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My friends and I made plans to spend Friday through Sunday at Conundrum Hot Springs, so I thought, "Why not try to tag Conundrum Peak?"
To approach this route, simply hike to Conundrum Hot Springs, and then follow the signs to campsite 8, which is just 100 meters away, at 39.01185, -106.89004. I was camping out for the weekend with friends, so I started the day right by the Hot Springs.
Campsite 8 is the last place where you follow a trail.
The first obstacle to tackle in this journey off-trail is the cliffs that obstruct your view. When you look east from the area where the camp sites and hot springs are located, you actually cannot see Conundrum Peak. Instead, there is an impressive cliff that fills your vision.
Shown here are the cliffs blocking the view of Conundrum Peak, viewed from the campsites near the hot springs.
To get around these cliffs, you simply proceed to the northeast, perpendicular to the fall line along a talus field until you've reached the northern end of the cliffs.
At the northern end of the cliffs, there is a fun couloir that I climbed up, but you can also just continue for another 20 meters north to bypass the couloir and take easier terrain.
There is a couloir that you may optionally ascend, or you can go north / left around it.
Once around this, you finally catch your first impressive view of the ridge that you will be taking to Conundrum Peak.
Here's the first view I got of the ridge that I'd be taking up to Conundrum Peak.
As you can see, there's a pretty obvious line that I knew I'd be taking at this point. The many cliffs in the photo prevent travel except along the ridge.
At this point, I descended a little into the bowl, which brought me right to the base of the Conundrum West Ridge. The west ridge doesn't properly start until 39.01797, -106.87373. Up until this point, there is significantly more flexibility in where you wander with your travels. Once you pass this start of the ridge, there are cliffs to the south and a very steep boulder field to the north along most of the ridge, so you will want to stay as true to the spine of the ridge as possible.
Going around the base of the West Ridge to the northern side allowed me to gain the ridge easily rather than trying to climb up the cliffs.
When I first got onto the ridge, I could not see Conundrum Peak. My view was obstructed by the ridge itself.
After getting onto the ridge, the view is obstructed.
After a short ways, I headed over a bulge in the ridge and could easily see the southern summit of Conundrum. Technically, Conundrum has two peaks right next to each other, and the northern one is higher.
Looking up the West Ridge at Conundrum Peak.Still looking up the ridge at Conundrum Peak.
Following this ridge is pretty self-explanatory, until I got near the very top. As I was approaching the top, a 10 meter headwall started to fill my vision.
Approaching the headwall
The trick is to go around this headwall, to bypass it on the south side.
Right below the headwall
The slope on the south side of the headwall is steep, but manageable.
With the headwall on my left, I passed by three small ridges on my right (seen in this photo), with gulleys between each ridge.
Keeping the headwall on my left, I continued until I reached an open boulder / snow field. At this point, the easiest way is to continue until you hit the ridge between Conundrum Peak and Castle Peak.
Rather than take the easiest way, I took a slightly more direct path up to the south summit of Conundrum.
Walking along the ridge of the Conundrum towards the northern peak.
After gaining the southern summit of Conundrum, it was a short walk along the ridge to a col.
After dropping into the col between the north and south summits of Conundrum, I found myself looking up one final, short climb to the top of Conundrum Peak.
Just a few minutes later, I found myself at the top!
Enjoying the views.
The views from the summit were spectacular.
Looking at Castle Peak from Conundrum Peak.
Half way done! Now, I just had to make the hike back down. The trek down was relatively uneventful, but quite long. The snow was anywhere from a few inches to over a foot. Sadly, there wasn't quite enough snow for glissading.
There was a nice group of a dozen folks enjoying the hot springs when I got back down.
Here is an overview map showing the route that I took in blue.
GPS Track(s) on Google Maps (made from a .GPX file upload):
I bet you are right about the snow, two lunches! I feel like doing this in October gave me a little bit of an interesting perspective since the snow was between a few inches and a foot, meaning that in some places it was more of a snow climb and in other places it was a scramble. I could definitely feel that the rock below the snow was loose (scree in some places and talus in others). Having the snow to hold all the rocks in place certainly seems nice. Thanks for reading and commenting :).
Congrats on the summit. It looks like you had a beautiful sunny day for a climb.
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