5/14/2024 Route: East Face & Couloir Posted On: 5/16/2024, By: DeclanKnies Info: Stellar Conditions for Skiing! Road is partially melted out 60/40 dirt/snow as of 5/15 to the stream crossing. Likely will be drivable soon. Stayed at the Green-Wilson Hut for 3 days and skied Castle's E face and Conundrum's SE face into the couloir. From the Stream crossing around 10,2, full, deep snow coverage all the way to the ridge. We skinned up to the ridge following the trail, then booted the rest to the summit. Coverage is actually gorgeous on the face. The couloir is fat and the face still has several ways into the couloir. Will be in for a minute! Get it while it's good! Conundrum is also fat and the SE face skied like a dream. The couloir is super filled too and it should be a good spring/summer ski season in Montezuma basin! |
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5/4/2024 Route: North Face Couloir Posted On: 5/5/2024, By: kcovingt Info: Beautiful and long day in the mountains. Did not summit. We got to the ridge and saw the north couloir was very thin and not worth the extra effort to get there. Skied from the upper basin, snow was very soft by the time we were descending at 11:30. Continuous snow from the creek crossing, can drive to the lower trailhead if you go around the road closed sign. |
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1/2/2024 Route: Castle and Conundrum Posted On: 1/3/2024, By: Chipmunk Info: There are snowmobile tracks all the way to where the trail splits from Pearl Pass, and from there is a nice skin track. The skin track basically follows the road (with a few shortcuts) and involves a lot of annoying sidehilling to the base of the headwall. From here it appears everyone turned and skied back out except for one lone soul, who put a nice bootpack up the rocks in the middle of the headwall (thank you, whoever you are!) We ditched our splitboards at the top of the headwall and followed the standard northeast ridge route up Castle. The ridge had a coating of unconsolidated snow over all the rocks, but we made do without traction. We trekked over to Conundrum and re-ascended Castle. We skied down the headwall, which showed no signs of instability, and down the road until it became too flat to ride. Snow conditions were mixed, but it was much more fun than walking. There is not enough snow for the usual suspect slopes above the road to prove dangerous, and the green avalanche danger reflects this. In fact, we saw evidence of only one small recent slide on an east facing slope lower in the basin. Conundrum couloir looks fantastic for this time of year. Castle's north couloir, on the other hand, is completely devoid of snow. Flotation is crucial. Carried but did not use axe, crampons, and avalanche rescue gear. |
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12/22/2023 Route: Northeast Ridge Posted On: 12/23/2023, By: paulbarish Info: Not sure if it will matter after this storm but there is a nice efficient skin track and broken trail up Castle and Conundrum. I was shocked to see anyone out there but while I slept in Wilderness Jane, Wilderness Dave and Andy (I forgot his handle) were breaking trail. I met them on their way back from Conundrum. I hate them for stealing my trail breaking privileges but theyll be plenty of trail to break later haha good work you all and congrats on your summits! |
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10/21/2023 Route: Northeast Ridge Posted On: 10/22/2023, By: drchele Info: If you made it past the road ruts just above campsite 9, you'll likely traverse the creek crossing fine. Road is open all the way to 12,800'. A few snow/icy patches on the road in the trees beyond the creek crossing. In the lower basin just above 12,800', there is 50% snow coverage with hoppable boulders. Thigh-deep snow above the basin, but maybe ~6" deep along the traverse to Castle's ridge. Similar patches of snow along the ridge. Summit of both Castle and Conundrum are 90% snow-covered. South Ridge ascent of Conundrum was 50% snow-free. Descent from the 'red rocks' at the base of Conundrum's south ridge looked very sketchy (not glissadable) since it was littered with boulders in shallow snow. There was a patch on the descent off the northeast ridge of Castle that offered a nice glissade, however. On approach back to the basin, I did some postholing in the afternoon. Best to bring snow tools (microspikes or crampons, ice axe, and consider bringing flotation and stashing just above the basin to use on the descent). |
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10/7/2023 Route: Castle and Conundrum Posted On: 10/8/2023, By: awestra Info: On 10/7, road clear of snow up to terminus @ ~12,800 ft. Subaru Forester parked at 11,100 ft. Intermittent snow patches on trail. Summer route still good. Might change soon w/ snow in forecast. |
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10/1/2023 Route: Northeast Ridge Posted On: 10/2/2023, By: Eagle Eye Info: I made a righteous attempt to summit Castle/and or Conundrum early yesterday morning. Starting from a meadow type area/right turn road junction about half a mile from the creek crossing, I got about 3.6 miles up & about 12,800 ft (end of the road) in the basin. Wind-driven hail, thunder and lightning got me turned around there before the sun even came up. Some people had driven up the road a bit past the Pearl Pass fork/sign, and I met a couple guys near there heading up when I was on my way down. It looked better (but not dissipating) from down low and I wondered if they would be successful/post here. I'll update Castle Creek TH if it hasn't been updated in a while. |
