Citadel & Pettingell

Mostly Class 3 - One or Two Class 4 Moves - One Rappel (30 meter rope)

Our day started at the Herman Gulch trailhead on the east side of the I70 Eisenhower tunnel. From the trailhead we hiked up the main Herman Gulch trail to the lake( roughly 3 miles). We left the trail at the lake and hiked to the saddle between Mount Bethel and the Citadel. From the saddle we climbed the ridge to the base of Citadel's summit block. This is where the class 3-4 scrambling starts. We scrambled to Citadel's summit and continued along the ridge until we reached the rappel. The rappel station was easy to find and the rap was straight forward. After the rap the scrambling eases up and we hiked to along the ridge to the summit of Pettingell. This is where we made a mistake and descended a nasty scree field off of the summit. Instead we should have retraced our tracks back to a low point just southwest of Pettingell's summit and descended from there. Our round trip was 10.2 miles and 4030 vertical.

Partner: Kristi Henes

GPX

Citadel 14ers.com Page
Pettingell 14ers.com Page