Castle - Castlebra - Condundrum

Date: 8/9/2019
Trailhead: Castle Creek
Summits: Castle > Castleabra > Castle > Conundrum
Distance: 10.1 Miles
Elevation Gain: 4750ft
Time: 7.5 Hours
Partners: Robby Grace, Kristi Henes(Castle & Conundrum Only)
GPX

We drove my Tacoma to the highest camp spot on the road (roughly 11400) and spent the night.

In the morning we hiked about 2 miles to where the road ended and headed up the snow to the start of the northeast ridge trail. Hiking to Castle's summit was straight forward from there.

From Castle's summit we headed down Castle's steep southwest ridge towards 13820 and Castleabra. There were two major obsticles to negotiate between Castle and the 13820 saddle.

  1. A cliff on the ridge that needed to be skirted on the right. We dropped off the right side of the ridge on loose screen and popped into a channel between a snow field and the cliff. We used this channel to traverse to the base of the cliff and back to the ridge. See picture #11.
  2. Just before the Castle / 13820 saddle there is steep and loose down climb to the left of the ridge. I would rate this section as class 4. We down climbed one at a time to avoid rock fall. Pictures 14, 15, 16, 24 and 25. This section (in both directions) is the crux of the route.

After getting through the second obsticle we scrambled over 13820 and on to Castleabra. Descending (and climbing) 13820 was much easier than Castle.

After enjoying Castleabra's summit we re-traced our steps back to the summit of Castle.

From Castle we tagged Conundrum then enjoyed some fun glissading back to the road and our hike back to camp.

Castle East Face Ski