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10/1/2023 Route: Northeast Ridge Posted On: 10/2/2023, By: WayFinder Info: We successfully summited castle and condundrum after initial weather concerns as EagleEye mentioned. It was nice to meet him and have a brief chat with a fellow climber before heading up. Lots of wind during the day but no precipitation after 5amish rain/hail/snow. |
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9/19/2023 Route: Northeast Ridge Posted On: 9/20/2023, By: Belchfire Info: Snow is there. Inch last night above 13,600, snow traces at 12,900. Spicy 2+ gully near false summit is slick and coated with snow. Spikes were necessary in my opinion. Traverse to conundrum wasn't bad, downclimb loose snow rock and pockets of snow. Fun! |
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9/17/2023 Route: Northeast Ridge Posted On: 9/18/2023, By: Idahosummits Info: Snow starts around 13,400. Only 2 or 3 inches, but it has made the use trail a bit icy and muddy in spots. The snow and ice have also made the ridge traverse around 13,800' a bit tricky. Traction would likely help, but most were doing fine without. |
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9/5/2023 Route: Northeast Ridge Posted On: 9/5/2023, By: wahpaha Info: Good condition. I made the mistake of going to the right on the first wall after the top parking area. Stay left and find a trail in the boulder field to climb. |
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8/21/2023 Route: Castle and Conundrum Posted On: 8/25/2023, By: Benito_Esposti Info: Road was in fairly good condition, was able to get a subaru outback to ~11,100, a single hairpin from the 4WD parking lot. Once the road ends and the trail begins, you have to cross a bit of snow ~20ft across. From there the trail thins out a little but there are occasional cairns. The trail becomes very obvious once it starts ascending towards Castle. Make sure to not turn left too early and ascend up an extremely loose, trailless gully. Saw someone doing that and it looked like a struggle, especially when the actual trail was just around the corner. The ridge to Castle is pretty mellow, only one move that had a bit of exposure. Going from Castle to Conundrum wasn't too bad and there is a good trail the whole way. Felt more like class 2 to us, expect maybe one move getting onto the summit of Conundrum that could've been class 3. From here I would HIGHLY recommend going back over Castle rather than descending from the saddle. It is extremely crazy loose with some exposure. The solid looking rock on the edges was very deceiving and was highly rotten. A large foothold completely broke off on us and could've led to a very nasty fall had my dad not had both hands on something solid at the time, allowing him to catch himself. Also, DO NOT descend to the lake. Admire it's beauty from above. The rock surrounding the lake is constantly sliding into the lake and beyond loose. Any weight put onto those rocks instantly sent them sliding into the lake. We made the mistake of getting too close and a very large rock went without warning and took my dad with it. Both slide fast and hard into the lake. Fortunately I was able to pull him out however it could have been a much worse story. The lake was freezing and a few minuets in there would easily cause hypothermia. Please stay clear and far from it. |
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8/13/2023 Route: Castle and Conundrum Posted On: 8/13/2023, By: two lunches Info: a few thoughts, i saw more unhappy dogs than happy dogs on castle peak today. (if youre new here: my dog has done over 100 12/13/14ers with me and i made the right choice to not bring him today) the shady portions of the traverse to conundrum were icy well into the morning. i watched someone navigate a safe descent from the saddle between C&C, but going back up castle still makes the most sense to me. headwall is sort of in we skipped it on the way up but i was grateful for the snow on the way down. in comparison with other difficult class 2 hikes, this was definitely harder. ill attribute my subjective ranking to exposure, commitment, and quantity of (easy) class 3 moves tossed in. |
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8/11/2023 Route: Northeast Ridge Posted On: 8/11/2023, By: grantdoug Info: Its easy to climb the entire route without getting on snow. As for those downclimbing the headwall from Conundrum without roping up, the rock is bare and someone was killed doing it last week. The safe way is to use Castle on your way down. |
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8/5/2023 Route: Castle and Conundrum Posted On: 8/6/2023, By: blonde_dinosaur Info: Like other report, head wall is holding snow. If you stay climbers left, you only have to cross a small section. I didnt use traction. If you stay ridge direct on the way to Castle, there is some fun class 3 scrambling on pretty good rock. Like the last report said, IMO glissade is out. You have to downclimb some pretty sketchy stuff to get to the snow, and there are rocks peeking through. The descent from Castle to connundrum sucks and is very loose, but the ascent up connundrum is great. On the way down, you can choose to traverse the boulders on the head wall to the snow to glissade. I would bring an ice axe for that though because the slope is pretty steep. |