After finishing off the Collegiate Peaks I had my goals on a few different 14er options. I decided to attempt Castle, and if all went well, see if I could get Conundrum as well. I researched as much as I could from a few sources, then put the plan into action. Big thanks to Matt Randall (mattr9) for the suggestion of this combo and his trip report from May 2020, which I relied on heavily in my plans. I live in Breckenridge, so I drove down to Aspen the night before, and drove up Castle Creek road, reaching the trailhead at about 7:50pm. I cooked up some dinner and prepped gear for morning.

I slept in the Jeep and got about 6 hours of sleep. I woke up, and cooked a quick breakfast, then hit the road (Pearl Pass aka 15D) at 4:30am. I walked on foot the first 1.3 miles to the creek crossing. The road was mostly dry with only a couple of snow patches covering road. You could drive up to dispersed camp sites, as far as the last snow pile, but no vehicle had driven all the way to creek crossing yet. Once across the creek there was full snow coverage and I skinned the rest of the way. The day was perfect weather, clear skies and full Sunlight. Skinning up on snow went smoothly. There was no identifiable mark for the Pearl Pass junction, and I missed it. But I only went a few hundred feet past it before realizing it, by checking my GPS. I skinned back and found it, kind of tucked away between some tall reeds. I entered the gulch and crossed a snowbridge to cross a stream.

Once in the gulch (Montezuma Mine) I still wasn’t positive on the distance to the headwall, so as I skinned on I checked the GPS a few times to see that I was heading far enough in to reach the headwall and climb up towards Castle and Conundrum. There is one similar looking headwall, right as you enter the gulch, which goes up into another basin which has peaks on both sides and a bowl, and so resembles the look of Castle and Conundrum from below. I nearly entered that, but realized that Castle was further on, so kept skinning. I ascended up several small rises, then a larger rise of about 300 feet or so, and finally saw the actual headwall to the left. I skinned up that, and suddenly was in the basin with Castle on the left and Conundrum on the right.

I made my way to Castle and transitioned to begin the boot pack up the North Couloir. It had been climbed and ridden the day before so some boot pack tracks existed, but about one-third of the way up they disappeared and I had to punch new boots in the rest of the way up. I reached the top of the couloir to the saddle, and turned to climb the rest of the North ridge to the Summit of Castle. I stood on the Summit by 10:04am. Strapped in and began snowboarding down. The top ridge puts you riding on the East face to make it back to the saddle where the North Couloir begins. There was a section of rocks (a few feet) not covered by snow, so I scooted across them, then continued to ride down the North couloir. The East side of the couloir was thin and had rocks barely covered by recent snow fall. But the West side of the couloir had better snow coverage. To get into it, I cut riders left across a band of rocks, then entered the full line. I made smooth turns in very nice powder conditions the remainder of the couloir down to the frozen lake at the bottom of the basin between Castle and Conundrum.

I transitioned and began the climb up Conundrum couloir by about 10:50am or so. Conundrum had been heavily ridden and the snow quality was mostly slushy, with some sections very frozen and dense. The boot pack went easily as I started, but then when I hit the frozen section I couldn’t get a toe hold in, and used an ice axe to cut steps a few times. The ice axe was critical in climbing the couloir. I would recommend crampons, unless it softens up more in the next days or with new snow. (I had intended to bring my crampons but when I tried them out the day before realized they don’t attach to my snowboard boots, as I had only used them with climbing boots in the past) I reached the Summit of Conundrum by 11:51am, and plotted my line off Summit into the couloir. There is a technical section of about 30 feet, to thread through various rock outcroppings with exposure, before you enter the couloir. Other riders had simply dropped in from the cornice of the couloir, but I wanted to claim riding off Summit. I threaded my way down and dropped into the couloir. The top few turns were very nice, slushy but soft. Then I hit that frozen section, which just happened to be at the pinch of the couloir between two rock walls on either side. So I made a few cautious slipped turns till past them, then resumed opened turns through the remained of the couloir and down the bottom out to the frozen lake, just to get the full line. I hiked up 40 feet to the flat section of the basin, strapped in and began the ride out.

The ride out was nice, and the headwall rode some of the best snow and turns of the day. Once past that, the exit through the basin was nice and downhill, but just straight lining to keep speed to make it across the flat sections. I exited the basin and resumed on to the snow covered road that I had approached up on, at Pearl Pass junction. The snow was warm and slow, and the road has some flat sections, but I snowboarded down the road all the way to the creek crossing.

I transitioned back on foot at the creek crossing and hiked out the 1.3 miles to the trailhead, reaching my Jeep at 1:31pm. It was 8 hours and 59 minutes round trip. My GPS said it was 11.7 miles, not sure if that is correct or not. And approx 5,300 vertical feet. For my first time back country in the Elks this couldn’t have gone better, and I was very enamored with the zone and snowpack in the Castle Creek area, truly a mecca!