Gladstone Peak - SW Ridge

Gladstone Peak is one of the more dramatic and beautiful 13ers in the state. Steep, chossy ridgelines span off in each direction, like a tilted compass. The first time I saw it in 2019, from the El Diente-Wilson traverse, I distinctly remember being in awe of the sleek, symmetrical ridgeline going up the south side. At the time, I didn't really have any knowledge of all the incredible peaks across the state that didn't reach the golden 14k mark. I knew this one was Gladstone, and hoped someday I would be able to come back.

After finishing the 14ers later that fall, my peakbagging phase drastically fizzled out for a few years; climbing had become the new focus. While on Lizard Head in 2022, my friend Theo and I were captivated by Gladstone's left skyline (when viewed from the east), realizing it was the same beauty from years prior; I filed + saved it in my brain. After moving to Durango in the fall of 2023, my love for romping around the high country had returned en force. The San Juans are vast, and I've enjoyed finding routes and linkups without much information.

This fall, scrolling around the map of local-ish peaks, I got psyched to go and check Gladstone out. To my surprise, a route I hadn't seen before was uploaded on the page: "The Southwest Ridge". Not trying to diss the upload ( I was grateful to find anything on the route), but I was slightly bummed to only see 4 pictures, with rather vague descriptions. I love a sense of adventure, but felt like this upload could have used some more info! I figured if I checked out the route, I'd make sure to take some detailed photos and write a report to supplement.

I set off from the Lizard Head TH at 2:30. Started off hot by making a needless detour, missing access to the Slate Creek basin. I ended up going all the way to the Cross Mountain - Lizard Head saddle and then skirted the N side of Cross Mountain. I figured I could drop in somewhere from above, and eventually found myself on Gladstone's East Ridge. Kicking myself for forgetting to look at the map; now unsure if I was going to find a spot to sneak into the basin.

First views of Gladstone

I eventually found a decent chute to ride down into the basin, where I started heading towards the Wilson-Gladstone saddle. This section was all boulder hopping. Occasionally, one would have a mind of its own or move, but overall the travel through here was not terrible. Arriving at the base of the slope leading up to the saddle appeared to be the first difficult section. After a bit of scree crawling, I got on solid class 4. My route weaved up to the right side of a large tower-like feature that rises right out of the saddle (Seen in pic 1). If approaching from Rock of Ages, the uploaded route says you can climb this formation directly at 5.6, or skirt around it. Coming from the east, it is doable to keep it at 4th/low 5th to the base of the large wall about 1/4 of the way up the ridge.

I arrived at the base of the clean, out-of-place, 300-foot wall. This feature looks to be great rock quality, and there are surely some crack lines worth checking out/adding into this ridge. The crux of the standard way up is just to the left of this, taking a spooky ~ 5.5 jungle block chimney.

I found the crux to be difficult. I started with maybe 10 feet of 5.6/7 hand jams seen directly in the middle of the photo. Mantel to a stance, weave, and ascend giant blocks (still 5th) into a sort of chimney. It's worth stating that the rock quality in this section is far from ideal. I tried to clean up the obvious stuff, but at the end of the day it's choss. I don't feel the original route added to the page stated this with enough detail.

Once you are through this section, the exposure ramps up majorly. There are definitely options to avoid some of the cruxes along the ridgeline, but I didn't explore any of this terrain and remained true to the ridgeline. It still looked technical and likely not as clean of rock as the crest, but might give the sense of less exposure. There are multiple mandatory cruxes along the ridge that would require major effort to avoid down below. Most of these are blocky segments where the quality of the rock has to be checked before making big moves. Genuinely thought the movement and exposure on this ridge were incredible, but the freshness and objective hazard detracted from my enjoyment.

The final notch requires awkward moves around a blocky tower. Exposure is real, but probably can be figured out at class 4. Very fresh and loose section. Climbing out of the notch requires more 4th - low 5th class on a quality section of rock. Different from the blocky, loose character of the rest of the ridge, the rock is slabby and solid, with a good corner system. Once you're through this, a small bit of 3+ leads up to a wonderful summit.

Climb out of the notch - Solid

It was around 6 pm, and I was debating going down the N ridge, into Bilk basin, and running back over the pass, but I settled on reversing the route and skimming back around the S side of Cross to get back to the TH. I hung out, took my time reversing the route, and was back to the saddle around 7:15. I rocked the last light all the way to the end of the rock glacier, keeping my headlamp off for the entire boulder field as hundreds of thousands of moths were popping out from underneath the rocks. Really, the worst part of the day was side-hilling around Cross to get back to the trail. Probably a better way to do this, but I just wanted to be on the trail in the dark!

Looking back at Gladstone before the sidehilling begins.

Overall, this ridge was a dream to check out, incredibly aesthetic from afar, and had lots of great movement. I don't feel as though it's one I would do again, and the rock quality was rather poor. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who hasn't scrambled around the San Miguels, Cimarrons, or Sneffles range frequently; even then, my recommendation would be with caution. It wouldn't take much for anyone to set something loose. I think this route, having been submitted on Gladstone's main page, is perhaps a bit of a sandbag. While I'm not against the submission at all, I hope this report can fill in some gaps for those genuinely curious about the route!