This report is from my trip last summer, but I just finally got the itch to write it. It was a pretty eventful day, and definitely my most bizarre 14er story.

Some friends and I were in Aspen for the marathon last August. We had several in our group running, but myself and another friend were not marathon runners so we decided we might as well take the opportunity to check off a 14er. I had done maybe 8 or 9 at that point, and my friend had attempted (although never finished for weather reasons) several. We were both in good shape and very goal-oriented, so we decided to give it a shot.

We left from Aspen around 4am and made the short drive out to the trail head. We were ambitious about how far we thought we could make it up the road, perhaps too much so. I was driving a 2002 Impreza at the time (without much clearance) and didn't have much luck making it up the road past the campsites. This was frustrating for us because so much of the hike ended up being along the road, which isn't exactly the most riveting hiking. But we trudged along, enjoying the sunrise and good conversation up the nice gradual road/trail.

The road was long, and we eventually got to the part that is considered the "end" in terms of how far up vehicles can go. This is at a sort of intersection, although you wouldn't really want to drive up either road. We spent a few minutes debating which road to walk up, and eventually made the correct choice to continue going straight. The "road" continues to meander up the slope, going by small mountain ponds and waterfalls before the approach to the basin. We really enjoyed this part of the hike. The weather was perfect and the scenery was beautiful.

Eventually we made our way to the foot of the basin between Castle and Conundrum. From here, it really feels more like a 14er. There is a gorgeous mountain lake in the middle, and you are perfectly surrounded by Castle to your left and Conundrum on your right. There is a pleasant little pond there that we stopped at for a minute, then decided to start the somewhat dicey ascent into the basin through a boulder field.

We could see people going in all directions (it was really hard to find carins to know how to navigate, you just had to go up). We worked our way carefully through this field, taking our time and chatting. Then my friend takes a step onto a poorly chosen rock - and snap. Her ankle goes in a very unnatural direction, and we realize that this trip just went south. At that point we were already about 6-7 miles up from our car, and we both understood that it would probably take her longer to get down now (her ankle started swelling and it was hard to put weight on it). For a while she insisted on still trying to go up (did I mention that we're both very stubborn?) but we quickly remembered that every step up is a step you have to take down, and that was a bad idea.

Now we get to a bit of a crossroads in the story. We could see the whole trail to the top of Castle. We had been CRUISING on the way up and had made fantastic time, and were hours ahead of where we really needed to be. Weather was perfect. She told me she wanted me to go up and do Castle, come back down, and then we'd work our way down to the car. This was obviously kind of a tough choice, but I probably would have done the same thing. There was nothing threatening about the situation, it was early, and it looked pretty quick up to the summit of Castle. I decided to go up.

The rest of our assumptions were correct (great weather, plenty of time, etc.), except it was much further to the summit of Castle than it appeared from the basin. Actually, it's not that it was really far (maybe 1 mile), but it was a lot more exposure than I was used to, so it was slow going. Up until that point, most of the 14ers I had done had been very straight forward, without much exposure. Castle was much different.

Working my way up to the ridge was fine but nerve-wracking, seeing that I could hear rocks being knocked down the entire time. My sole purpose became to get up to that ridge as soon as possible, as to lessen the amount of time spent with rocks flying down at my head. I heard a real loud one at one point and looked across the basin to see a rock the size of a refrigerator coming down the face of Conundrum (thankfully no one was over there). Once up on the ridge, it was slow going. Lots of 2+ (3?) scrambling, which at the time wasn't really my jam. I've since done a lot more rock climbing and become more comfortable with exposure, but navigating this while trying to do it quickly (remember, my friend is still down there waiting for me) was pretty stressful.

I eventually made it to the stop, snapped a picture or two, and headed back down. This was a shame, because the views up there are INCREDIBLE. You have perfect views of several ranges, the Bells, and it's a really pleasant summit. I knew Conundrum was out of the question for that day, so I didn't even consider it.

As gnarly as that ridge scramble was going up, it was worse going down. I now feel like my newly acquired climbing skills would have been really helpful in that situation. The rock in the Elks is notoriously loose (it was also the same day a guy died on Capitol). I eventually made it back down off the ridge and started hauling to get back down the trail below the basin. I got to do my first glissade back down to where I had left my friend.

Turns out we had some miscommunication, and she hadn't started walking down yet (I had thought she was going to start down and I would catch up with her). She was in good spirits and chatting with all the other hikers on the mountain that day. We had some basic first aid items to wrap her ankle with (looked like it was probably a bad sprain), and it was pretty swollen. We decided to start making the trek down.

It was even slower going than we expected. She was really just kind of hopping along, alternating leaning on me and a stick. We ran into lots of nice people who asked if they could help, but unfortunately there wasn't really anything they could do. We walked with a solo hiker for a while who said her truck had made it up to that intersection I mentioned earlier, and if we could make it down to there then she would drive us back down to her car. She was very nice and welcome company for a long, slow walk. We spent a long time rehashing the plots of our favorite mountaineering books to help pass the time.

Things were still going OK weather-wise. We were incredibly fortunate for that, because if the weather hadn't been so incredibly perfect, this probably would have been a much worse story. We were still moving and there were no clouds, but we certainly weren't making very good time. We got several more offers of help from passers by, but they all required us getting down to the same intersection where our new hiking friend was parked.

Next thing we know, we go around a corner and see an older guy with a ponytail wandering around just off the trail. I couldn't really tell if he was going up or down (we were starting to get pretty late in the day, was he really going up?). He wasn't really in very hiker-friend clothing either. He comes up to up and asks what happened, and if he can help. We say the same thing we've said to everyone else, she hurt her ankle but we already have a ride if we can just get back down to the intersection.

Here's where the karma part comes in. This guy looks at us excitedly and says, "well you two stay right here, I'll give you a ride down" and runs off. We don't really know what he's talking about, because while we were technically on a "road", it wasn't exactly something that was drivable. There were big boulders in the middle of it and it was narrow and surrounded by loose scree. We gave him a couple minutes but then started walking again, not really sure what to expect from this guy.

10-15 minutes later, he comes driving up the side of the mountain (seriously, like not even really on the road) with this gigantic modified Land Rover. This thing was obviously custom built for this sort of terrain. He swings up, we hope in, and he starts driving down. There weren't really any seats in it so you just had to brace yourself and hold on, but hey, it was faster than walking! We get talking to the guy and find out he's a retired divorce attorney who bought an old mining claim on the side of Castle and they're scoping it out to build a house up there (!?!) and he bought the vehicle to get around. They live in Aspen in the winter but they spend their summer up on the mountain and only come in to town when absolutely necessary. He was a pretty interesting dude, and provided us with lots of entertainment about the logistics of building a house on the side of a 14er.

The ride down was slow and bumpy, but eventually he did get us back to our car. We thanked him endlessly and actually got his address so we could send him a gift basket as a thank you. We took off for Aspen to get her ankle looked at, and called our friends who were incredibly worried (we had been gone about 5 hours longer than we said we would, and S&R had been going through Aspen to look for the guy on Capitol, which of course worried them).

I've since done more 14ers and had to make more questionable calls in the outdoors, and I'm still not positive that going up was the right thing to do, but it was the choice I made at the time. I like to think I've only gotten better at 14er judgement calls, but our day on Castle ended up working out perfectly. As I asked in my trip report title - what could I possibly have done to deserve the karma of running into that guy on the way down? And for having perfect weather? It certainly makes you want to go out and do some good deeds.