Two teenage hikers rescued from Capitol Peak early Wednesday

[Ed_Groves]

Crestone Needle has this old metal sign at the summit, to one side of the wall that leads to the traverse. I assume that decades ago somebody got tired of rescuing climbers who went down THIS gully and did something about it.
needle sign.jpg

When I was up there last August that sign had been moved up to the summit. (I am standing behind it in my avatar.) It looks to me like it would be better at the top of the couloir.

[mtree]

Putting up a sign, eh? Maybe. Here's some revelations. When I was younger I would scoff at signs. I remember laughing off signs at the Maroon Bells trailhead. Thought it was for kids and scared mommies. Usually I would ignore signs. Helmets? Why? Am I gonna fall on my head? When I was younger I did zero research on trail routes. I was a good hiker and bulletproof. I recall climbing Longs with less than a liter of water, worn out running shoes, and a windbreaker. I did have a peanut butter sandwich and a plum. When I was younger I thought hiking in snow was fun. Crawling and post holing through the forest at Rocky Mountain National was hilarious! Forget about the exhaustion and nearly popping a knee. Let's have a snowball fight! When I was younger hiking in lightning was like splashing in puddles as a kid. And it just looked cool! Summit fever, baby! What's the worst that could happen? You get wet. Couloirs or scree fields were just a faster way down the mountain. Add some water and you could almost slide down.

When I was younger I was really dumb. I was naive. I was arrogant and inexperienced. I thought I knew all you needed to know about hiking. To me, a sign was just a suggestion or posted by "the man". It wasn't something to worry about. Fortunately, nothing ever happened to me. My worst hiking injury was stubbing a toe. Now I've seen enough events to give me pause. But its taken many years to learn unfortunate events happen and usually end badly. I'm still not the type who will give a list of advice, training, and equipment "essentials" to would-be hikers. If they ask, I'll gladly give some tips and why its a good idea. Its not rocket science. Otherwise, I say learn on your own. Just beware of what can happen. You can actually die. No, really, you can die. And its probably your fault.

[seannunn]

We all know that most teenagers don’t have a good sense of physical harm at their age. I think some signs at the beginning of the trailhead might help. Years ago I hiked across Glacier NP and periodically there were posters of grizzly warnings with the most vicious drawing of a bear with his claws out and jaw wide open. They were posted at the trailhead and in privys. I can tell you this was enough to ensure my campsite was left scrupulously clean and sleep with one ear listening. Perhaps some frank signage depicting a hiker falling off a 1,000 foot drop with the caption “Stay on the Trail” might help. Also, a strong warning that negligent parties will be fully responsible for the costs of rescue.

Good point. Nothing against young people. I used to bring a bunch of high school distance runners out to CO every summer, and we would always climb 1 or 2 of the 14ers. After I personally wised up a little, I quit taking high schoolers on anything other than class 1-2 mountains. Even so, I would always emphasize to them that "you aren't on a roller coaster at a theme park here. There are no guardrails and there are places that you could die if you were to fall." Fortunately that never happened.

Personally I think a better place to put a sign on Cap would be above treeline, at the point where the standard route starts to become class 3. Many people ignore signs at trailheads because, honestly, they sometimes overstate the dangers. But a sign up higher to the effect that

"The remaining route from here to the summit of Capitol Peak is continuous class 3 & 4 climbing (NOT HIKING). The typical, FIT CLIMBER WHO IS EXPERIENCED WITH CLASS 3 & 4 CLIMBING requires X hours to summit and return to this sign. The standard ascent route IS THE STANDARD DECENT ROUTE AS WELL. Attempting to descend to Capitol Lake via a different route is strongly discouraged. Many people have died doing so. Please take responsibility for yourself and your own safety. However, if you find yourself hopelessly stranded in dangerous terrain and are unable to descend safely, the phone number for Aspen Emergency Search & Rescue is XXX-XXX-XXXX."

Sean Nunn
Peculiar, MO

[mtree]

"The remaining route from here to the summit of Capitol Peak is continuous class 3 & 4 climbing (NOT HIKING). The typical, FIT CLIMBER WHO IS EXPERIENCED WITH CLASS 3 & 4 CLIMBING requires X hours to summit and return to this sign. The standard ascent route IS THE STANDARD DECENT ROUTE AS WELL. Attempting to descend to Capitol Lake via a different route is strongly discouraged. Many people have died doing so. Please take responsibility for yourself and your own safety. However, if you find yourself hopelessly stranded in dangerous terrain and are unable to descend safely, the phone number for Aspen Emergency Search & Rescue is XXX-XXX-XXXX."

Way too wordy.

Simply put at the gully entrance...

DANGER! CLIFFS BELOW!
- Turn back now -

[two lunches]

"The remaining route from here to the summit of Capitol Peak is continuous class 3 & 4 climbing (NOT HIKING). The typical, FIT CLIMBER WHO IS EXPERIENCED WITH CLASS 3 & 4 CLIMBING requires X hours to summit and return to this sign. The standard ascent route IS THE STANDARD DECENT ROUTE AS WELL. Attempting to descend to Capitol Lake via a different route is strongly discouraged. Many people have died doing so. Please take responsibility for yourself and your own safety. However, if you find yourself hopelessly stranded in dangerous terrain and are unable to descend safely, the phone number for Aspen Emergency Search & Rescue is XXX-XXX-XXXX."

