Conundrum Peak - 14,060 ft

Castle Peak - 14,265 ft

Date:  6-17-2005

Climbers: George Barnes, Doug Shaw, MarkDB

Route:  Conundrum Couloir II, Class 3, Steep Snow

RT distance: ~8.0 miles

Elevation gain:  3,800 feet

Coordinates of TH:  39° 0.55'N, 106° 49.73'W

Coordinates of summit:  39° 0.58'N, 106° 51.68'W

USGS Quadrangles:  Hayden Peak
 

Trip Report:

Doug and I met up with Mark in Buena Vista for dinner at Quincy's. If you haven't been to Quincy's, you owe it to yourself to check out their fillet mignon dinner. It's the only thing on the menu - all you have to do is pick your size.  After dinner we caravanned over Independence Pass en route to Aspen.

We drove down Castle Creek road as the sun set, reaching the 4WD portion of the road as the last useable light faded. We soon reached the stream crossing and stopped to evaluate the water. The water was running pretty high and fast, but Doug was willing to give it a shot in his Dakota. After seeing Doug's successful crossing, Mark followed in his Tacoma. We were able to drive a ways past the crossing (0.5 - 1 mi?) before snow drifts blocked further passage. After setting up camp, we set our alarms for 4 AM.

Four AM was fast to come, and the Snail Brothers were slow in getting out of their tent.  When we finally got moving, we discovered another party camped at the road closure, who also intended to the Conundrum Couloir.  We progressed quickly up the road, making good time by walking on the snow-free patches.  I suspect the road will be melted out quite a bit further in a week or two (but watch the stream crossing!).

As we gained elevation and fellow Snail Brother Doug left me in his dust I began to realize that today could be interesting for me.  I'd spent the last 8 days in Iowa at about 1,000 feet of elevation, and had come almost directly from Iowa to 10,000+ feet.

Mark and I put our crampons on while we were still walking up the snow covered road.  The grade of the road didn't require crampons, but the snow was frozen hard, and side-hilling on the drifts took quite a bit of effort and attention without crampons.

At 12,800 ft we reached the end of the 4WD road, and I cached some non-essential items in a stuff sack.  After doing so I felt much better, and actually took turns breaking snow with Mark up to the basin.

We reached the base of the couloir way too late in the day, 8:45 AM.  Cautious inspection of the snow yielded encouraging results.  Much of the couloir had been shaded all morning, so the snow was still climbable.  After donning a helmet I led up the first stretch of the couloir as Doug and Mark followed.  Higher up the snow got harder, and we switched to "low-dagger" mode for some stretches.  After letting Doug lead the middle pitch, Mark led the final traverse/pitch up to the right of the enormous cornice.  The cornice looked foreboding from below, but it is easily bypassed on the right.  Topping out required just a little mixed climbing with crampons, but nothing too serious.

The summit gave us panoramic views of the Elks (), and a great perspective on Cathedral Peak, which Doug and I would climb the next day.  We saw the other party just reach the base of the couloir as we were on the summit.  They opted for a ridge route up Castle, which seemed prudent giving increasing temperatures and direct sun on the couloir.

We didn't waste any time on the summit of Conundrum, and soon began our trip to the Castle-Conundrum saddle. 

By 11:45 we reached the summit of Castle, and here we took the time to refuel and scope out a different view of the couloir we'd just climbed.  While lounging on the summit, 2 other parties summited, one from FourteenerWorld, the other from 14ers.com.  Small world!  All parties that summited Castle that day did so within 30 minutes of one another, and all by different routes!

Our descent took us down the NE ridge, until we reached a snowfield with sufficient snow for a glissade to the basin.  Our glissade path sloped from left to right, so we had to glissade a short ways,  traverse across the snow, and repeat.

We knew that fellow 14er member Jerry S. would be hiking up Castle the next day, so on our way out we took the time to stomp out a big greeting for him in the snow at 12,000 feet.

The rest of the hike out was pretty uneventful.  The snow had softened up quite a bit, but not so bad that we post holed.  Snow shoes definitely weren't required.  All in all a great day hiking in the Elks!