Fletcher Mountain

Route: Fletcher+Drift Traverse
Posted On: 9/10/2018, By: Dan_Suitor
Info: The route over Fletcher was free of snow. The traverse was as well, until you switch over to the North side. Here, snow is pretty much everywhere the sun was not. It was anywhere from a dusting, to a few inches deep. This made for some extremely sketchy areas, especially the upper part of the class 3 section. The light colored rock was super slick, and the foot/hand holds had slick snow and mud in it. In reality, I should have turned around here but risked it and made it up. It made for some tense moments as my feet kept slipping because of the mud. The return trip was equally as scary, but that's a different story. Hopefully the snow will melt with the warmer weather, but the north side of the traverse does not look like it will be getting any more sun for the season. So my guess is that it might be there for the duration. 

Route: Southeast Ridge
Posted On: 8/7/2018, By: BoulderBarb
Info: Gully still holding snow but can be bypassed by going up the left side. 

Route: Fletcher+Drift Traverse
Posted On: 7/26/2018, By: HikerGuy
Info: No snow on route from Blue Lakes TH. 

Route: Southeast Ridge
Posted On: 6/29/2018, By: goingup
Info: There is no snow on the upper ridge of Fletcher. There is still plenty of snow to climb in the lower basin. It is avoidable but if you have gear totally climbable and much better than talus and rock. 

Route: Southeast Ridge
Posted On: 6/13/2018, By: Trotter
Info: Lots of snow still in valley. Most of it is avoidable, but it covers about 20% of the trail, and so you have to refind the trail after every detour. Rust colored gulley is completely filled in, will need traction and ice axe, or you can bypass it by going right, but then have to climb and then descend an extra 200' on the ridge between Fletcher and Quandary. Fletcher SE ridge holds a lot of snow about last 100 yards to summit. Have to walk a very exposed snow ridge. Recommend ice axe, because a slip would be fatal. On plus side, got 3 good glissades on way down. Note for hopeful skiers, snow is extremely suncupped. pic 1 is rust gulley pic 2 is summit of fletcher 

Route: Southeast Ridge
Posted On: 8/30/2017, By: cardgenius
Info: The rust-colored gully still holds a ton of snow. It's steep and bulletproof so I didn't even attempt it. There's a trail going up through the rocks to climbers left that will spit you out just above the snow with good route finding. Once out of the basin, both slopes have large snow fields still on them. Just like below, I didn't attempt the snow and climbed through the rock band that separates them. No snow after that to the summit. 

Route: Southeast Ridge
Posted On: 7/23/2017, By: E_A_Marcus_949
Info: Take the trail that looks to be Quandary West Ridge. It's a good trail up to the basin, steep at parts but easy to follow. The basin is a bit marshy in areas but passable and with some rock-hopping. Some snow fields on the 12,500 rust-colored gully but all are avoidable or may require one step on snow... Those should be melted out soon though. The remaining route up the ridge of Fletcher has some steeps cliffs looking over McCullough Gulch but with careful route-finding, no snow or significant obstacles. There's a resident pika on the summit that looks to have made his home in the wind shelter. 

Route: Southeast Ridge
Posted On: 7/1/2017, By: yaktoleft13
Info: Hiked up the southeast ridge and did the traverse over to Drift. There were 3 snowfields in the basin that interfered with the route below 13200, but they were largely avoidable with creative talus hopping and good route finding. Once on Fletcher itself, snow was easily avoided until the last hundred or so steps to the summit, but that was firm did not require traction at 7:30 am. 

Route: Southeast Ridge
Posted On: 4/23/2017, By: madadraw1
Info: Awesome corn snow from summit to TH! As noted on the website, road closed about 1.5 miles one way from the Blue Lakes TH. Several bare spots on the road but road still 90% covered with snow. Had to take skis off and carry on my shoulder short distances. On the way down, found continuous snow all the way to the lake and dam. My dogs and I were the only ones on Fletcher. Busy at the TH, but most going to Quandary. Excellent ski, excellent conditions and plenty of solitude. 

Route: Southeast Ridge
Posted On: 11/27/2016, By: BKS
Info: Summited yesterday on standard route. Trail to old cabin and lower basin is mixture of snow packed, bare trail and some ice. Through basin and up to saddle snow varies from talus sticking through up to knee deep. Saddle to summit- lots of talus is exposed, but still some calf deep snow. Consistency is powdery and unconsolidated. Snowshoes wouldn't help much at this point. Had microspikes but didn't wear them - they would have been mildly helpful. Trench is just from two people. Will help out some in trail breaking. 

Route: Southeast Ridge
Posted On: 7/23/2016, By: DanielL
Info: Hiked Fletcher Mtn this morning from the Blue Lakes dam. I forgot how rewarding it can be to climb a 13er! For the same distance from town and the same physical effort, one can get much more solitude and a pleasant hike that isn't so high profiled. Anyway, the route is pretty straightforward and enough snow has melted that you can easily get to the summit on dry terrain. I did have to navigate around a snow field to reach the actual summit so I'm counting it as a snow climb. Probably a winter ascent too. :P I did see two skiers doing laps on the north side of the Fletcher-Quandary saddle and have attached a (somewhat blurry) picture. Kudos to you two for sticking with it this late - that snow looked a bit rough! Afterward, headed over to the west ridge of Quandary which was fun and also totally dry as expected. Surprisingly very few people were on the west ridge route, given it was a summer Saturday. The only crowds were on the summit. I would highly recommend this loop which can be easily done in a morning's time. The scenery is fantastic. 

Route: Southeast Ridge
Posted On: 7/16/2016, By: summitkate
Info: There are a couple of snowfields, but the route itself avoided all of them except one. There was one small snowfield near the top of the summit pyramid that we had to navigate around. Other than that, Fletcher is in summer conditions. 

Route: Southeast Ridge
Posted On: 7/9/2016, By: dwemp6
Info: There is still quite a bit of snow on much the route including on the final ridge. Despite the snow, it is quite manageable. I brought micro spikes but did not use them. It was a beautiful day, the waterfalls were flowing strong and Bailey and I were alone nearly the entire time. 

Route: Southeast Ridge
Posted On: 6/19/2016, By: Double Oh Seven
Info: Lower trail was dry except for a few short snowfields. Upper basin was still holding some snow. Snow is not continuous on the se face. Crampons and axe were still helpful. But starting to look more like summer than winter. Fun peak. Beautiful area. A little tougher than I thought it would be. 

Route: Southeast Ridge
Posted On: 5/30/2016, By: eskermo
Info: Booted and rode off the summit of Fletcher all the way down to the lake for about 2,200' of continuous riding. I did not use crampons but would highly recommend them for the ridge up top. Ice axe was mandatory. Up to the ridge at 13,400' was easy on solid, mostly consolidated snow that was perfect for hiking. No postholing at all. Upon reaching the corniced ridge, however, things got a little more serious than I was expecting. I wanted to stay wide left of the cornice, but also couldnt get too low because there were steep snow slopes broken by cheese grater rock fields below me. There was some sketchy steep sidehilling action with a really slow sequence of plunge axe, take two kick steps in the steep snow, plunge axe, and repeat for a while. Once this melts out a little bit, it should be much easier to navigate. The snow was excellent. A little firm but perfectly edgable up high, corn in the middle, and fun sloppy but not completely unsupportable snow down lower. There were plenty of surprise pockets of creamy windblown pow that were nice as well. There was some serious poling needed down lower in two flat spots but I never had to unstrap! The road is currently passable to about 11,400' , about 3/4 a mile and ~300' below the dam.