Happy happy birthday to my incredible wife, Isable!!!
Spent the weekend snagging our 41st and most likely last for this season.
Capitol has been in my head since learning about it a few years ago. Obviously, the infamous stories of tragedy loom large, especially in the week leading up to this hike.
Start 12:30pm (9/24/25): The approach hike is very fitting. Capitol stares at you the entire way. It's rare that you find a spot you can't see her looking at you. I often wondered what the heck we were thinking as we approached. This is by far top 3 beautiful hikes and it only made it more captivating that the leaves were blasting with color!
3:15pm: We arrived at Capitol Lake and snagged an incredible site that overlooked the area around the lake. Sites were almost full and filled up by 430pm Friday.
6:15am: started our long jaunt up. We started a little later as we had a good forecast and we wanted to see what we were doing once we were past the Daly saddle.
6:45am: top of the saddle and the start of the fun. We were originally going to do ridge direct route but opted out as we weren't feeling totally confident with the beta we had. We opted for the standard route and was prepared to embrace the suck ahead of us to K2.
9:00am: we reached the summit of K2. Honestly, the boulder field and the hike up K2 was not terrible. I've been reading through a lot of posts and trip reports and, take this with a grain of salt, did not think it was as loose or terrible as say Mt. Wilson, Challenger, or Columbia (pre-trail fix). The moves up to K2 summit and even down towards the knife edge were quite fun.
Knife Edge: incredible, fun, laser focused. We had a blast on it. It was challenging but felt pretty secure the whole time even when scooting. Just don't look down...yeesh.
Capitol Summit: Our intent was to stay as true as possible to ridge direct as we could from knife edge onward. We got sucked off the edge a few times but stayed high until we came to the traverse which we somehow found ourselves with the option of climbing up to the ridge and over or to just traverse to the summit push. We chose traverse as it did not look too bad. And it wasn't but it was a test every hold situation with not a whole lot of room for error.
10:45am: summit birthday party! Congrats to Black Sherpa on 58!! Incredible accomplishment! Had a great time swapping stories with everyone on the summit. Huge props to everyone up there yesterday.
Summit to Daly saddle: long and tiring. Fatigue definitely plays a factor. You spend a lot of energy from K2 to the summit. Thankfully, we had a perfect day and were able to take our time coming down.
2:45pm: back at the Daly saddle.
Takeaways and Advice: preparation, fitness, focus. This really requires you to be on your A game the entire time. There is a lot of energy, both mental and physical, spent on this route. There is not room for error once you're past K2. Be deliberate with your moves and confident in your preparation. Know where you are going and what you are looking for. Bring plenty of water and snacks to stay on your A game.
We felt like our schedule this summer helped build us up to the point of feeling confident with attempting this bugger:
Mt Lindsey NW ridge, La Plata Ellingwood ridge (nothing will every be as long/grueling as that), wetterhorn, wilson peak, and el D-mt wilson traverse (quite a puckering experience), along with the 10 other peaks we've done this summer.
What a weekend. Happy trails everyone!
