This had already been a great week for 14ers, having bagged two that I had previously been unable to summit in prior years, but I still had one more hike planned to take on the double summits of Castle Peak (14,265) and Conundrum Peak (14,060) in the Elk Range near Aspen. The Elks contain some of the most difficult 14ers in the state, including Capitol Peak, the Maroon Bells and Pyramid Peak. The rock here is notoriously rotten and the terrain often very steep. Castle and Conundrum are considered the two easiest 14ers in the Elks, rated only at "difficult class 2", so these were the two that we would be targeting on Friday, July 22. Nicole and Laura were still with me, and Laurie also made her way down from Longmont to join us on this one.
As we had done twice before, we were up again before sunrise to make the ~45 minute drive as far up a 4wd road as Nicole was comfortable making to begin our trip. The weather forecast was a 60% chance of storms after 2:00, and after our experience dodging lightning on Mt. Sneffels, we really hoped to be back in the Jeep before then. The paved road to the official trail head leaves a 13.5 mile round trip, but with the right vehicle, you can drive all the way up to 12,800 feet and cut the distance to less than 2 miles. Our target was about 3 miles up the 4wd road to the junction with the Pearl Pass Road, which would make our round trip about 7 miles, with much of that an easy hike up the road.
We got to the junction about 6:00 AM after Nicole again showed some really good 4wd skills. Pearl Pass road goes off into the distance. Montezuma Basin, where we were headed, goes out of frame to the right.
We geared up and started our 2 1/2 mile hike up the road. The valley obstructed much viewing beyond its steep walls, and our targets were actually nestled in a sharp bend at the top of the valley, so we couldn't see them until we in the basin below them. This picture looks back down the road from about 12,500 feet.
We did have a couple instances where the moon could be seen through notches in the hillside that didn't photograph terribly well but looked really cool.
At the parking area at 12,800 feet, we were able to see up the talus field that lead to the basin that held Castle and Conundrum. The 13,790 foot saddle between C&C can be seen in the center of the picture, but we'd have to ascend into the upper basin before we could see the actual peaks themselves.
As we entered the basin at 13,200 feet, we could see the summit of Castle to our left (south)...
...and Conundrum to our right.
The trail switchbacked steeply up the side of the NE ridge, then followed it along to the summit of Castle. It wasn't a long hike, but it had a lot of gain in a very short time. The rock here consisted of a lot of flatter, sharper chunks, almost like slate in a lot of places. There was a fair amount of class 2 scrambling, and we still had to check frequently that hand holds wouldn't just give way when we put any weight on them. Some pretty large rocks were uncomfortably loose as we made our way up them, so we tried to be very careful.
.8 miles took us about 1:40 minutes from the end of the road, up the ridge wall, traversing the ridge and reaching the summit. I was the first to get there, and when I pulled myself up onto the summit itself, I was a little surprised to see a couple guys and girl in their mid 20s on the far side...completely naked. Although naked summit selfies are apparently a thing, I've never personally participated nor witnessed one until just then. One of the guys saw me, laughed, said "oh man, I didn't realize you guys were so close behind us!", adjusted his camera and got back with the other two to get their shots. They finished and started to get dressed just as the other three in my group made their way up. Full moons aside, and like most of the summits, the scenery was incredible, but also unique to any summit I'd been on yet.
Conundrum Peak could be seen almost half a mile away to the north, with 13,943 foot Cathedral Peak in the background along the same ridge.
To the northwest as the view of the rest of the Elks, the monsters of the 14er world. It was really cool to be looking at them from this vantage point, above the tops of all of them.
Castle Peak, my 27th 14er summit.
Nicole, Laurie and Laura showing some love for Fox Creek Fitness.
Me and my hiking buddies, completely dressed.
Soon it was time to traverse the saddle to Conundrum. This would require downclimbing about 500 feet, but only having to reascend less than 300 to get to Conundrum's lower summit. (Consequently, because there is less than 300 feet of prominence between the two peaks, Conundrum is actually an "unofficial" 14er...a USGS named summit that doesn't meet the requirements to be a standalone 14er. There are 3 others like that in the state, which explains why different people give different answers to the questions "how many 14ers are there in Colorado?" My "list" contains the 58 named peaks, while the more stringent "official" list contains 54. <thanks for the info, Norm!>)
Here is Laurie making her way down from the summit of Castle.
And looking back up the ridge to Castle's summit.
Throughout the hike, we kept a nervous eye on the low point of the saddle below Conundrum, as this was going to be the area from which we would drop into the basin and meet back up with the trail on the other side of the lake below. From far away it looked ridiculously steep, and from above it, it didn't look too much better.
Still, our next goal was to summit Conundrum, and we'd worry about the exit later. The climb up it was more difficult class 2 but was pretty short, and we were at the southern tip of the long 14,000 foot ridge.
