Trip Report
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Our intention was to start at about 11,200 feet for this climb.
The main trailhead starts at around 9,800, but a 4x4 road goes as high
as 12,800. We wanted to abide by the 3,000 foot rule. So, I
figured we'd go up the 4x4 road a bit. At the first major creek
crossing - around 10,200 feet - our plans were immediately
changed. The creek crossing had a foot bridge for people, but
vehicles were on their own to cross through the water. Since
Colorado had so much snow this year, the melt off coming down the creek
was extreme; too extreme for Scotty and I at least. We had
visions of our rental Durango getting pushed sideways down the creek,
and slamming into the rocks and the foot bridge. Instead we chose
to back up down the road about a 1/4 mile, and we pitched tent
there. This would add about 3 or 4 extra miles to our round trip
hike.
Unlike the previous night, where I had only gotten an hour or so of
sleep, tonight I would get a solid 8 hours. We went to bed at 8
pm, and got up again at 4 am. By 4:45 we were on the trail, err
road. We crossed the creek by the foot bridge. The creek
was still raging. We continued up the road. We did see a
few 4x4 vehicles along the way. These souls were more daring than
we were. As I mentioned before, the road goes all the way up to
12,800. There were a few minor creek crossings along the way, but
we were able to keep our feet dry. We reached 12,800 in just over
2 hours.
Once we reached 12,800 we realize how much snow that we would have to
deal with. We did bring ice axes today, but we didn't bring
crampons. Along the way we had already met another couple.
They had parked above the raging creek, and they did have
crampons. Our first challenge was to traverse a snow field along
the ridge. This wasn't to difficult. This early in the
morning, the snow was still hard as ice. We made it up to a rock
pile, and took a break. At this point, we only had a small amount
of snow that we had to cross. There was plenty of additional
snow, but there was rock that we could also travel on instead. I
chose to continue on the snow, since it was easier for me than the
rocks. Scotty traveled on the rocks. We met back up again
at the bottom of the East Ridge.
We started up the east ridge on loose talus and rock. This sucked
and was tiring. But we managed to eventually gain the
ridge. From here to the summit of Castle we would be mixing class
2 and 3 pretty much. The trail pretty much follows the ridge
proper. It was easy to follow at first. Along the way we
ran into a guy who had gone up a gully to Conundrum, gotten Castle and
was on his way down. He gave us some beta, and we continued on
our way. Somehow, I decided that the trail went right, around the
ridge, instead of straight up. I was wrong. But, that
didn''t stop me. Scotty and I continued around to the
right. It seemed like a legitimate trail. Soon enough we
realized our mistake. You would think that we would have turned
back. Nope! Instead, we attempted to regain the ridge via a
nasty gully climb. It was sketchy at times, and probably
bordering class 4. About half way up, we were commited.
This was not something that we wanted to down climb. For anybody
that doesn't know already, the rock in the Elks is crap rock. A
solid handhold could easily come off in your hands. Now, that's a
real "hand hold." This added to our "fun" in this gully
climb. Ultimately we managed all the loose rock, and regained the
ridge. The rest of the way was a mix of class 2 and 2+. We
finally made Castle in right around 4 hours. We stuck around for
5 minutes, then headed to Conundrum.
We made it down to the saddle pretty quickly. The route was loose
and nasty, but this is the Elks. We started up the Conundrum
ridge and were surprised how quickly we gained the ridge. The
remainder of the route to Conundrum was easy, with only a 200 foot drop
and regain along the ridge. We hit Conundrun about 40 minutes
after leaving Castle. Again, we stayed fro 10 minutes, then
headed down.
Along the way, we had discussed whether we would attempt to glissade
down the snow at the saddle. It looked very steep, and neither of
us had any significant experience glissading. But, that never
stopped me. When we got to the saddle, I started out onto the
snow immediately. Initially, I kicked steps down until I got a
good view of the glissade route. It was steep, but the snow was
soft, and the route was clean. Initially I started down with the
handle and bottom spike in the snow like I had been taught on
Rainier. Immediately though I knew that this wouldn't work.
Meanwhile, I was rocketing down the slopes. Quickly I switched to
putting my pick into the snow like an ice arrest. This worked
better, but it was still difficult to control my speed.
Ultimately I reached the bottom and slowed down naturally. I was
in almost full ice arrest by time I hit the bottom. Scotty saw my
feeble attempt and knew to be cautious. He was probably too
cautious though as he spent about 15 minutes slowing kicking steps,
butt scooting, then setting his ice axe, dropping maybe 30 feet
total. Ultimately Scotty decided that this was taking too long,
and also started a glissade. He attempted to stay in the glassade
trough already in the snow, but slide out of the trough in about 10
feet. At that point, he was out of control. He tried
multiple methods of breaking and ultimately settled down to an ice
arrest method also. Do not try this thing without an axe.
He made it down to me safely. We traversed the snow and got below
the spot where we had initially gained the Castle Ridge. The
glissage probably saved us an hour or so or resummiting Castle and
coming down the ridge.
We got down into the lower snow field. These slopes weren't
nearly as steep as the saddle coulier, and glissading was a no brainer
for me. Scotty was still a bit gun shy, and decided to continue
on the rocks again. As we got closer to 12,800, the snowfields
were less steep and both of us had a blast glissading. We had so
much fun that we even climbed back up to do it again. I was able
to video tape a couple of my later glissades. That was cool.
We got back on the road, and started down. The road was a nice
change of terrain after all of the rock and snow. As we got to
one of the upper creek crossings, we realized that we had missed a
wonderful water fall on our way up. This was at the highest creek
crossing with a large wooden vehicle bridge. We continued down
the road, crossed the foot bridge at the raging creek (10,200 feet),
and made it back to the camp site. We made it back in just over 8
hours round trip.
This was a great hike. We got to practice some snow travel -
without crampons - we got in some glissading, and we got to experience
the rottenness of the Elk rock. Sweet!
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