Castle Peak

Route: Castle and Conundrum
Posted On: 8/30/2024, By: CraigE
Info: It's a great time of year to hike Castle and Conundrum. The headwall was nearly snow-free, and there's a pretty good trail up through the headwall talus if you can find it (for me it was easier to see on the way down than the way up). After the traverse to Conundrum, I backtracked and re-summited Castle, and it seemed like a better choice than descending directly from the saddle (which was mostly dry). I'm attaching photos of the headwall and saddle for reference. This route is rated Difficult Class 2, but the the most straightforward route has several Easy Class 3 moves. To keep it Class 2, you have to take some less-stable bypasses. 

Route: Castle and Conundrum
Posted On: 8/20/2024, By: Dbrink
Info: Parked at 12,500 in a modified Tacoma. Saw plenty of stock toyotas up near 12.4-12.5k parking areas. As another commenter mentioned, the narrow off camber section near the end of the road isn't worth the pucker factor for me personally. Happily hiked that section. Saw a subaru crosstrek past the junction, props to them. Big rut at campsite #7 which is probably the big deterrent for most crossovers. Trail was great, skipped the gully exit like the description recommended and re-summitted castle. 5 hours RT truck to truck. 

Route: Castle and Conundrum
Posted On: 8/17/2024, By: Pest
Info: Road: Only 2 really challenging obstacles for smaller vehicles: a big rut after campsite 3 or so and the creek, which is reasonably low right now. Drove our stock full size 3500 truck up to the Pearl Pass/Montezuma Mine junction no problem. Watched a stock RAV4 hybrid also drive to the same point, but he had to use a lot of skinny pedal and may have bottomed out a couple times. A Subaru could probably do the same, but YMMV, it's risky. Castle Peak Trail: This should definitely be relabeled as a solid class 3 route. The most obvious, safest, and most used route has multiple class three moves. There are easier class 3 mountains, like Uncompagre. Calling this a difficult class 2 sets a lot of novice hikers up for a dangerous situation they may not be ready for. 

Route: Castle and Conundrum
Posted On: 8/9/2024, By: joshuahutton
Info: Was able to drive all the way to 12,500 ft in my slightly lifted tacoma with 33s. From there, the road gets a bit too skinny for my liking with the steep drop off. The road should be fine for a stock 4wd up to the bridge. After that, you need a bit more clearance. Pretty easy hike overall starting from that elevation. Reached Castle just before sunrise. Going to Conundrum is a no brainer. Only took about 40 extra minutes total. Super easy. Hardest part was the loose rock on the downhill, but poles helped. I didn't do the long glissade since the snow field looked rocky and broken up into multiple sections. So I climbed back over Castle for the way back. About 5 hours total hiking and some breaks at the peaks. 

Route: Castle and Conundrum
Posted On: 7/29/2024, By: berko89
Info: Shortcut off the Conundrum ridge was looking sketchy (see pic), we didn't take it and didn't see anyone else take it that day either. We glissaded down lookers left of the headwall though (see pic) and it was fine. 

Route: Castle and Conundrum
Posted On: 7/24/2024, By: Mt_DAN
Info: Route is in good shape if you go northeast ridge to south ridge and back. The short cut off the saddle between the two is a little ify looking. Lots of wet bare rock down there. Snow is manageable on the headwall without micro spikes and the glidssade was awesome! Might only be another week before its too rocky. Conundrum coulior looked okay too. Wish Id brought boots. 

Route: Northeast Ridge
Posted On: 7/23/2024, By: Emilygrippin
Info: Despite the weather warnings, we had a beautiful day hiking Castle Peak. Many hikers opted for the alternate route to the hikers left, but we decided to stick to the route outlined on 14ers.com and cross the snowfield. I heard from other hikers on the trail that the alternate route is much more difficult. I would recommend trekking over the snow; it saves time and can be done without spikes (spikes were helpful though). 

Route: Northeast Ridge
Posted On: 7/21/2024, By: steved08
Info: Overall, great conditions! There is still a good amount of snow when you start the climb into the lower basin. We used our micro-spikes on our ascent, as the snow fields were still a bit icy and slick, but had no problems ascending. Be sure to ascend the second headwall if you want to remain on the trail and reach the upper basin. Many climbers (including us) ducked left into a couloir too early (I would not advise you do this). Follow your GPS instead of other hikers! Lots of talus to deal with if you end up there, but we were all able to safely navigate out. After reaching the upper basin and being done with the snow, the trail is very clear with plenty of solid rock. Castle and Conundrum combo is straight forward. In terms of the shortcut back down on the saddle, there was not enough snow for us to be confident in safely descending that way. We saw others navigate it successfully, but if you plan on that, I'd suggest having the spikes and the ice axe ready to go. All depends on your skill level and how you're feeling that day! 

Route: Castle and Conundrum
Posted On: 7/20/2024, By: 5meodimte
Info: We ignored a "Mountain-Forecast" doom and gloom prediction and had a beautiful day. At the top of the headwall we (and a dozen others over the morning) made a rookie mistake of blindly following the people ahead of you on a trail. This resulted in us going up the trash gully to climbers left of the actual trail. We noticed and corrected ourselves about halfway up. We shouted across to other hikers about the correction. Too many footprints in snow down below will continue to lead climbers up that trash gully. Hopefully this condition update will give a head-up to others. Other notes; the shortcut down Conundrum has lost enough snow to make it very unpleasant for most. We got down with careful foot placement on the loose steep rock leading to the snow. Once at the snow, everything was cruiser. Some other very fun glissading was had back to the road as well. 

