Day 3: 7/27/08: Castle Peak and Conundrum Peak: 14,265/14,060

Stats

6.5 miles	Standard Route – Northeast Ridge and South Ridge	Company: Jeff Sanders Wildlife: marmot, lone goat
3100 feet	Start: 6:00 am (after drive up to 11,200 on 4WD road) Summit: 9:45/11:30 am Stop: 1:00 pm	Weather: Clear/cool – 6:00 am Cloud formation – none Thunder/rain – none

Sleeping in the car is always puzzling to me – a conundrum so to speak. Why is there a chasm between the trunk floor and fold down seats? Why is it freezing one night and mildly tropic another? Why do unidentified animals claw and gnaw at one nearly empty tub under the rear bumper? These are questions without answers which make them frustrating to think about – especially when awakened mere moments into a precious, elusive sleep by a whisper in my right ear, “There’s something trying to eat our junk tub”. Indeed – something was trying to access the Frisbee, folding camp chairs and canvas water dromedary. What is it? Does it want to toss the disc around? Peering into the dark offered no answers. The clawing continues. I’m already leery of mountain lions incising my jugular in the dark woods so while I offered to turn on the car to “scare” it, Jeff walked into the darkness, into the den. The report back was that “it” was a raccoon or badger or possibly a bear cub. Maybe it was an elusive elk behind a rock like on Mount Evans. Any way you slice it, this whole sleeping in the trunk makes for short nights…luckily our morning was a half hour later than usual! So the half hour that “it” stole from us was given back by the kindness of some neighbors camping near us.

Stymied by crossing Castle Creek the night before, Jeff managed to procure a chariot of the Jeep persuasion to erase nearly 7 miles of hiking on 4WD drive road. The chariot would leave at 5:30 sharp for a bumpy jaunt up the undeniable high-clearance terrain. Janet and Glenn of Louisville were merely the first ride of the day as we required help to access and egress these two mountains. Castle and Conundrum seemed frustratingly close yet so very far when equipped with only a rodent-attracting-medium-clearance-crossover-SUV. After being dropped off somewhere near 11,000 feet so as to ensure our 3,000 foot minimum vertical gain, we started trudging up what would come to the first of many 4WD roads on this trip. After picking up my trekking poles by the Jeep, parked at a curve in the road prior to a large snow bank encroaching across the road (they got a ride all the way on accident), we reached the official parking area. We gazed upon a layered series of snow-covered slopes. As we geared up, we watched as Janet and Glenn inched out onto the first snowfield and retreat soon after. Knowing that we would be traversing under steep slopes dripping with the infamous Elks Range rocks, they decided to abort due to having no helmets. Undaunted, with helmets, we left the pair to their foray into the Aspen shopping district and set foot into winter.

Tromping across this gentle pitch, I gave Jeff a few lessons in snow travel and practiced self arrest with mountaineering axes in this low-risk area. Across the first field of snow and up a steeper pitch, we entered the loose, dirty face while gazing up at the exciting ridge scramble to come. Here, my troubles began. Legs of lead and grumbling digestive tract, I followed the advice of a climbing guide I knew: there is always a pace you can follow, slow or fast, that will allow you to keep moving. As my mantra has always been…keep moving, albeit slowly in this case. Keep moving is what I did – but paired with frequent stops to allow legs to recharge and intestinal cramping to subsided, what should’ve been a relatively easy climb became very hard. These mountains have a way of doing this – making a day out of it despite our best preparation and great conditions.

Despite several moments where I was hit with anxiety on the upper pitches, I dragged myself onto the summit to meet Jeff. Those who had gone before us had already descended off the other side to traverse the ridge to Conundrum. A couple we had talked to at Holy Cross and one half of a brother/sister combo from Green Bay, WI could be seen as tiny points of color inching across the rock. Initially, my desire to cross to Conundrum was hindered as I immediately felt more intestinal distress. I needed a few moments to collect myself and decide if I felt well enough to bother with the Conundrum ascent. After the customary jerky and trail mix, and some deep breathing to relax my nerves, I knew that today was too good of a day to say no. The ridge became an exercise in fugitive bowel movements for both of us. Stopping here, hiding there, we left our droppings like mice in the pantry. We should’ve realized that this was a sign for things to come, but the inconsistency of our bathroom visits was in its infant stage.

Days like these become more about physical toughness and sucking up the discomfort. As we watched a father and sons scramble up Conundrum easily, we knew that we could make it – especially with our lightened loads! We sucked it up and we too went up and down easily. The down was made much easier by descending the snow field in the saddle rather than reascending Castle’s Ramparts. Careful down climb for two-thirds of the pitch and glissading for the last bit created kids of us again – not that we act differently usually! (See Jeff’s movie for evidence!) Slip-sliding our way down and regaining dry land, we could see that there was only one car parked by the snow bank. I made an innocent comment like, “It would be really heart-breaking if that last car drove away”. Before finishing this comment, Jeff took off running down the road toward the group of hikers nearing their car. Headlights on. Engine on. Engine off. I jogged as best I could with several days worth of food sloshing around and jumped into the back of the pickup for a ride back to our well-rested vehicle.