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Dylan and I had a week off work together and after skiing Atlantic Peak and Mt. Elbert with Adventure Dave decided to give Capitol a go. It had been almost six years since I had been up that mountain and Dylan had never climbed it. Dylan, an aficionado of the all day workout, proposed we go for it in a day from Snowmass Creek TH. I was excited at the prospect and while not winter I was certain there would be winter like conditions on the peak.
We camped at the winter closure right before the creek crossing and left camp at 5:05 am. Dawn broke as we were hiking along Snowmass Creek and by the time we took the cutoff for the Moon Lake basin the sun was up. While the snow was continuous enough to begin skinning up we waited until we had reached the flatter part of the basin to stash the tennis shoes (and Coors for the way down).
Dylan on the way up (you can tell who was moving faster that day)
After reaching K2 at approximately 11:00 we tied in and got ready for what was sure to be an interesting experience. Knowing the route in the summer I was fairly certain we would be encountering some interesting snowy ridge climbing. We topped out on K2 in somewhat windy conditions and began simul climbing.
Approaching K2
Coming over K2 the view of the ridge and the peak was fairly inspiring. It was clear this was going to be an adventure and most likely take longer than I had anticipated.
The ridge from K2
We got into a rhythm and slowly but surely made our way towards the summit. An interesting artifact of the snowy conditions was the knife edge was a snow sidewalk that was easily walkable.
Dylan on the beginning of the ridge
Knife edge with snow
As we reached where the ridge began climbing Dylan stopped and we switched leads. The snow seemed to be holding up very well so we continued pushing upward. The last portion of the ridge was more challenging and when I ran out of gear Dylan took the pitch to the summit. While we had been cruising on the early part of the climb the last part took longer than expected.
Dylan building an anchor at the beginning of the steeper snow
Dylan right below the summit
We reached the end of the difficulties around 3:30 and the summit proper at 3:45.
Summit Shot!
Due to the longer days of spring we reasoned we had at least 3 hours of daylight to reverse the ridge. Even with this knowledge it was a mental weight knowing how far we had to go. After spending less than five minutes on the summit we began the descent. We rapped off the summit ridge and down simuled most of the way, rappelling twice more.
Third rappel
The return to K2 went as planned and when it became clear we would beat the darkness, became quite enjoyable.
Nearing the end of the ridge
We returned to our skis with daylight to spare and took a few nips of whiskey to facilitate the descent.
Whiskey before the ski
The snow had hardened with the departure of the sun but the descent went incredibly quickly compared to walking. We kept the skis on until the start of the big hill down into Snowmass Creek. Hiking back to the car with skis on our backpacks was predictably miserable but we arrived at 10:00 giving us a round trip time of 16:55. While the mountain has certainly been done faster and in calendar winter car to car, nonetheless it was a good feeling to go car to car in a day.
Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):
Thanks for the comments, I'm pretty stoked on the purple snowflake :D . Snow conditions looked very good for a ski, unfortunately that's a little above my paygrade on planks.
I don't know how you can possibly stomach drinking Whisky after all that. No wonder you look like you are able to vomit.
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