As promised, here is the weekend update.
As a precursor, I will probably never climb Capitol Peak again.
I woke up Saturday morning at 7 to have breakfast, finish getting stuff together, and make coffee. Jenny was nice enough to get up at 7:45 to take me to meet my friend Steve. Steve has climbed 42 of the 54 14ers and invited me this weekend to climb Capitol Peak. We headed out of town at 8:15 ish. To get to Capitol you need to drive straight on 70 W until you get to Glenwood Springs, 3 hrs ish. After missing the turn onto Capitol Creek Road numerous times we finally found it and headed closer to the trailhead. Capitol Creek Road pretty quickly diminished to awful dirt road. I was quite concerned about Steve's little Rav4 making it. We hiked in via the Capitol Creek trail. It starts by descending about 500 ft into a valley then takes you up this beautiful area scattered with pine forests. It had been a long time since I carried a heavy pack and my body let me know. We made it to the mountain in about 3 hours, which is ok time seeing that it was all uphill and we had heavy packs. At the base of Capitol Peak is Capitol Lake which is also breathtaking and less intimidating than the mountain. We camped right near the lake at about 12,000 feet. I learned this morning that in our round trip we climbed 5,800 feet total in about 18 miles.
When we got in we set up camp, took some pictures of the lake and relaxed. The lake looks very different in each picture due to the light, it is actually beautifully blue and clear. After dinner I sat in my crazy creek staring up at Capitol and just couldn't stop thinking about how intimidating it was. It is huge, and just overwhelming. We went to bed at about 8:15 and I slept surprisingly well.
This morning we got up at 5, had breakfast and started up the trail at 5:30ish. The start is a 1/2 mile hike that ascends about a thousand feet to reach the saddle and entryway to the ridge. It is terrible. It is steep and just kills your legs right away. Once on the saddle we stopped to take a few pictures and headed up onto the ridge. We decided that instead of taking the standard trail we would follow the ridge variation which stays on the ridge (who would have guessed) the whole time. This means that for a mile and a half we were on class 3 and 4 climbing with tons of exposure (for Matt). Most of the ridge is no wider than 6 feet and in places it gets down to less than an inch (ill describe later). So the climb starts with kind of a sketchy class 5 climbing move to gain the ridge. It wasn't hard but when you have over a thousand feet looming inches behind you it has an effect. Once on the ridge it was just slow going and precise movement. There was a lot of loose rock which made it more difficult. Everything you grabbed needed to be inspected prior to weighting it otherwise the consequences could be pretty serious. The climbing really wasn't the difficult thing however there was a combination of things that got to me. In most places your back was against over 1000 feet of air and a mistake was not one you could take back, it is tiring which always drains you mentally as well as physically, and there are a lot of factors out of your control, which I do not like. One thing I love about rock climbing is controlling that danger by making smart decisions. There was danger present today but much of it was out of my hands. This will come back into play later. So on the way to summit Capitol you must summit a 13er, K2. K2 is about halfway across the ridge and doesn't look like much from the ground. It does however look like much when you are preparing to climb it. Once pushing past K2 we had been joined by a couple other parties. One group of 3 had a very experienced mountaineer who has climbed 48 of the 54 CO 14ers and said that this was the hardest thing he had ever done. Great (In the guidebook I saw after our trip it says in the first line that Capitol is arguably the hardest peak in Colorado). Needless to say he was rather shocked when I told him this was my 2nd 14er. He questioned the order in which I was doing them.
After K2 you reach the infamous knife edge. Since everyone that reads this is fairly smart (except Matt) I will describe it by saying the name fits. The knife edge is a hundred foot section of the ridge that is no wider than a few inches, and gets down to under a centimeter. The way to cross this is kind of a mixed bag. There are some areas that have a nice small edge for your feet so you can walk with your hands on top. The problem with this is your have about 1500 feet of air directly below your feet, and in front of you on the other side of the knife edge. This can be combined with straddling the knife edge and scooting your butt along it. This is not comfortable and since it is less technical it allows your more time to look around...which isn't always a good thing. See pictures.
Also here is a video of someone crossing the knife edge.
http://www.14ers.com/videos/showvideo.php?video=CapitolKnife_1b
After the knife edge the climbing continues pretty similarly. As mentioned earlier I will probably not climb Capitol again. I also mentioned that there are a lot of factors out of my control on this mountain. One of them is rock slides. So about 500 feet from the summit I was standing on an edge about eight inches wide looking at a slope made of dirt as well as small and large rocks in front of me, and a 1500 foot drop behind me. This was the way up. The climbing here wasn't hard but the rock was very loose. This slope was probably 15 or so feet wide and I was right in the middle of it waiting for the people in front of me to get done climbing it. All of a sudden I hear "ROCKS!" coming from above me. As I look up I see one very large rock and several more careening down the slope. I was very fortunate to have made the right split second decision and carry it out without hinderance. I turned and ran along this tiny little ledge (eight inches) back where I came from to a section guarded by another rock formation just as the rocks came flying past me. Needless to say I was pretty spooked. A second longer to make my decision or even a slip of the foot after the decision and it would have been a very different result. I waited there and contemplated my options. Steve was at the top of the slope already and couldn't offer much insight. Downclimbing the section I was at was not a great option ( For Matt: probably 5.8 or 9 with loose rock), and staying on the mountain forever didn't sound great either. I waited until the group had completely finished the slope and I headed up to finish the climb. It was fine and the summit wasn't far from there. I met Steve at the top, snapped some pictures and started our descent, which was just at tedious as the ascent. We followed the ridge until we got past K2 and connected with the standard route to get back to camp. The standard route was not difficult, just annoying. Small boulder and scree fields that were just a pain in the ass. We did get to see a marmot carrying someones treking pole which was funny, excluding that person whom the treking pole belonged to. After the scree field we had to cross 2 or 3 snow fields to connect back with the trail that would take us back to the saddle.
From the saddle we cruised back down to camp, packed up, and headed back to the car. We took a different trail than the one we took on the way in called the Ditch Trail. In the guidebook is says that it is "slightly longer" than the Capitol Peak Trail. I am debating on sending a mean letter to the author, Gerry Roach, because it is more like an extra mile or two. Keep in mind we aren't on fricken 4 wheelers, or even scooters. We are walking with packs the size of my dog on our backs. Anyway we made it back, stopped in Edwards at the Gore Range Brewery for dinner then arrived back in Denver at 9:15ish.
Like I said, I will probably never do Capitol again. As awesome as parts of it were I do not enjoy the danger factors I cannot control, and the view looks pretty similar from the top of any mountain. I am glad I finished it because now I never have to do it again, and I can say I have climbed the hardest mountain in Colorado.
View of Capitol from the trailhead
Steve starting into the valley
Steve further into the valley
Awesome forest of Aspen trees
Also, there were cows ON the trail
View of the peak from halfway up the trail
3/4 of the way to the peak, looking back toward the car
View North from the campsite
In front of Cap lake
Capitol Lake
Great View of the whole ridge. We started at the far left and went to the summit, far right.
Looking Northwest from the saddle
Cap lake from the saddle
Steve starting the ridge
Exposure
Me on the ridge
Me atop the ridge on the way to K2
Steve hiking the ridge, not much room for error
The remaining climb to the summit from K2
View from the summit
Same
Steve and I on the summit
Looking back at the whole ridge trail from the summit
The knife edge
The knife edge
View East
In the scree field
Back down from the saddle
Hiking back out
Aspen forest almost back to the car
