On Saturday, August 13th, my partner and I climbed Quandary West Ridge. For a couple of years I had been apprehensive about climbing this ridge because of all the warnings on the .com and from various other trip reports on "how hard" it was. I want to preface this trip report by mentioning I am fairly experienced with class three climbing. So, when I say this was an easy route, please consider that it was easy coming from someone with multiple class three climbs (both on 14ers and 13ers) under my belt. I have done Sneffels South West Ridge, Tour de Abyss, Kelso Ridge on 14ers plus the 13ers Pacific Peak West Ridge, Father Dyer East Ridge, and Wheeler South Ridge.

Please read the route description on the .com. This is a huge tool in helping to stay on route. As noted in the above picture, if you get off route you could get in to serious trouble. We observed a couple who got off route twice, and that was before the class three sections. (I hope they made it through OK.) I had the description printed and in my pocket for reference just in case. Not that I specifically needed it, but it was good to have in those moments of "are we there yet?"

The purpose of my trip report is more or less to provide photos relevant to route finding and to describe the class 3 sections.

The trail starts off pretty easy and well defined up to and through the basin.

Once you're at the end of the basin, locate the gully with the rust colored rocks. We continued up the left side and were easily able to avoid the snow field.

At the top of this section you continue across talus and boulders. There are carins to guide you through this part. Eventually you will come to a small body of water. Above this body of water were two snow fields. We cut around to the right of the water and traversed just below the smaller section of snow. This brought us out a little west of the route descriptions exit to the ridge, but we were easily able to find the trail that traversed the "bump" on the ridge.

Once on the ridge, there was a faint trail that went around the initial difficulties on the (right) south side of the ridge. There were sparse carins marking the way. You will stay on the right side of the ridge until 13,500' (as described on the .com) until you make the switch over to the left side of the ridge for the traverse. Our altimeter read 13,495' so pretty accurate on the description.

On the .com the photo of the traverse looks like it's pretty flat across until you regain the ridge. Do not be fooled. You gain about 500' during this time so it's more upward than the picture would lead you to believe. Not incredibly difficult and the trail is fairly well defined.

You'll go up, down, and around several bumps on the ridge that are fairly straight foward before you come to the dirt gully as described on the .com.

Fairly quickly after reaching the top of the gully you will see the wall with the crack in it. For the ascent up the wall, we stayed to the left of the crack and had a pretty easy time of it. The hardest part was getting on to the wall from the base where my partner is standing in the photo below. After a few quick moves, there's a ledge that goes around to the left to easier climbing terrain.

At the top of the cracked wall is a short but very exposed catwalk.

Not long after the catwalk you can see the big wall. This is where the description says to downclimb to the left or to the right. This is what that junction looks like (below). We read a trip report where someone had success climbing down to the right so we attempted that direction. This section is somewhat exposed so take your time. You don't have to climb what appears to be all the way down. There are some ledges to the left (if you're climbing down facing away from the mountain) that allow you to get to the ridge at the top of the gully. Before you begin your climb down, get a good look at the wall and figure out where you need to go from the base to reach the stairs section of it.

After the big wall, the excitement is over. I didn't find the climbing to be difficult except for maybe two or three moves that required a little extra thought and muscle. The exposure was high enough -- but for myself, the catwalk was the only place where I really felt it. I must say though, it's very important that you do your homework and know the route. If you drop down too far off the ridge, I can see how easy it would be to find yourself in a bad place.

Once on the summit, we were greeted by a gaggle of people who came up the standard route. We only saw two other groups on West Ridge so it was a little disappointing to end our secluded climb with a massive group at the end. It was to be expected but still. Instead of celebrating on the summit, we headed to Cristo for the descent. We climbed down so we could no longer hear or see the people on the summit and had our summit beer and snacks there.

I wanted to include some pictures of the Cristo descent since I had a hard time finding any in the trip reports I had read previous to my trip. To answer your questions, yes, Cristo is steep. You're descending over 2000' in one mile, it should be expected. Yes, Cristo is loose. I recommend keeping on your gloves (we also kept on our helmets to be safe) and having good hiking boots with ankle support and good grip. It wasn't impossible or overly difficult for us though. Keep a low center of gravity and be sure of your footing and you'll be fine. I like the side step approach on steep loose terrain and it worked out fairly well for me. Some reports said to stay to the left of the couloir, I read a lot that said stay to the right, we split the difference and went down both sides sticking pretty close to the center of the couloir. I don't think you'll have better luck on either side over the other, just pick what looks good and go for it.