Way too wordy.

Simply put at the gully entrance...

DANGER! CLIFFS BELOW!
- Turn back now -

DO NOT DEAD
ENTER INSIDE

[mtree]

DO NOT DEAD
ENTER INSIDE

Way too inviting!

[JROSKA]

I've always wondered if the root cause of these common events at Capitol is, inexperienced people getting freaked out by the Knife Edge. I can relate because that's the only time exposure really got into my head. I just was not used to dropoffs on both sides like that. I hated it enough to where I can sort of put myself in the shoes of someone who is so intimidated by the Knife to where they say, "I can't go over that again". And once fear gets into someone's being like that, rational thinking can be difficult or impossible. My memory is a bit foggy but I thought that in some of those instances in 2017 we got some evidence that the Knife Edge was a factor behind attempts to find an alternate way down.

So I wonder if the best place for a sign would be just after K-2 on the ascent and before the Knife. Something like "1,000 foot dropoffs on both sides. If this causes fear please turn back. If you cross, you must cross again on the descent, there is no alternate route". I get that it can't be wordy. I agree that putting it at the TH wouldn't do much good.

For those who are against signs, I think it's important to look at the bigger picture and at least, attempt to put yourself in someone else's shoes. Just because you wouldn't be affected by a sign doesn't mean others won't heed it. I'm not sure of the numbers but I would think that for every person who ignores a sign, there'd be someone who would heed the warning. Yes, people should learn through "hard knocks" (that's mostly how I learned as a newbie) but when that hard knock involves falling over a cliff that's probably the time when we need to show a bit more concern for our fellow citizens. I agree that we can't put up signs everywhere. Capitol seems like one situation that definitely calls for it.

[justiner]

I think the knife edge hits people differently, but I can imagine that if the knife edge is at or over someone's limit, it's very exhilarating to have done it, but the mind again becomes the enemy to the hiker which may protest to have to do it yet again. And like I wrote before, when the mind is fatigued there is a type of appeal process it tries to do to negotiate a different potential future. And in this case it's "let's go down here (cliffed out gully) it's unknown, but for now that's less scarier than THAT (knife edge), which we know is a source of fear that we don't want to feel again".

Perfectly natural response, but it is the WRONG response. What has to happen to avoid a problem has to happen before boots hit the ground. One way to get over fear (and fear based decision making) is through exposure to what makes you afraid. In other words: you need more experience, and you may want to accumulate this perhaps not 8 miles from the trailhead, 13,000+ feet up, looking down at 1,000' of exposure on each side. That's a lot of difficulties to overcome at once -- why ask that much at once from yourself? Take each challenge in piecemeal and just wait to do Capitol until you got all the pieces together.

It's kinda hard to really describe, but a lot of climbing -- which Capitol starts to skirt into -- is about fear response management. Allowing yourself to do the things you need to do without totally losing your s**t. That's sort of the fun in climbing, but climbing isn't supposed to be death-defying on relatively easy terrain (like Capitol). If it feels that way, you're (my opinion) doing it wrong. Make it safer for yourself.

Blah blah blah -- just like a sign, if an individual won't be introspective on what they need to have a safe hike, they're not going to read or enact anything I've written. That's people for ya.

[seannunn]

I've always wondered if the root cause of these common events at Capitol is, inexperienced people getting freaked out by the Knife Edge. I can relate because that's the only time exposure really got into my head. I just was not used to dropoffs on both sides like that. I hated it enough to where I can sort of put myself in the shoes of someone who is so intimidated by the Knife to where they say, "I can't go over that again". And once fear gets into someone's being like that, rational thinking can be difficult or impossible. My memory is a bit foggy but I thought that in some of those instances in 2017 we got some evidence that the Knife Edge was a factor behind attempts to find an alternate way down.

So I wonder if the best place for a sign would be just after K-2 on the ascent and before the Knife. Something like "1,000 foot dropoffs on both sides. If this causes fear please turn back. If you cross, you must cross again on the descent, there is no alternate route". I get that it can't be wordy. I agree that putting it at the TH wouldn't do much good.

For those who are against signs, I think it's important to look at the bigger picture and at least, attempt to put yourself in someone else's shoes. Just because you wouldn't be affected by a sign doesn't mean others won't heed it. I'm not sure of the numbers but I would think that for every person who ignores a sign, there'd be someone who would heed the warning. Yes, people should learn through "hard knocks" (that's mostly how I learned as a newbie) but when that hard knock involves falling over a cliff that's probably the time when we need to show a bit more concern for our fellow citizens. I agree that we can't put up signs everywhere. Capitol seems like one situation that definitely calls for it.

Well said. I am also not in favor of signs on every route of every mountain. There are a few places where they are justified however, since they could prevent deaths.

Sean Nunn
Peculiar, MO

[Wentzl]

I like the sign idea. How about:

"Just Don't"

Who knows, maybe this time.