Left the parking lot via the Fall Creek trail just before 5am last Sunday. I had previously taken a crack at the route in September of last year while backpacking; I camped too high and got altitude sick before heading down at sunrise. I decided a wanted to try Halo Ridge again and boy was that a good decision. The route itself is relatively unclear past notch mountain with a lot more gain and loss along that ridge than I had expected, but it makes up for it with stunning views in every direction. It is 100% worth doing, once. We descended via the standard route which was 100% the right choice despite the climb out over half moon pass. It kind of blew my mind that people who do out and back via the standard route never get to the the cross couloir. Despite it not being fully in, we still got a lovely view of the peak from notch mountain. 100% recommend halo ridge, though, if i did it again, I'd probably ascend the standard route and return via the ridge.

Overall, an incredibly memorable day, with fantastic friends, lovely October weather, and gorgeous views. Couldn't have asked for better circumstances to finish off the Sawatch range.

Edit: meant 10/11 not 8/11

6-8" of snow on average for the entire route with drifts up to 3'. We postholed almost the entire time except for a few short sections here and there. We went counter clockwise and skipped Democrat because it was slow going. The ridge to Lincoln was a bit interesting! There were 3 other parties today: one did the entire thing, one skipped Lincoln, and the other skipped Lincoln and Democrat. 6.8mi and 7hrs 20mins C2C

Has anyone been up there yet since the snow on Wednesday? I've been waiting to do these two in (somewhat) off season so it's not as crowded and was thinking of doing it tomorrow. I'm guessing someone will have been up there at least today to pack things in.

I’m sure this question gets asked a lot so apologies in advance, but I drove into Denver from Arkansas on Wednesday. Was thinking about doing Bierstadt for my first 14er this Saturday, should I be okay with acclimation? Went to RMNP Thursday and did some hiking up to around 10k a few times, and using today as a rest day before Saturday. Any thoughts are greatly appreciated!

It doesn't look like the Northeast route from Halfmoon Road got hit too hard with the snow yesterday; Snow depth on OpenSnow and AllTrails seem to agree on about 2-5" throughout. I realize that may be deceptive above tree line with wind drifts. I'm no stranger to 14ers or to hiking in snow, but the highest peaks I've done in spikes or snowshoes have been in the 12-13k range.

I had this peak planned for two years and finally completed it end of August. Im not really a peak bagger per se. I choose hikes and summits based on personal goals and overall vibe, etc. My favorite band is Lord Huron (judge me) so this was a no brainer. It did not disappoint.

I summited the day after flying from sea level which is something I havent done before. Im in good shape for hiking and all, and Im not sure if it was due to the quick summit from sea level, but man the recovery was pretty weird. Just exhausted for days.

Anyway, here's a few pics. On to planning the next one.

Hey everyone; long-time listener, first-time caller. I really have appreciated this sub over the last several months as I prepared for my first 14er journey. We (me, my brother and BIL) were shooting for the Uncompahgre/Wetterhorn dual summit "loop" on October 9th. It ended up being a fantastic day but the thing I'm most proud of had nothing to do with the hike itself...

We left our Airbnb in Lake City at 3am with the goal of starting the hike by 4am. I had brought my 4-wheel drive truck because we had read that in order to get to the trailhead we needed a 4-wheel drive vehicle...so I at least had some idea that the road would be tough. I was not prepared for what we encountered and we only made it about a 1/4 of mile up the trailhead road before I realized I couldn't go any further (had already risked severely damaging the truck to even get to that point). As I got out of the truck, my legs were shaking and I felt like I was on the verge of a panic attack, because I realized that I was going to somehow get off that mountain, AFTER hiking for 12 hours and likely in a state of physical/mental exhaustion. I had to focus to put it out of my mind, to convince myself that we could/would deal with it later, and to not have it hang over my head while we were out enjoying the stunning beauty of central Colorado. Managing to pull my shit together, mentally, in that moment, is the thing I'm most proud of.

The hike ended up being awesome - we did Uncompahgre first and it took us about 4.5 hours to get up to the top (~7.5 miles from the TH). By the time we got back to the point at while the trail diverges to the Wetterhorn peak, we'd been going for 8-9 hours and been above 12,000ft for almost that entire time and fatigue was setting in (at least for my anyway). We started up towards Wetterhorn but I don't think we had any serious plans to attempt a summit. Mid-way up it started lightly snowing and I think that sealed the deal that it wasn't the day for a double-summit. The weather most of the day was ideal - temps in the 40s in the valley and in the upper-20s/low-30s up top. Light breeze and sunny. We got really lucky because I think the next day, the remnants of that pacific hurricane rolled in and probably hit that area.

