Castle Peak summit with a dog

[Generalcuz]

I keep things below class 3 for my pup. He loves it but longer hikes are avoided, even if he pushes beyond where he should. If you do Castle, the option to break it up between two days might be worthwhile.

[Somewhat of a Prick]

I've seen dogs on the standard route and it was a bad idea.

Every dog is different though

[frankd720]

FWIW, there were several dogs that we saw up there earlier this summer and each was turned back at some point on the ridge. None of them made the summit. I'm sure its possible, but I wouldn't consider it safe.

[AlexeyD]

I did it with my dog in late July this year. We actually went up the Conundrum Couloir, and then traversed over to Castle and down the standard route. It was all fine, except at one point, while descending the upper part of the NE ridge of Castle, she scrambled up onto some outcrop and started knocking rocks down - mostly on us, but there were a couple of other hikers below as well. That wasn't good. For that reason, I probably wouldn't take her again. Other than that, though, she had no issues. But, as others have said, all dogs are different.

Edit: under no circumstance would I recommend descending the Castle/Conundrum saddle with a dog (unless there's snow all the way up to the ridge). At this point, though, I wouldn't recommend descending there, period - as has already been talked about extensively on this forum.

[ColoradoEd]

My lab did it with me many years ago, but she was pretty fearless.

[youngk2844]

The last time a summited Castle Peak two climbers and their mastiff mix dog topped out a few minutes after me. It was their first 14er for all three. Evidently, the dog was so excited about making the summit it peed on my backpack... The owner was very apologetic and began dumping water out of his water bottle to try and wash off and dilute the piss. I told the guy to hold his water. He'd need it on the way down. But, I did appreciate his gesture.

[ameristrat]

This is conditions-specific, but I climbed Castle / Conundrum on Sunday, and there was an inch or two of snow and ice on the ridge. A small group with two dogs turned around, worried about their dogs' safety - the dogs were getting skittish / slipping on the snow.

Again, conditions specific, but that's the most recent intel I've got.

EDIT: Almost all of the permanent snow has melted, so you'll be on talus a majority of the time. FWIW

[James Dziezynski]

I've climbed hundreds of peaks with my dogs, but I always keep them on class 2 terrain; heck even class 1 stuff with crazy cliffs (like Witter Peak) I either leave them at home or leash them up. That being said, I have herding dogs that are especially intrigued by big horn sheep and mountain goats.

So... I'd leave the pups behind on Castle. If your dog has some mountain experience and you know for a fact they won't chase a marmot or mountain goat on the ridge line, then the actual technical aspects and physical challenge aren't anything too bad.

I'm conservative with my dogs -- I think their favorite hike this year was running around on Peaks 6 and 7 via the Colorado Trail in Frisco