Is this possible? Traverse from Conundrum to Cathedral?

[mattpayne11]

I'm helping someone plan some routes and I'm wondering if this traverse is even feasible...

[susanjoypaul]

Yup.

[cheeseburglar]

He sure made that sound pretty easy in that trip report!

[mattpayne11]

Yup.

Um wow. LOL.

Agree with Cheese on this one. Sounds more like he narrowly escaped death by mud or lightning haha. Anyways, thanks Susan - it does indeed look doable.

[susanjoypaul]

Yeah, sorry about the short response, but I wanted to give you the opportunity to read his account of that trip yourself, and form your own opinion about it, before I commented.

So now that you've read it... to me, it sounds like a very cool traverse. If it's indeed two miles of mostly class 3 climbing, perhaps a relatively undiscovered gem of a route. With the car shuttle he got a ranked 14er, an unranked 14er, and a Centennial 13er.

I would only attempt that on a long, truly bluebird (0% precip forecast for that day and the next day or two going forward) day, to ensure not getting stuck out on that ridge in rain or lightning. Are you thinking of working this into that August tour de Elks trip that was posted on here a few days ago? That may give you a nice long day for this, after the summer storms and before the fall snow. However, then you have the nasty, steep, loose descent to deal with. From his report it sounds terribly dangerous, only worsened by the weather. That really could have ended badly for him!

According to Kane's SummitPost Cathedral Peak page, folks tend to do that peak in the spring, via a snow gully to avoid the rock fall hazard. If you could time it right, doing it late springtime with a dry ridge above and snowy gullies below might be your best bet.

[mattpayne11]

Yeah, sorry about the short response, but I wanted to give you the opportunity to read his account of that trip yourself, and form your own opinion about it, before I commented.

So now that you've read it... to me, it sounds like a very cool traverse. If it's indeed two miles of mostly class 3 climbing, perhaps a relatively undiscovered gem of a route. With the car shuttle he got a ranked 14er, an unranked 14er, and a Centennial 13er.

I would only attempt that on a long, truly bluebird (0% precip forecast for that day and the next day or two going forward) day, to ensure not getting stuck out on that ridge in rain or lightning. Are you thinking of working this into that August tour de Elks trip that was posted on here a few days ago? That may give you a nice long day for this, after the summer storms and before the fall snow. However, then you have the nasty, steep, loose descent to deal with. From his report it sounds terribly dangerous, only worsened by the weather. That really could have ended badly for him!

According to Kane's SummitPost Cathedral Peak page, folks tend to do that peak in the spring, via a snow gully to avoid the rock fall hazard. If you could time it right, doing it late springtime with a dry ridge above and snowy gullies below might be your best bet.

Yeah I'm doing some research for that Tour de Elks trip. I agree that it looks interesting to say the least.

[Jon Frohlich]

There are a bunch of trip reports on Cathedral here including mine from this year.

http://www.14ers.com/php14ers/tripreport.php?trip=8308

I'd say about June 10 give or take is your best bet. The gullies on Cathedral can make life interesting so be careful. The last few hundred feet though are relatively easy.