on the ridge the route to the summit was mostly snow free. 

Route: East Ridge
Posted On: 8/12/2023, By: SionaRW35
Info: The Gibson creek trail (if you can call it that) is overgrown in many areas and has a significant amount of deadfall. The creek crossing requires a bit of a bushwhack to locate the trail again on the other side. From 10,100 to 11,700 is a horribly steep bushwhack and that assumes you went far enough up the trail to the correct gully. Dont be fooled by a switchback around 10,000. Above the treeline it is also steep but after the bushwhacking youll appreciate it anyway. Fresh mountain lion scat seen on descent around 11,400 

Route: East Ridge
Posted On: 7/10/2023, By: emilyexplores
Info: Route from Gibson Creek TH was incredibly easy to follow until about 10k (very established herd path from small cairn on old FS road). Path dispersed once heading up to the ridge from the drainage, but reestablished near 10.8. Brutally steep but relatively blowdown free up ridge, absolutely no snow. Beautiful bluebird day up high! 

Route: East Ridge
Posted On: 1/29/2023, By: daway8
Info: Had plans for various peaks up north but the storms in the forecast pushed me south. Had hoped for some trench remnants from prior groups that posted but there were only fresh tracks up to the Rainbow trail junction. Was a remnant trench after that but missed a turn and had to plunge into a gully and then tree belay back up to regain remnant trench. Started losing the trench a ways before the climb up the ridge and was hesitant to try to cross the creek with exposed flowing water so made my own trench up the ridge. Lots of bushwhacking through knee-deep+ powder. Steep terrain but lots of mature trees and no obvious slabs or other avy warning signs. The lower ridge was not even remotely wind blown and had consistent knee to waist deep snow. Very glad when lkk8815 came up behind me - she and I traded trenching duty up the ridge - both agreed we probably wouldn't have made it solo because it was so much work. Narrow heavily snow covered section between upper and lower ridges with trees/bushes on one side and steep snowfield on the other. Upper ridge was more windblown but still a fair amount of snow. After a break my impromptu partner and I split up (she was much faster than me going up). Had originally pondered going on to Peak of the Clouds but the wind was steadily increasing and the visibility steadily decreasing. By the time I left the summit it was approaching almost white-out conditions (light snow had been falling all day). Despite being basically a ridge hike it was disturbing how easy it was to start going down the wrong slope when you could no longer see the ridge ahead. Had to repeatedly stop and course correct after checking GPS (tracks were already blown away). There's now a solid trench in but if you follow it you'll have to deal with the gully dip near the start (or veer left before that and trench the short connection) and you'll probably not like my wonky path up the slopes, but it's likely better than having to plow your own trench. All the deep snow made this a much more tiring peak than expected. 

Route: East Ridge
Posted On: 1/15/2023, By: dolfh
Info: The trench from the group last week is still in good shape. The route follows the creek for awhile and then climbs steeply up to the ridge, with a slope angle near 30 degrees. Deep wind drift piling up on the ridge in certain areas. Expect some post-holing. Dry above tree line but very windy today. The hike above tree line has some steep sections. 

Route: East Ridge
Posted On: 1/14/2023, By: shepherdkyle
Info: Anima and I did Spread Eagle from Gibson Creek TH today via east ridge. Trench reinforced, but we took a different way to meet the trench around 1 mile into the climb on the east ridge. Would stick with going up Gibson creek trail to the obvious turn off up the steep slope to the east ridge unless you like seeing a plethora of mountain lion tracks and bear marks on trees. Very windy today. Past treeline was wind blown. Good time to get a summit in winter. Stats were 6.5 miles and 4,300 gain. Short, but steep climb. 

Route: East Ridge
Posted On: 1/8/2023, By: Sbenfield
Info: Summited via East Ridge route (more or less). Started at Gibson Creek TH. We used snowshoes to create a robust trench to tree line. Followed the creek for a while before angling up a fairly steep forest to tree line. From there, hiked up wind blown slopes to summit. Snowshoes recommended, did not use any other gear 

Route: Swift Trail
Posted On: 12/30/2022, By: Sbenfield
Info: Did not summit. After doing Mt. Marcy and Silver Pk recently I noticed spread Eagle's northern slopes to be very wind blown. We gave this route a try instead of the usual east ridge to see if it would work. Refreshed the trench to the lake of the clouds and up to treeline. Found more snow than we were hoping, caused frequent whumfps and shooting cracks on low angled eastern and northern facing terrain. We Decided to call it a day at treeline when no safe route up the northern slopes was obvious. 

Route: from Peak of the Clouds
Posted On: 8/29/2022, By: HikerGuy
Info: After Peak of the Clouds I headed over to Spread Eagle Peak to complete my loop of the Lakes of the Clouds. The ridge off of Peak of the Clouds poses no difficulties. As you approach Spread Eagle you will notice a notch in the ridge, fear not as there is a climber's path just below the ridge crest on the east side of the ridge that bypasses all of the difficulties. Another fine summit with excellent views. GPS showed 10.5 miles to this point. I retraced my route back to the saddle with Peak of the Clouds and descended back to the lower lake on easy terrain. The traverse around the east side of the lake is okay, need to stay up high. From there it is cruiser trail back to the Gibson Creek TH. Total loop was 16.25 miles, 5,950 feet and 8h 47m. 

Route: Spread Eagle South Ridge from Hermit Pass
Posted On: 8/8/2022, By: CheapCigarMan
Info: Stay to climbers left to bypass the notch. 

Route: East Ridge
Posted On: 1/10/2022, By: supranihilest
Info: A horrible route with snow, but I put in a trench so the route should be a lot easier. I wore snowshoes from the upper parking lot all the way to 12,400 feet - made good use of the heel risers. Nobody had been up Gibson Creek so it was tough trenching to that point. One third of a mile from the trailhead I went the wrong way - there's a junction in the snow there, take the left branch. I mashed a huge square over the incorrect right branch, wrote NO in the snow, and drew arrows pointing up the correct left branch. Both work, the left is just a lot easier and less steep. My snowshoe track follows the creek and leaves it a little before Bill's track. From there to the summit it's consistently steep. Gaining the ridge is bushwhacky and the trench beaten in up to knee deep. It was warm on the descent so the snow was a bit sloppy, which means the trench is sloppy, too. My trench follows the ridge crest for quite a while to treeline. Above treeline the route is obvious and maintains the steepness. Generally thin snow over tundra and talus. No real surprises. The snow is quite slick and about the only thing you have to pay close attention to. Someone go use my trench so it doesn't go to waste, it was a ton of work. I averaged a mere 1.1mph over the entire day, there's just no way to do this route fast in these conditions. Flotation mandatory. Traction may be useful, I didn't use any. Ice axe not needed. 

Route: Spread Eagle South Ridge from Hermit Pass
Posted On: 6/15/2021, By: CoHi591
Info: Little bit of avoidable snow at the top of Hermit Pass, some more avoidable snow up Rito Alto but dry beyond the Rito Alto summit all the way to Spread Eagle.