Capitol Peak (14,138ft): 1st ascent, SUMMER 2022

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  K2 (13,668ft) -> Capitol Peak (14,138ft)
• Date: August 12-14th, 2022
• Route: Capitol Peak standard Route, Northeast Ridge
• Trailhead: Capitol Creek Trailhead
• Range: Elk Mountains
• Class: 4
• Partner(s): Logan

• Report: We arrived Friday Night, August 12th, 2022. Me and Logan slept in the car as we planned to wake early the next morning to hike to Capitol Lake to camp, which would give us a head start toward our summit push. I was very nervous, Logan too. This was the big one, capitol peak. The notorious Capitol peak—which took 5 lives in one summer once. This mountain was something I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to complete. I was terrified of heights, but I had just finished the Crestone traverse and had gotten 36 14ers this year.
  
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  Anyway, Thursday night as we slept, for some reason I woke up laughing hysterically at something and then Logan laughed. I can’t remember what was so funny. Logan was confused, to this day we don’t remember what was so funny. We woke up with our heavy packs, and back then, we carried all of our water, we didn’t even know we could filter water from the lake. We carried almost 3 gallons of water in on the 7 mile approach to the lake. How foolish! The Capitol peak approach has two trail options, the Capitol Creek Trail, or the Ditch Trail. The Capitol Creek trail has slightly more mileage and a few hundred extra feet of gain. Because of this, I’m not sure why anyone ever takes this trail to get to Capitol Lake/Peak for that reason. It starts out very mellow and even brings you real close to some cows. You’ll have to dodge cow crap throughout the trail. The trail brings you to a creek crossing, in which at the time in 2022, there was no crossing, which meant you either took your shoes off and walked across barefoot or be an idiot like myself and try to jump across with a 100lb pack. I ended up falling in end ended with a soaking wet boot from my mistake—which I learned immediately after, that creek happens to be the cows bathroom which meant I would be continuing the rest of the hike with a shit-sock. After the creek crossing, we pressed on to the lake. Here is where the elevation starts to increase. The first few miles of the Ditch Trail are flat and smooth sailing. The final 2 miles to the lake get pretty steep, which made us really feel the weight of all our water. Once we get near the lake, it was time to find a campsite, we ended up finding a pretty solid spot under some trees that blocked the intense sun to the west. We had plenty of time and daylight to kill. We actually had just enough cell service at our site to watch my friend Devin Clark in his UFC fight. We also decided to move some very heavy boulders to make what we called the capitol peak kitchen. We made a few seats and a table out of the boulders and invited our camp neighbors to join.
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• We ate some great camp food and then suddenly retreated to our campsites when a massive afternoon storm came in. It was a full downpour and some how we ended up getting a ton of water in our tent. We quickly moved all of our gear to the dry side of the tent and sat curled up in a dry corner. We ended up putting a spare coat down over the wet area once the rain ended and it kept everything pretty dry. Here I remember looking up and the knife edge thinking “I hope I don’t die tomorrow.” It looked very ominous with those dark clouds looming over the peak and it’s a site I’ll never forget.
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• As the night approached we set our alarms for a bright an early start of 4am. This way we could get ahead of any other groups attempting the mountain. The alarm hit and I was instantly flooded with adrenaline and butterflies. But onward we went. Today was the day. The route started by ascending the steep 1000ft trail that gains the K2/Capitol-Mt. Daly Saddle. We were moving fast and feeling good. The route then descends to the Pierre Lakes Basin on the East/opposite side of the ridge down into a boulder field. Some of the route finding was tricky here in the dark. We saw a few people ahead of us already turn around, this section is a little strenuous and can definitely burn into the energy reserves if you’re not careful. We pushed up toward K2 up the never ending boulder field and we reached the summit of K2 a few minutes before 6am. Little did I know it but I climbed my 2nd 13er! From K2 you have a few options, skirt around the side of K2 on loose scree or downclimb a 4th class section to stay on the ridge. Both lead to the same spot. We opted to downclimb, I had heard this was a very difficult section, but I found it to be pretty simple honestly. I faced into the rock and took it slow. By 6:27am we reached the knife edge. The moment of truth. The 100ft long section of ridge that you straddle with nothing but air on either side of you. Waiting for 1 mistake to pull you off the mountain. It was scary, but I moved slowly and controlled and eventually reached the end of it. At this moment, I joked that the knife edge would be forever brown from me crapping my pants along the top of it. Logan made his way behind me. As we finished the knife edge, we quickly realized that there are two more smaller/mini knife edges no one told us about, yay. We crossed those and ended up in the top of a gully known as “death gully.” This gully is named such for the reason that many climbers descend it because it looks like a clear, easy path down to the lake. But it doesn’t go, after a little ways it ends in steep, loose cliffs that are almost impossible to turn around on. It has resulted in the deaths of several climbers. After that, the NE ridge has you leave the ridge proper and onto the NE face of Capitol peak. Looking back, I would deem this the most dangerous section of the climb. The rock is absurdly loose and very easy to get lost. There’s a couple narrow ledge sections that gave us some pause as well. As rocks were moving all of the the place, we felt pretty unsafe, and we decided a safer option would be to scramble back onto the ridge proper and finish the final remaining short section to the summit on the ridge crest. It was very exposed but the rock was more stable. A small price to pay for what seemed safer. Finally at 7:25am we made the summit and to my parting relief, I knew we had to go back down. We took our photos, and inside I cried tears of happiness knowing I overcame my fears and accomplished something I never thought would be possible. Me, standing on the summit of Capitol Peak.
  
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• We returned the way we came, and before we knew it, we were back to death gully and the knife edge. The knife edge was far less scary on the way back and I even managed to stand up and walk part of the way. We reascended K2 just after 9:30am and back to what felt like a hamster wheel—the long boulder field that never ends. But by this point, I knew the danger was behind me and we made it back to camp, packed up our stuff and headed down the trail. The packs were much better this time around without the 25lbs of water we brought in the first time. We made it back to the car and I had such an overwhelming feeling of accomplishment. Capitol peak and K2 were in the books!

• Notes: Capitol Peak is the most dangerous of the standard route 14ers, take extreme caution and do plenty of research before attempting this climb

• Stats: summit day camp to camp : 4.2 miles, 2,100ft gain, 6 hours 52 min. total stats: 17.5 miles, 5300ft