Colonial Peak, Snowfield Peak & Pyramid Peak — Wednesday, Jul. 29, 2020

I was thinking about to climb these peaks for a long time. I remember when I've seen these peaks from Diablo lake overlook and thought how cool would be to climb them. Finally it did happen!

Trail is pretty good up to Pyramid lake where it splits in two different parts and the connects again. We took climbers right on ascent and climbers left on descent, left one looks steeper and some parts more exposed, right one has some class 3 short scrambles. Basically doesn't matter which one you go. There is no water after the lake until you reach snow, refill it before the lake! Sustained snow starts at travers before colonial glacier, here we put crampons and ice axes on. There is a glacier lake that we panned to walk around by it's left side but as appeared ice got melted and we scrambled up to 5900 camp and then traversed lake by rock to the base of Colonial climb.

Here we stashed some overnight gear and started the climb. It starts with some steep snow, not too steep but it's better to use ice axe here, we climbed up to the thumb rock and turned left. Here is short scramble part. Scramble not difficult but may be loose. There is rap station for rappel, but we downclimbed this part, just take it easy. There is talus field after the scramble which was pretty easy. Lots of flowers here! After the talus snow traverse up to the summit notch. Nothing crazy but take it easy. Final scramble was little bit loose but basically ok and not too exposed. Same way down. Here we picked up our gear and started climb to the 6800 col. There are 3-4 flat camping spots available at the col. There is running water.

Next morning we roped up for glacier and headed towards Snowfield peak. Glacier was in excellent shape, some crack were easy cross, very few crevasses were easy to walk around. Snowfield is beautiful. When we reached west ridge we dropped crampons/poles and some other gear. Hiked up couple hundred feet, then easy scramble starts. We scrambled up to the notch and continued further through notch but not left as other team did. Downclimb from notch was pretty easy. Here final scramble starts. We brought our 30m rope and some rock pro but did't use it at all, scramble was in between class 3 and 4 in my opinion. Nothing hard just take it easy again and make sure there is no other team above you, there is some loose rock here. Spent some time on the summit and downclimbed it same way. Hiked out to the camp.

I convinced my partners to climb Pyramid as well. They chose some tricky traverse from the col to Paul Bunyans Stump are which was pretty stupid and ended up with some exposed downclimbs. I just went down by colonial glacier and climbed up to Pyramid trail base. I spent about 20 min sitting on the rock and watching my partners trying to get down. When we reunited again we headed up to Pyramid, we chose straight line towards Pyramid with some steep slope traverses. Pyramid summit just walk. Got some photos and went down. We thought to get on the rock at Colonial climb base but went through the lake by ice which was not too smart.

Hiked out same way.
Some stats here https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/5295692211 Track has some defect, straight line between  Paul Bunyans Stump and Pinnacle peak.

Definitely one of the best trips I have done.