We’re pretty excited about this one. Headed to Chicago basin tomorrow to try to ski Windom, Sunlight, and Eolus peaks. The cool thing about this trip is that the best and easiest access is to take the Durango-Silverton train to reach the trailhead.
Meanwhile, Pete finally got some of his photos up from Long’s Peak, so here’s a few more from that day:
The crew: Pam, Chris, Pete, Brittany, Norm, plus me. Yeah, a little large, but what the hell.
Ah, there’s nothing like a 1:30am alarm clock on a Saturday night (or is that a Sunday morning?) The cops were out in full force, it being the weekend before cinco de Mayo. It would have almost been fun to get pulled over: “You been drinking?” “Yeah, coffee, and a lot of it, and that smell is polypro, not alcohol, so beat it, Mr Ocifer.” Brittany and I were off the hook for running shuttle, so we went straight to the Long’s Peak trailhead while the others dropped a car off at Wild Basin.
We were skinning by 3:45 or so, on one of the most heavily beaten paths of any fourteener. By treeline, the sun was starting to come out:
Who the hell smiles with a lack of sleep?
Chasm lake is an amazing place. Diamond face:
Our route followed the obvious Loft couloir on the left:
The bootpacking up the couloir was perfect.
Near the top, you hit a cliffband and are confronted with a choice: right through a difficult and potentially icy step, or left onto an exposed ramp system. We chose left. Brittany:
Brittany and Chris:
Once on top of the Loft, the high plateau between Meeker and Long’s, we made our way down through tedious boulders to make our way to the upper part of Keplinger’s couloir on the mountain’s S side. We purposefully dropped a little extra elevation below Clark’s Arrow, having heard that it was easier and faster to do so.
I actually enjoyed the scrambling in this area a lot. Brittany:
Once we were off the rocks, the climb remained exposed, but we were on great snow for our traverse across the ledges and finally the homestretch. Brittany and Pam:
The huge summit of Long’s:
The skiing was quite good- some powder and some corn. Brittany drops the homestretch, a few feet below the summit:
There were a few rocky sections to slide through, but overall, coverage was pretty good.
Pete:
me:
Chris:
Norm:
Pam:
Brittany:
Yes, the route does continue all the way above Brittany in the shot below. Keplinger’s is a pretty cool route, it goes even though it doesn’t look like it should or even can.
back to Pete:
Long’s S side:
Our ascent traversed below the cliffs from the looker’s right, near the black rock band. The couloir is fairly obvious. This ptarmigan, however, is not so obvious:
Some guys were just getting to the base of the couloir at 3:30(???), but we were happy to have their tracks to follow until we reached Sandbeach lake (Meeker right, Long’s left).
From that point on, we put the “wild” in wild basin. There is a reason that area is well-known for being a bushwack from hell, and our experience wasn’t much different. Imagine this for two hours, but with less and less snow as we descended, eventually walking through the forest until we hit the trail we wanted.
Right around hour 13, we walked off the trail and into the parking area. Woohoo, beer-thirty, we thought. But oh, no, Long’s wasn’t done with us yet. Dry as the road may have been, it was still gated another couple of miles down the road. It was tough remembering all the good turns Keplinger’s provided us at that point, but the truck and the beers arrived soon enough.
Long’s is probably considered the preeminent climber’s peak in all of CO. It has it all- Huge classic multi-pitch routes on the Diamond, great scrambling routes, ice routes, and mixed routes. Sadly for us skiers, what the park lacks in snowfall, it makes up in wind, making snow routes difficult to find in condition. The silver lining of this was that the North Face Cables route, which I wanted to ski, never filled in. That route has 800′ of good skiing, whereas Keplinger’s has almost 3 grand. So in the end, I feel like we lucked out and ended up having a great tour de Long’s.
Yesterday, Brittany, Pam, Pete, Chris, Norm, and I skied Keplinger’s couloir on Long’s peak. We ascended via the Loft couloir and traversed near Clark’s Arrow to reach the upper Keplinger’s couloir and the homestretch. We then skied Keplinger’s in its’ entirety all the way through Wild Basin, which is every bit as bad of a bushwhack as everyone says.
Going into this season with 10 remaining fourteeners, I was most worried about Capitol for its’ difficulty, Culebra for its’ access issues, and Long’s and whether or not it would have snow. Longs’ North Face never did fill in, but Keplinger’s did- barely.
Anyway, a more complete TR with photos will be coming soon….
TR Capitol Peak 4/28/08: The Icing on the Birthday Cake
I honestly had no intention of skiing Capitol Peak. I did desire to summit, but still was not necessarily expecting this. Sean, Chris, Pete and Frank had all attempted Capitol before – this was certainly a mountain that required patience and perseverance. My role was innocent bystander, maybe climb up to the end of the knife-edge then wish the boys good fortune, rappel back down the secret couloir and ski the beautiful corn slopes in Pierre Lakes basin until they returned. But here is the real story, at least from my perspective:
4/27/08
The tour into our basecamp 4.5 miles up toward Moon Lakes goes smoothly even though we had a crack of noon start, it is unseasonably cold so the snow is still firm and we skin right from the trailhead. The smooth rhythmic pace of skinning on snow feels much easier on the body compared to hiking up the same dry rocky trails carrying a 60 pound angry midget (quote Don Pedro) on your back. Camp is set in one of the most beautiful places I have ever been, with a direct view of Mt. Daly’s East face, and Capitol well out of sight. Finally, an excuse to use the VE25 I insisted on buying this winter! This being the tent’s maiden voyage, the per night cost is now roughly equivalent to the Ritz-Carlton. Alarms set, I lay down, read for some time, then just turn off the headlamp and close my eyes. I never sleep before these alpine starts, regardless of the peak.