The good news is that we did get off that mountain. Once we got back to the truck, I was able to get turned around and my brother and brother-in-law spotted me through every maneuver. The truck has a few scratches from tree branches, but it no worse for the wear. All-in-all, a great first experience; physically I felt pretty good - my training had mostly prepared for everything except long downhill stretches. My ankles and knees were complaining pretty good, I should have done more lower-leg strength training and will do so for future trips.

Super grateful for this sub and all the wisdom that is shared here in terms of what to pack, what to expect and all of that!

Hey all, gonna be going to quandary peak sometime within the week, anyone who’s hiked it recently know if there’s snow or not?

The lower trail is stunning right now with the peak fall colors. The upper mountain is officially in early winter conditions.
Challenger’s gully is loose with soft snow, and the Avenue is filled in with snow. Traction gear highly recommended to navigate the ledges safely.
A beautiful but grueling day in the Sangres!

Feeling accomplished for bagging my 10th 14er with La Plata!!!
Route wasn’t terrible, minimal snow patches (brought crampons just in case), light wind after timberline. Honestly didnt follow alltrails after the saddle, just kept following cairns and footpaths but was more direct instead of switchback-y. Overall 10/10 would do again

Does anyone have recent (last 12 months) experience they can share about using T-Satellite for communications in the mountains of Colorado?

I am considering getting it for my son as a way to check in periodically while doing 14ers in Colorado.

I understand it is not as robust as a dedicated device like an InReach but I have read good reviews (like OutdoorGearLab) and it sounds a lot more reliable than something like the standard iPhone SOS via satellite. We already use T-Mobile so this would be an easy addition. I am also thinking it could be a decent progression toward a more robust device, if he finds T-Sat useful (but lacking).

Thanks in advance for any insights and apologies if I missed a recent discussion about this in my search.

Hiking Grays and maybe Torrey Sunday. I have a low clearance car and would rather add the miles from lower lot than risk it. I also want to sleep that morning and will probably start walking the road around 7.

What are the odds of seeing cars that might take pity on me walking up around that time?

First time.

Beautiful sunrise, Beautiful hike, leaf colors were top 👌🏻

Would recommend 🤙🏼

Finally got around to some of the more remote / harder / annoying groups in the range like the Wayah group, Tellurium area, stuff like that. Don’t forget to love on your lower unnamed lesser known peaks!

Favorite in the range: Fancy Peak to its unnamed neighbor. What a fun class 3 ridge in a beautiful spot near Holy Cross.

Does anyone know if bierstadt is still insanely crowded this time of year? Want to do it this weekend but dont know what time to get there. It gets light later and its going to be below freezing so can’t imagine too many people are doing it but I know that lot is very small.

Loved to see the color change in the valley. Such a beautiful area! Climbed from the 2WD trailhead.

Maroon Peak (14,163)
The hike was beautiful, the scrambling as fun as it gets. We packed in early Saturday morning and set up camp a mile from Crater Lake, felt good after dropping off the heavy packs and started the slog up the “2,800 feet of fun”.

Once at the ridge the weather looked amazing, so we started the real fun of route finding and scrambling up towards the summit. We chose to go up “Gully 2” and stayed as far right as we could on the ascent (same gully on the way down). The Robot is 100% my favorite rock formation! Having a gpx and the pics from the .com was very helpful especially for the last section heading to the top. After a summit break, we put our game faces back on and began the descent making surprisingly good time through all the technical bits and had a awesome time - until going down the “2,800 feet of suck” lol

Maroon is certainly a challenging peak especially from a route fining and endurance perspective!

Conditions last weekend, 10/3/26, were great, no snow or ice on the route.

yesterday I attempted to hike Capitol peak for this first time, I was able to park up at the upper lot beware though there is a huge pothole, started the hike at 4 AM, was able to make good progress Daly Pass at 8:30 AM, didn’t realize how long the Boulder hopping was going to be till K2 it felt like it was never gonna end, my first big obstacle was down climbing K2 my personal opinion this was the hardest move, it was extremely icy and their were quite a bit of loose Holds, The Knife Edge was completely dry and relatively easy compared to K2
After Knife Edge I felt I wasn’t comfortable going up any farther due to being the only hiker on Capitol, Loose rocks, Route finding, and it was 12:30, overall the conditions were pretty dry, besides the Down-climb on K2, such a fun experience hopefully I can summit Capitol peak next year

Hey, I have several questions and I want some insight on getting into this hobby. For starters, people say that climbing a 14er in the winter (even on winter routes) is not recommended. What do you do about it then? Is it recommended after you take a course about avalanche safety? Or once you get more experience? Or when people talk about the danger of it, are they usually referring to people who are just expecting a hike rather than people wanting to get into actual mountaineering? When someone is getting into mountaineering, I assumed doing a winter route on one of these mountains would be the safest way to get some experience for bigger mountains. But it seems that may not be the case, and I'm wondering how you actually get into more difficult mountains if even these winter routes are considered "too dangerous."

Thanks for the help.