Trip Report
Day Hike - Mount Rose Conditioner for Scramblers
A fun scramble conditioner, complete with some adventure hiking, no rain, and a watermelon!!!
Ron Jones
- Sun, Apr 20, 2025
- Day Hike - Mount Rose
- Mount Rose
- Climbing, Scrambling & Day Hiking
- Successful
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- Road rough but passable
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Typical Mt Rose. The first mile is a decent trail, the second mile a bit chunky, the third mile up is rougher and we hit firm snow around 3,500' where we put on Microspikes.
The road has a few sizable potholes. Nothing that a typical car can't handle with care.
We set off from the TH at 7:30AM. Mostly cloudy and in the mid to high 40's. We decided to be bold and start cold since it goes uphill within 3-½ minutes walk. It was the smart choice. We kept a steady climbers pace with a focus on infrequent and very short stops.
We hit the snow boot pack around 3,500' and put on microspikes. Most of the time footing was good, but there were some melt spots that required care, as well as occasional post holing. The final 200' was somewhat challenging given the snow is not full cover, but partially melted. We had to take care to avoid slipping or dropping a let into a deep void. This slowed our progress.
We got a bit of a view at the summit and had a 30 minute break (including a participant used a watermelon for some of their carried weight).
And then the group decided to give the loop a try instead of going back down the same way. The snow on the ridge was also bootable. We had a few spots to negotiate, but overall, a safer way to go down.
Back at Horse Camp, we took a short break, where it almost started to rain, but didn't. Then another time ½ down that it spit a little, but never rain. As we drove away at 2PM, it started to rain. PERFECT!!!
Our round trip time was 6.5 hours for the 6.5 miles.