The south face of Castle is something I’ve wanted to ski for a long time. It’s a line that is highly visible from the Crested Butte area, yet has only been skied a handful of times due to difficult access. In late March, when I skied Teocalli, I snapped this photo of Castle. On Sunday, we went up the blue route and skied the red one.
At this point in the season, alpine starts are tougher to motivate for, so Brittany and I met up with Andy where he was camping up Brush Creek at the crack of 6:45. From there, my truck had another hour+ of difficult 4wd road to get through. This is why this line doesn’t get skied much- the river crossings were pretty scary, and my truck basically floated over the 2 deepest river crossings. Eventually, we hit a roadblock- this guy high-centered and must have had a long walk out:
The stuck truck was basically at the point we needed to get to anyway- Cumberland Basin. The wilderness has long since reclaimed the road in this valley, but there were faint trails in the area that got us through the willows without too much difficulty.
The low-lying clouds were hiding our objective and made for an especially scenic morning:
Brittany, Teocalli in the background:
Eventually we were under the face of Castle. This is an amazing place- it really reminded me a lot of the high basin under North Maroon.
Since we were off to such a leisurely start, we opted to climb the more W-facing couloir instead of our descent route. Andy:
Brittany and I:
Brittany topping out on the ridge:
Fifteen minutes later, we summited. The Elks still have an incredible amount of snow:
We walked down the ridge a little bit, then dropped into our line. The snow was a little suncupped, runneled, and occasionally icy, but for the end of June, it was pretty good. Frank:
Brittany:
Andy:
Frank:
Andy getting his angle:
Brittany got good photos of gb, too:
As we came out of the “banana” part of the route and into the tight exit couloir, we came right under a waterfall. Summer skiing at its’ finest:
Frank (waterfall upper left of couloir)
Andy:
Brittany:
On our way out, we checked out the old mining ruins. Lou Dawson had a good write-up last summer about these ruins. [url]http://www.wildsnow.com/?p=872[/url]
A view of the face on the way out:
We got back to our shoes and started the hike out. The water level on the little streams we had crossed on the way up had gone up noticeably:
Brittany in the lower valley:
The drive down valley was equally scenic:
In my hurry to get going in the morning, I had neglected to get gas. So I ran out of gas, but thankfully it was almost to Andy’s car, and he was nice enough to run into town and get a gallon of gas for me. Otherwise, it was a great ending to what was, by far, the best season I’ve ever had. Yes, I know there’s still snow to ski, and I’m sure Andy will keep getting after it, but I like to end things on a high note whenever I can (North Maroon last year), and this face of Castle will get me through the summer, no problem. I guess that means it’s officially bike season for me.
[...] to 13,209′, this peak dominates like a mini-Maroon Bell, but stands in the shadow of Castle. Teocalli has been on my list of things to ski for quite awhile and conditions set up perfectly [...]
Hi Frank. I’m thinking of doing Castle from the Crested Butte side with several ladies at end of August. Can you tell us how long it took you round trip and is snow and couloir the only option to summit?
Hi Summer. Cumberland Basin is definitely a viable summer route for Castle Peak. In Dawson’s book, he describes the summer route as 9 hours and roughly 3500′, which seems about right based on my experience in that basin as a snow climb. The summer route aims for the ridge between Castleabra and Castle.
The hardest part will be the drive- someone in your group needs a good 4×4 to get all the way to the trailhead. The creeks have just started coming down in the last week or so, but they’re still quite high for this time of year. Also, you’ll need to navigate the basin which only has remnants of an old trail/road, so getting caught up in willows will slow you down considerably. We had good luck on the climber’s right going up the valley.
Cumberland Basin is an amazing place an you will be rewarded if you give it a try. Of course, there are many other peaks in the Crested Butte area that are worth climbing as well, and most of them have trip reports (usually from springtime) on this website as well. Have fun!