4/28/08
Chris’ iPhone explodes into a latin marimba at 2:30am, sounding like a cruel joke by a bad roommate. Unless I am just going to bed, I am a total bitch at this time in the morning. Chris heroically starts the stove, makes coffee and oatmeal to stir me out of my mood. I packed the night before and slept in my ski clothes, so all I need to do is shove my feet into my still wet but thankfully warm because I slept with them in my sleeping bag boot liners. Fortunately we also pumped enough water last night from the nearby water hole because the filter immediately freezes in the frigid morning temps. Off we go, skinning up the solidly frozen snow to our 1st landmark of the day, one in a million couloir. It is so cold I still wear my puff-ball jacket on the skin up, something I don’t even do in the middle of winter. My bottle of Accelerade turns to slush inside the insulated sleeve on my belt. Pete’s camelback tube is frozen also. Eventually the rising sun lights the sky pink behind us as we reach the couloir, remove our skins, and descend into spectacular Pierre Lakes basin. After traversing a short distance Capitol finally appears, with the seemingly impenetrable cliffs 400ft below the east face. I say to myself “there is no fucking way I’m skiing that.”
Here is where the real climbing begins, I still feel good and stick with my hope of getting up to the summit then downclimbing while the guys ski. We switch to crampons and ice axes to begin the long, steep bootpack to our next destination, the top of secret couloir at the end of Capitol’s infamous knife-edge ridge. Here on the ridge the summit looks so close, I honestly think we will be there in an hour. Here on the ridge, 3 feet in one direction or the other leads to a certain-death fall. At this point Chris and I have a conference to decide whether I will continue or not. I really want to summit but emphatically do not want to ski – but for some reason I still keep the option. The ascent from the top of secret couloir to the summit involves technical climbing on rocks and snow with crampons and ice axes and takes more like 3hrs. Problem is I like the mixed climbing and feel very confident doing so. Frank whimpers when faced with the rock problems, exclaiming “I just want to put my skis on!” I on the other hand keep thinking “this is fun – but how in the hell am I going to get down?” Chris finally puts Frank on belay while I chase Pete who is leading to the summit.
After the initial summit excitement, Chris and I talk about our descent options. I am too scared to ski, but when I seriously consider the challenge of downclimbing what we just ascended, it seems an even worse option. Pete and Frank try their hardest to convince me I can ski it. So I click into my skis and start hyperventilating like our 11 year old lab who hates to ride in the truck. Frank starts skiing, carefully side slipping to cut snow and check conditions before committing to a turn. His attitude changed dramatically once he strapped those boards to his feet! So did mine: “Tables turn and now her turn to cry” – Jagger/Richards. Frank and Pete send down some small sluffs that are of concern to me, but the snow still seems good and they appear to ski confidently (you’ll have to ask them how confident they really were). One is tempted to keep skiing down, down into the snow blanketed basin of Pierre Lakes – yet you know the softly curving slope ends in cliffs. Chris follows next and patiently waits for me to descend while providing encouragement and advice (“a little bit icy here, some rocks there…”). I make 2 turns on the descent before traversing into the top of secret couloir. I am mostly side slipping and using my whippet every few feet to dig into the slope – quite sure it would never actually hold me if it needed to, but somehow using this as a mental crutch to get down. While Pete and Frank set up the rappel at the top of secret couloir, we watch in horror as Chris takes the last traverse too fast, falls and rolls ass over teakettle along the ridge. Another foot and he was either tumbling off the sheer north face or the cheese-grater rocky entrance to the right of secret couloir.
Big sighs of relief as we finally rappel down the narrow entrance of secret couloir to where it widens and we put our skis back on. We now easily triple the number of turns we have made descending to Pierre Lakes, where we pick up some gear we left and stare up in awe at the tracks on the face we just skied above the cliffs. Did we really just ski that? Instead of the usual pumped-up “I just skied from the summit” party-on feeling, I am humbled. “That was completely retarded,” is about all I can say. While proud of my accomplishment and facing my fears I can’t help feeling it is the dumbest thing I have ever done, and that I was just lucky enough to descend without incident. There is really no good reason to ski Capitol Peak in my book – but if you do bring Depends™.
Nevertheless, we return to camp around 6pm, the tequila is the best I’ve ever tasted, the reconstituted dinner the finest meal ever eaten. I never would have made it up or down that mountain without the strength, leadership, and encouragement of Pete, Frank, and of course my husband Chris. I owe it all to you guys, thanks for icing my 40th birthday cake!
-pam