The true summit was on the far side of this ridge and would require a short scramble into and out of a 50 foot notch. From the summit of Castle, this notch can be seen at the top of the snow filled col.
Up close, it looked like this.
It took maybe 30 minutes to do the traverse, and soon we were on top of Conundrum Peak. Continuing along this ridge, Cathedral Peak is a bit closer than it was from the top of Castle Peak on the left side of the picture.
The 4wd road that we hiked up can be seen below on the right side of this picture.
Conundrum Peak - my 28th 14er summit.
With Nicole, Laurie and Laura.
The view back to Castle Peak, some 250 feet above us now, was amazing. We had just hiked up the ridge from the left side and came down the saddle on the right. That snow reaching "almost" all the way up to the saddle is where we would need to go to glissade down and keep us from having to reascend Castle to get back to the trail head.
It was about 11:00, 5 hours into our hike, when we started to make our way back off the summit of Conundrum and onto the saddle below. The clouds were starting to get heavier, but still nothing that indicated an impending storm would be on us anytime soon. We had been watching some hikers in front of us, and each time, it seemed that the drop from the saddle to the snow was done extremely slowly and carefully, indicating that the terrain was not going to be easy to climb down. Indeed, this was one of the most difficult areas of our entire week on any mountain. Four of us had to make our way down at least 50 feet of rock and dirt to get to the snow which we hoped would still be deep enough to allow us to glissade without completely slicing ourselves up on the rocks it was covering.
Laura took the lead here and very cautiously made her way over the edge, looking for anything she could hold onto that would allow her to slowly lower herself foot by foot toward the snow without taking a sudden quick but badly ending tumble down that slope. It was hard to find much, and we had to scoot with our butts on the rocks for a lot of it which unfortunately meant a LOT of rock falling below us. None of us could really safely move until everyone had gotten out from directly under their path, and there just weren't many good places to pull over on the way down. It was a frustratingly slow process, made all the more nerve racking by the sound of voices above that surely couldn't have seen us below and the clouds continuing to get heavier.
Eventually Laura dropped far enough to get in a pretty well formed chute in the snow that would drop us a good 100 feet toward the lake below. She got herself in the chute and started to slide, controlling her speed with her feet and polls the best she could. She was a natural, though, and looked like a pro as she slid down toward the lake. I was next, and having never glissaded before, I was a little nervous. I made my way into the chute and started to slide, a couple of times gaining too much speed and frantically rolling onto my side to dig my poles in above me like a stake to stop myself. It was a little frightening, but I got safely to Laura down below without any major injuries.
Laurie was next. The climb down was one of the toughest hike segments she had ever done, and I could tell she was very nervous as she scooted down the rocks to the snow below, but she asked a lot of questions about where to go and we guided her to the chute. She had also never glissaded, and she was very careful as she slid a few feet then stopped. Slid a little further then stopped. Again and again until she was also safely down. Finally, Nicole made her way in and fought for control as she plowed her way down the embankment. In the end, we were all a bit wet and shook up a bit but incredibly relieved to be down that hill (at least past the hardest part).
From above the lake and still in the middle of the snow field, we traversed across to the bare rocks on the Conundrum side of the basin. You can see in the background the track we used to get down the slope.
This picture from further below gives a little better perspective of how far we had to slide to get down the slope.
The hard part was finally over and was every bit as difficult as we imagined it would be. The next segment was larger talus that we had to rock hop down to get back to the parking area at 12,800 feet. From there, we had another 2.5 miles of road to gently hike down to get back to the Jeep. It took us about
8 hours to finish the hike. And about 10 minutes into our 4wd crawl back to civilization within the cozy confines of the Jeep, it started to rain. Timing....perfect.
The hour long hike back down the road was a great time to reflect on what had been achieved that week. I'd climbed two 14ers that I had previously failed to summit. I had gotten my first experience with peaks in the Elks. I got to try my hand (or rather my butt) at glissading. And I realized that I felt better physically on my hikes this week than I had on any 14ers I had ever done. Granted, they were generally shorter than average, but we still spent a lot of time on the trails and did a lot of steep scrambling. I had also been on a "power hiking" week the week before with multiple 15+ mile hikes and also a lot of elevation gain that hobbled me by the time I was done, and I didn't know if that would come back to haunt me on the high peaks or if it would help once I recovered. Seems it actually was much more of the latter.
And so ended my third annual SW Colorado 14er-fest, and this was the most successful and memorable yet. I've done all the "easy" San Juan 14ers now by Lake City (with the exception of San Luis), and the rest will be much more of a challenge and in no way a sure thing, but I plan to be back there again for more attempts. To my friends in high places, thank you for the company and for the experiences that I won't soon forget. Cheers!
