Aiguille De Fleur

Category: Colorado (RMNP)Summit Elev: 11,940 ftRock Type: Granite & Gneiss
Date: July 26, 2021 (Mon)Trip Report #: 483Partner: solo

Route: South Ridge (5.4)

A good day out in the mountains: 20 mile round trip with lots of flowers and a spectacular summit.

Intro

Aiguille de Fleur is a granite monolith above the East Inlet valley. It's name—French for "Tower of Flowers"— likely comes from the fact that it is surrounded by flowery meadows and even has a grassy summit plateau speckled with flowers. It is fairly deep into the park, being accessed from Grand Lake by about 8 miles of trail and some off-trail travel. It makes for a nice endurance day.

The steep east face of the Aiguille de Fleur is reputed to have the best rock climbing on the west side of the Rock Mountain National Park. So when I had a free day and the weather looked great, I decided to check it out. I climbed the South Ridge route to the summit, which is mostly 3rd class with a 50-foot 5.4 section of climbing just below the top of the tower. The 5.4 section was no problem to solo in rock shoes (it would have been fine in approach shoes too, but I had brought rock shoes and was actually glad to have them because my approach shoes had gotten wet on the approach). The South Ridge is also the easiest line of descent. Plus, climbing this route gives one the opportunity to traverse right underneath the east face and check it out.

The following page gives a trip report for my solo adventure.

Time Stats

East Inlet Trailhead to base of East Face: 3 hours 47 minutes
Base of East Face to Summit (via South Ridge): 41 minutes
Summit back down to Base of East Face: 41 minutes
Base of East Face to trailhead: 3 hours 46 minutes
Total car-to-car (includes breaks): 9 hours

Route Overlay

Photos

Approach

2nd-3rd

From the East Inlet Trailhead in Grand Lake, hike the East Inlet Trail to Spirit Lake, about 8 miles from the trailhead. Just before Spirit Lake, cross the outlet stream on a log and bushwhack directly up the drainage into the alpine basin beneath the east face.

East Inlet Trailhead.

Morning light on the river. This river flows from the mountains into Grand Lake.

Nice steps on the East Inlet Trail.

The end of the maintained trail is at the outlet of Lake Verna. A path continues to Spirit Lake.

Outlet of Spirit Lake. Cross here....

...and then bushwhack up through forest to the basin below the east face of Aiguille de Fleur.

It had rained hard the previous evening, so my feet got a bit soaked on the approach. Felt like I was back in the North Cascades again!

The towering east face of Aiguille de Fleur.

One of several flowery meadows along the way. In this photo are Indian paintbrush, elephant's head, daisy, and arnica.

Alpine columbine.

Daisy.

I found a cam dropped by some climber from a route on the east face.

South Ridge

5.4

From the basin, head up to the base of the east face. Hike southward under the east face. Scramble west up a grassy (or snowy) ramp that leads to a sharp notch south of the summit plateau. From the notch, climb a 50-foot wall (5.4) on the north, then scramble to the top.