San Juan Range > El Diente > Climber's LogEl Diente Climber's Log
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[ Sign the Climber's Log ]
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| skideep1 | Route Climbed: Kilpacker Creek South Slopes Date Climbed: July 3, 2005  | |
| Started early. Solo ascent. Off Mtn by 9:30am | |
| Posted Jul 22, 2005 4:36 am | ||
| doumall | Route Climbed: Traverse from Mt. Wilson Date Climbed: 7-10-05 | |
| Summited with ColoradoScott. Traverse was solid and fun, took 3 hours. The descent off El Diente into Navajo Basin is loose and steep. Take this mountain seriously! | |
| Posted Jul 13, 2005 1:55 pm | ||
| ColoradoScott | Route Climbed: East Ridge traverse from Mt. Wilson Date Climbed: July 10, 2005 | |
| The ridge traverse IS a classic, but not as difficult as I imagined. The downclimbs and scrambles are exiting and the exposure along parts of the ridge are exhilarating (or terrifying to some, probably)!!! The traverse took three hours. On the descent, We scrambled down rocks to reach the main snow couloir and found the top of the snow to be thin (18" over rock) and I took a nasty fall, despite my crampons and axe. After immediately attemping self-arrest, which only slowed my progress on the 55 degree slope, due to the rotten snow conditions, I flipped onto my back when my crampons caught a rock hidding under the shallow snow. Immediately I returned into the arrest positon, finally coming to a stop after a 100 foot slide (and only ten feet above a ten foot drop onto rocks. Fortunately, my quick reactions and equipment prevented any injuries other than scraped knuckles and some soreness. My partner carefully downclimbed this section w/o incident, although he was shaken to watch my accident. Because of the steepness and soft snow, we downclimbed rock ribs until the slope angle eased back to about 35-40 degrees, where we tested the snow, and began glissading to the bottom, carefully avoiding and rock outcrops below. I finally hobbled into camp 13 hours after our day began. The moral of the story is: 1)wear a helmet (like I did), 2) have an axe and crampons and know how to used them (it could save your life), 3) climb these with partners, and 4) do not take them lightly...they are difficult climbs with dangerous potential, even if the weather is perfect. | |
| Posted Jul 12, 2005 1:03 pm | ||
| Larry V | Route Climbed: north slopes, return to Silver Pick Date Climbed: August 1995 | |
| Climbed the steep, snow-filled gullies and ribs up and down the north slope, following a partial descent from Mount Wilson to about 13,000'. This was a miserable route, and my most difficult climb in the Colorado Rockies to date. Made for an extremely long day, with the latter part being done in a cold rain. | |
| Posted Feb 20, 2005 6:17 pm | ||
| goat14er | Route Climbed: North Slopes Date Climbed: July 2004 | |
| Wow, what a mountain! We backpacked into Navajo Lake and thought it wouldn't be a long day up El Diente from there. But the monsoons started building around 8:00 AM (!), the rocks were covered with a thin glaze of ice in places, and one of the guys in our party was feeling pretty sick. However, we got up to the top after all of that thanks to an early start and some luck with the storms barely missing us as we were descending down the couloir. Don't take this mountain lightly at all! | |
| Posted Sep 9, 2004 12:58 am | ||
| bc44caesar | Route Climbed: North Slopes Date Climbed: 15 Aug 2004 | |
| Camped below the route on Sat...started up at 5:00a.m. and caught a beautiful sunrise half way up. We followed the couloir most of the way by climbing the rock on either side and then took a direct path up to the summit. Continued on the ridge traverse to Wilson after that. | |
| Posted Aug 16, 2004 12:20 am | ||
| Peter Eliassen | Route Climbed: Kilpacker Basin Date Climbed: June 20, 2004 | |
| Wow...what a beautiful campsite at Kilpacker. The end of the climb can be difficult as the route can disappear on you when there is snow coverage...pretty awesome though! | |
| Posted Jul 22, 2004 3:50 pm | ||
| ctruscot | Route Climbed: El Diente and ridge over to Wilson from Silver Pick trailhead Date Climbed: Jyly 9, 2004 | |
| Thursday and Friday joined a guide and three others on this climb of El-Diente and Wilson via the ridge. See trip report. | ||
| Posted Jul 11, 2004 8:21 pm | ||
| DaveC | Route Climbed: north chutes Date Climbed: june 02 | |
| miserable route. awesome campsite in Navajo basin, but without snow, avoid the north side and do kilpacker. | |
| Posted May 20, 2004 9:33 pm | ||
| xskier77 | Route Climbed: West Ridge Date Climbed: July 17, 2003 | |
| This was the most amazing, challenging and rewarding route I've done to date on a 14er. We started the day from our Navajo Lake campsite. Gaining the ridge was extremely difficult as we were climbing rock that was very loose and inbetween talus and scree in size. On several occasions I would step up and the rock would slide causing me to only move a short distance with each step. Once on the ridge the climb became very exciting with sections of extreme exposure yet solid rock that made these sections very comfortable to climb. Gerry Roach says routefinding is key on this route. Well we must've gotten lucky because the route seemed pretty straight forward. Next task traverse to Mount Wilson :) | |
| Posted Feb 1, 2004 10:46 pm | ||
| hhsilleck | Route Climbed: North Face Date Climbed: August 2003 | |
| A late summer freeze cemented the scree on the north face solid, so we had no problems with the infamous rockfall. Still, wear a helmet. Traversed to Mount Wilson. Another group on the mountain had a miserable + dangerous descent of this route - be careful. | |
| Posted Jan 10, 2004 7:09 pm | ||
| RyanS | Route Climbed: South Slopes via Kilpacker Basin Date Climbed: June 14, 2003 | |
| We spent a delightful day in the Lizard Head Wilderness, and even bumped into fellow SPer NickD while we were out there. Here's my TR. | |
| Posted Oct 24, 2003 2:19 pm | ||
| Matt Mahoney | Route Climbed: Silver Pick Date Climbed: July 20, 2003 | |
| Traversed from Mt. Wilson, then climbed Wilson Pk. The climb down was slow on rotton loose rock when I wasn't glissading. | |
| Posted Jul 27, 2003 10:48 pm | ||
| climbcolorado | Route Climbed: North Face Date Climbed: 7/15/03 | |
| Had a good snow climb with some hard wet rock climbing just before ridge. 800 foot 45 degree glissade on the way down!!! | |
| Posted Jul 21, 2003 10:52 am | ||
| mtnhiker13 | Route Climbed: Kilpacker Basin Trailhead Date Climbed: July 5, 2003 | |
| Kilpacker Basin was wonderful but my favorite part of this hike was the last mile. The rock scrambling and class 3 stuff were great although quite loose. This was by far the toughest mountain I have climbed (not that I have climbed that many). It is a mountain that demands all of your attention. I had the priviledge of climbing this mountain with Aaron Johnson, my sweetheart and favorite climbing partner. We had a great day weather wise which assisted our efforts. | |
| Posted Jul 9, 2003 11:33 am | ||
| rmjwinters | Route Climbed: Kilpacker Basin-South Slopes Date Climbed: June 22, 2003 | |
| Beautiful hike through Kilpacker Basin. I did this as a day hike in about 8 hours. See trip report for more details. | |
| Posted Jun 24, 2003 2:40 pm | ||
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