Bald Mountain (13,703′) East and South Ridges

We were inspired to write this blog post due to the lack of information on the web about Bald Mountain. This is a challenging hike due to the fact there is no real trail after French Pass and it is quite steep with loose scree and boulders in many areas. Let’s get into it.

To get to the trailhead you take 285 out to Jefferson and follow the Michigan Creek road. It gets a little bumpy as you get closer to the trailhead, but just for a few miles. It is a 2wd road, but nice to have good tires and shocks. It is a small parking lot, and the campground nearby is popular.

Following French Pass Trail (trail 651) you immediately see a post in the ground and the trail slits. It doesn’t matter which way you go, they reconnect with each other quickly, but the trail to the left is nicer. Hike this trail about 2 miles through lovely pine and aspen trees with wildflowers until you drop down and lose about 100 ft or less of elevation. At this point, you have to cross the creek. There were some logs here that were a little wobbly, but stable enough to get across without getting wet.

At this point, the trail goes up and quickly passes treeline. You begin to get a good view of the east ridge you will be climbing and the rest of the path up to French Pass. It is a lovely hike during this stretch and there were plenty of wildflowers and butterflies. It was pretty sunny, so don’t forget your sunscreen.

This hike is unique, as many others mention, in that you start on the east side of the continental divide, and then cross the continental divide and summit on the west side of the continental divide. This can be useful for visualizing what you need to do to get to Bald Mountain. The east ridge, which you’re looking at in the images above and below, is the continental divide. You will hike up the east ridge, but then leave it and hike north on the south ridge of Bald Mountain. If that doesn’t make sense, take a look at the map at the end and that should help.

As you near the final push to French Pass you’ll notice that you need to hike up the south facing side of the east ridge. This holds some snow and when we climbed on June 28th there was still a good patch of snow on it. It was not too bad, but the fall line wants to pull you down to the climbers left. It is not that steep, but poles would be nice and microspikes could have been helpful but weren’t necessary.

Once you’re up the snowfield you are almost to the pass and have been around 3.2 miles. At the top you’ll see a large pole in the ground — this is where you’ll turn left off the trail. But before you turn take moment to look around. When you’re ready, head up the east ridge — there is no trail here. The first section is a series of wavy ridges you have to cross. Aim for the ridge proper and traverse as necessary to avoid the steep grade.

As you head up the ridge, the ridge proper is the easiest line for the beginning of the ridge. The grade varies but is generally around 35-40% for much of this section — so take your time. There was an obvious section of rock on the ridge that looks orange. It was around this section that we had to make a decision on how we were going to approach Bald Mountain’s south ridge. The ridge becomes scree filled with loose boulders as you progress pass that orange section of rock, and it made sense to push towards the south ridge, so we began to traverse.

If you look at the images below, then in the first image, you can see the rolling ridges in the beginning and then the ridge you want to aim for. In the second image, you can see the orange rock section where we decided to start traversing.

I sadly didn’t take many pictures here. But hopefully I can give some pretty good descriptions for you. First, we ran into another couple and they decided to traverse quite low and come up to Bald Mountain’s final push on the ridge. I don’t think this is the best route as it crosses lots of loose boulders and scree. The issue for all of us was that the ridge was still holding a bit of snow on the east face. I noticed a grassy area which looked like a good way up and followed that towards the ridge. As the grassy area gave way to steep scree I began to traverse over towards the ridge proper. Once there, I was able to see that there is an actual trail on the ridge. If you look at the image below, taken looking back at the south ridge from just below the summit, you can see the trail on the west side of the snowfield and the ridge. This was the best route.

You can somewhat see the route the couple took below the snow field. You can also see the strip of grass that I ascended. We went back on the ridge and noticed that it kept going and there was a sign up towards the peak. We didn’t go investigate because it looked like a storm might be coming in, but probably related to the continental divide trail. We did drop down on that scree filled gully towards that strip of green grass. It was surprising not as bad as it looked.

The summit was really nice. You have tons of prominence and can see so much. We were able to see Breckenridge, numerous peaks we’ve climbed in and around Breck, Grays and Torreys, and you can even see Mount of the Holy Cross (image below).

After the ridge and getting down the scree gully, the rest of the way down was pretty straight forward, but tiring on the quads! Below is a gallery of some images from the hike and a Strava map of the route. Keep in mind that snow conditions will change how this route

Note, I would probably traverse over and up to the ridge proper a little more directly, but the snow can make that impossible. Have fun out there and stay safe!