Thann Scoggin

After a disappointing (but ultimately perspective-building) experience my last time up into the high mountains, I was champing at the bit to get back at it! I’d had a few days to rest my legs while celebrating the wedding of a couple dear friends out in Pittsburgh, and with one day to re-acclimate I decided to get after a classic hike with plenty of potential for wackiness and wonder.

I’d originally planned to do Castle & Conundrum the day before I left for Pittsburgh. I even set a 4am alarm. But when it woke me up, I turned that shit right off and went back to sleep for six more hours. I’d just gotten back from the Sangres the day before, and I realized that I was burned the fuck out. I’d been hiking up above 12,000 ft. roughly 3 out of every 4 days for an entire month. I was mentally ragged, and my legs were actually losing stamina. What a difference a couple days boozing it up with friends can make!

Since I was starting from my home base in Buena Vista and these Elk Range peaks are way around south of Aspen, I’d be getting another ass-early start. The 4wd road up past the Montezuma Mine goes all the way up to 12,800 ft., but I planned on finding a place for the Jeep around 11,000 to make a legit hike of it. This drive would still involve some very sketchy switchbacks and one water crossing that in retrospect I’m terrified I didn’t even flinch at (getting really used to this shit, hehe). After two hours of driving, I was moving my feet by around 6:15.

The first 2.5 miles of hiking were pretty straightforward and a nice warmup, as the slope of the road is relatively gentle. This provided a fantastic opportunity to enjoy the sunrise gradually filling up the southeast-facing valley while still keeping up a quick pace. At the road’s end, I had a brief route-finding challenge to find my way across a marshy area to a small snowfield I’d need to traverse to reach the next tier of Montezuma Basin. There was a well kicked-out trail, though, and the tread on my Peregrines was totally sufficient to get me up and over.

Once past that obstacle, I was finally presented with spectacular views of my two objectives for the day: Castle on the left with its colorful parapets and Conundrum to the right, bisected by its namesake couloir, now largely bereft of snow. I began ascending the steep and loose trail to Castle’s northeast ridge, the view to the milky blue glacial lake getting better and better with every switchback. The hiking became more difficult upon reaching the ridgeline, but at this point the details are blurry as I was much more focused on the increasingly stunning views of the surrounding Elks. As I reached the top of a particularly sketchy scramble, I recall turning around and realizing that, having gained a point higher than the Castle-Conundrum saddle, I had earned an absolutely mesmerizing view of the range’s other 14ers to the northwest.

Around this time I also noticed how close I was to the summit. I could clearly see a couple of figures standing up top, and I quickly scrambled up to join them. The last push up to the top was behind me in no time. The two people I’d seen from below were German scientists attending a conference in Aspen. I talked to them for around 20 minutes while enjoying a snack. While we took turns taking photos for each other, one of them shared stories of some of his other hiking adventures, including a terrifying late-spring attempt of Blanca Peak in which one of his companions suffered a catastrophic fall in the snow. He had survived but had to spend a cold night at very high elevation and was ultimately airlifted out the next day due to some broken bones. Not gonna take that mountain lightly when I get around to it.

Shortly before 9am, with the skies still beautiful and clear, I decided to begin the next stage of this adventure. On the loose but relatively quick downclimb of the northwest ridge, I became frightfully aware of a quickly escalating situation. One of the issues for me with getting these crazy early starts, since when I’m not hiking I’m decidedly NOT a morning person, is that my body often responds as it would to minor trauma. Lockdown mode. Even with a big mug of coffee (catching my drift yet?). And sometimes in my excitement to get up the mountain certain sensations get sublimated until it’s code fucking red. Thankfully, with a little extra scrambling and some creative rock stacking, I managed to avoid crisis on the treeless and dirtless saddle between the two peaks.

The route up to Conundrum was a lot of fun. Kinda loose, but never that treacherous. It’s only about 250 ft to regain, which is why the peak is unranked. The view back over to Castle is magnificent, and as a few clouds began to build to the east the light became more and more interesting. However, my gaze kept turning to the northwest and the Bells, Pyramid, Snowmass, and Capitol. I need to get even closer to those beauties. While negotiating the drop down to the top of Conundrum Couloir, I met a couple other hikers who were planning the same route down from the saddle as I was. I’d given the drop down a cursory glance before climbing Conundrum, but what it had in store was still largely a mystery.

Several of my pics show the steep snowy descent down to the lake. When filled with snow to the top, this makes for a fun glissade, but this late in the summer there was a loose, marble-y scramble and awkward transition down to the remaining snow, which was also in rough shape. My new companions were glad to have an extra set of eyes with them on this, the obvious crux of the hike. It was slow going, and with a couple dudes below me, I had to tiptoe to avoid kicking scree down on them. We kick-stepped our way down a good portion of the rotten glissade-chute, as there were tons of rocks sticking out. About a third of the way down the snow, I paused a bit to let them finish their descent, then slid the rest of the way down. Fun stuff!

Safely navigating that mess had required a massive amount of focus and care, but we were fortunate that the weather that was beginning to build to the east was all very visible during the descent. It also meant that the worst of the weather would be most likely be moving away from us rather than toward us. These storms tend to build unpredictably, though, and with 11am approaching I knew it was time to get off the mountain. I took a second to pull my spikes off, said bye to my new buds, and bounded on down the trail. I knew that if I made it down to the road I’d probably be fine, as I could at least run my ass of if the weather deteriorated quickly.

Thunderclaps became much more frequent as I reached the road, but the sky above still looked safe enough. The thick clouds on the peaks to the east were moving farther in that direction, and it appeared that they had administered quite the beating. Taylor and Star Peaks both had a pretty thick layer of graupel. As I approached Bob the Jeep, there was a lone marmot watching from about 20 ft down the talus. Had he just made a meal of my brake lines? I’d certainly be starting in low gear...