Route: Castle and Conundrum
Posted On: 7/15/2024, By: catward77
Info: Started at 4am, parked at sites 8-9. The river crossing right after is the most difficult section for a while, so if your vehicle can make it past there, you can easily shave off another 2-4 miles. Saw a couple trucks near the end of the "road" around 12,500 ft. We brought helmets & felt they weren't necessary. The few snow sections in the basin were icy in early morning & spikes would've helped, but we did not bring them and felt fine. Looks like that snow will be there a while yet. The shortcut descent off of the Conundrum ridgeline looked sketchy, so we re-ascended Castle instead. Saw 2 people (not us lol) do that descent section with no problems. Snow is melted a ways so you'd have to brave the very steep, loose rocks to get to your long, fast, steep glissade. You could definitely do it if you feel confident enough. We hit 2 fun & relatively safe glissades on our descent later. With lots of stops, we finished around 11:45am. Also, the white car upside down that fell off the cliff into the basin waterfall has been reported; it's not from this week. 

Route: Castle and Conundrum
Posted On: 7/21/2024, By: asorbera
Info: After an angel named Randal in a lifted Tacoma gave us a ride from campsite #3 to 12,600ft, the route was stellar. Microspikes are nice to have for the first few sections as we opted for the direct snow line instead of sticking to the rocks. Once on the ridge you have full summer conditions. The trail was fairly straightforward with fun exposure on class 2/3 rock. The cross over to Conundrum was surprisingly easy and quick. There are so many other combos that are a draining slog to complete (Harvard and Colombia) but this one was over before I realized I was out of breath. Finally- THE GLISSADE- as of 7/15/24 the glissade required class 2/3 loose dirt navigation to get to the start of the slide. It becomes a bit of a choose -your-own-adventure to get to the start and we opted for downclimbing some class 3/4 rock instead of the loose dirt at the end. It's a little scary but definitely worth the time and effort you shave from going back over Castle. We were able to glissade almost the whole way back to the road which made everything wet but was totally worth it. 

Route: Castle and Conundrum
Posted On: 7/14/2024, By: john5698
Info: Last IPhone (blue case), near Castle Peak trailhead. My gf, Evey (if you met her on the trail), lost her iPhone while hiking Castle Peak at around 1pm today (7/14). It is in a blue case. She hitched a ride with a party of 3 (+ 2 dogs). If you see this, she thinks she left it in your car. That said, the phone may also be on the mountain near 11k ft. or at campsite 3. Please let me know if fou find it and I can coordinate getting it back to her. Thanks! John Murray john33158@gmail.com 

Route: Castle and Conundrum
Posted On: 7/13/2024, By: edwardmgmt
Info: Great conditions. At the end of the road you hike a couple of sections in the snow - microspikes were helpful. After summiting Conundrum, we glissaded. The top part of the glissade 50~100ft vert was dry, and a little sketchy. The glissade was steep at the top, but a lot of fun. The snow is soft. Like most, we exited right of lake (instead of the usual left). We glissaded the bottom two sections too. 

Route: Northeast Ridge
Posted On: 7/5/2024, By: conorod
Info: Fantastic climb today under the bluest sky I've ever seen! Parked by the footbridge (not wanting to risk the rental any further!) and hit the trail at 6 AM. Uneventful hike to the headwall and snowfields, arriving around 8:30. My boots are borderline racing slicks at this point so spikes would have been helpful but were in no way necessary. The ridge trail was easy to follow but I zagged right at the first "castle" below the summit instead of zigging left and ended up where I didn't want to be. One slightly hair-raising climb back to the trail later and I summitted at 10:30. What a view! I didn't have time for the Conundrum twofer so headed down (this time following the trail with no issues). Glissaded down the snowfields - so much more fun than trudging up - and began the 4-mile hike back to the car, arriving around 2 PM. Didn't see a cloud all day and, as always, met some cool people on the way. Shout out to the staff at Ute Mountaineers in Aspen for their beta and advice the day before my climb. This is a fun, challenging 14er. The exposure along the ridge isn't too bad but is good for an adrenaline shot or two. Views from the ridge and especially the summit are some of the best. 

Route: Castle and Conundrum
Posted On: 6/30/2024, By: MarcyMullet
Info: Weather was perfect. Snow on the glissade between the two mountains was just right, but it's steeper than I expected. I still attempted it and with and ice axe, practice and no spikes on my feet, I ended up upside down sliding down the mountain. There was a big crowd watching that all did it more gracefully then I did. If anyone took a video of my wild ride, I'd love to see it. I wasn't afraid, even upside down, because it goes down into a big bowl and I knew I would stop eventually. No injuries. Thank you to the lovely gentleman to made it back up to retrieve my hat and sunglasses for me. I needed those for the long hike back to the trailhead. I lost my ice axe near the top. If anyone comes acoss it... ... a little sheepish, but mostly laughing. Have fun out there and be safe!