One-Day January Ascent of Capitol Peak

I've dreamed of climbing Capitol Peak in the winter ever since climbing the peak in the summer of 1993. This dream finally came true this winter when my good friend Stefan, my twin brother Max, and I got serious about this goal. On December 30th, Max and I scouted out the route up to Moon Lake and then the idea was to wait for the next "good" weekend and go for it. We wanted to climb Capitol in the winter as close to the winter solstice as possible, making it a "true" winter ascent. Several other parties have climbed Capitol in one day in March; conditions can be much different in March - consolidated snow, warmer weather, and longer days.

The weather was looking good for last weekend, so we decided to go for it, starting on Friday at midnight (1/16/10). We left Boulder at around 8 pm and headed to the Snowmass area. We stopped at the parking lot of a grocery store in Eagle to gear up (picture to the left). We had no idea how long it would take us, we guessed around 15-18 hours based upon what other people had taken in the spring and the conditions up on the ridge and face to the summit were unknown. Hence the super early midnight start.

We arrived at the winter trailhead to West Snowmass Creek at just around midnight and were ready to go shortly thereafter. Max slammed a double shot canned espresso and the three of us were off at about 12:15 am. There was absolutely no moon in the sky, it was completely dark without our headlamps.

The snow conditions were really strange skiing up West Snowmass Creek and also up to Moon Lake! Pretty large surface hoar crystals had formed; breaking through them was like skiing through very light corn flakes! It was bizarre. Combined with the reflection from our headlamps it was like being in the presence of a bunch of disco balls (or 10,000 fireflies, as the song goes!!). Here and there up to about 10,500 feet, our tracks from 17 days ago were still visible, but covered with 1-3 inches of snow. Higher up, we lost our tracks and had to break fresh trail through close to a foot of powder for 1500 vertical feet to above Moon Lake.

Above Moon Lake, the snow conditions became hardpack (Stefan to the up and right). We were able to skin pretty much straight up to the saddle between K2 and the ridge to Clark Peak. We were all surprised at how well our skins were gripping the hardpack. We reached the saddle at around 6:00 am and it was still another 30 mintues or so before sunrise. We had no idea it would go this quickly! Two weeks ago on our reconnoisance mission to Moon Lake, it had taken 4.5 hours. We figure with going a bit slower and in the dark it would take 5-6 hours. So, suffice it to say, we were ahead of schedule and a bit concerned to start the knife edge ridge in the dark. But we knew we didn't want to sit in the cold wind for long, so we left our skis/poles and headed to K2!

We decided to climb directly to the summit of K2 (the summer route sort of descends and traverses along the north face of K2). We topped out on K2, descended to the north side, and traversed west and down to the notch on the west side of K2. Here, we strapped our crampons on and headed across the ridge, still in the dark! Now this is one of the coolest feelings in the world. 15-20 years ago, when I got into climbing 14ers, I would never have thought that someday I'd be scampering across the knife edge ridge in the winter, and at night on top of that! It was sort of an emotional experience to say the least.

We were very careful crossing the ridge, not taking any chances whatsoever. It is not the easiest to walk on rock with ski boots, let alone ski boots with crampons! We straddled the ridge like riding a horse at some points. The sun finally started to rise, and by the time we were at the end of the ridge the sun had come up and we felt much better as our nerves relaxed a bit, too. However, much of the difficulty of the climb was yet to come!

We only had maybe 400-500 feet to the summit, but it was very difficult going, both in route-finding and technical difficulty. There were sections of several feet of unconsolidated sugar snow on top of rock slabs. It made us uneasy in spots. At one point, it took us almost an hour to ascend only 100 feet; we tried to traverse across the face of Capitol, ran into way-too-deep snow, backtracked, and tried at several points to ascend up to the main ridge, which was pretty technical. We knew that a fall off of the ridge and onto the face would probably be fatal as we'd slide thousands of feet down and over cliffs. So, we took our time and took no chances.

Eventually, we made it to the main ridge and scrambled up rock and snow to the final chimney move. We'd heard from Aron Ralston and others that this was the crux of the entire route; however, none of us felt that this was the crux!! At the summit we thought we had gone a different route but then realized that the chimney was probably the crux. I guess our groveling down low on snow-covered slabs had felt much more difficult than the chimney move.

At the summit (8:45 am), we were proud of our accomplishment. Honestly, it was much more of a mental feat than physical; it requires a lot of patience, confidence, and focus to get across that knife edge. Any fall in either direction and you'd be gone. We knew that we still had to make it back across the ridge, so we didn't waste too much time. Stefan had schlepped a Qdoba burrito to the summit, so he enjoyed that and the three of us basked in the sun for 10-15 minutes, out of the wind. It was great. What awesome conditions for climbing Capitol in the winter!

We headed down, carefully scrambling and not taking any risks. At one point, we decided to rappel a 50-foot snow-covered cliff to be safe. Time couldn't pass too quickly - I was so anxious to be back across the ridge, but we had to be safe and go slow. Finally, we made it up and over K2 and back to our skis! At this point, I had a HUGE headache. I could barely focus. We had discussed if things went well and we were back to the saddle early enough that we might try to throw in Snowmass. This would probably add 4-6 hours. However, we'd never skied or hiked up and over Heckart Pass to the face of Snowmass and decided that just to climb Capitol in a day in the winter was good enough!

We skied back to Moon Lake, ran into some people doing Capitol the next day (www.14ers.com/php14ers/tripreport.php?trip=7653), then skied all the way out back to our car! We got back to the car at about 1:30, 13h15min since leaving. It was great to be back so early, the sun was on us as we congratulated eachother and enjoyed our accomplishment.

Here is a video I put together of the trip:

The next day, our friends Bill Wright and John "Homie" Prater were planning on summitting in one day as well. They were successful! I'll try to post their trip report here as well. Bill has some nice point-of-view cam footage!

New Ski Setup for the Grand Traverse!

This spring, my brother and I will compete in the 13th annual Elk Mountains Grand Traverse (5th time for each of us). About this time of year, I start to think about which skis and equipment I will use. In the last 2-3 years, there has been somewhat a shift in strategy, transitioning from primarily light cross country touring/racing skis to randonee racing gear - a paradigm shift, if you will. At the start line of the 2007 GT, my brother and I noticed the team comprised of Bryan Wickenhauser and Eric Sullivan were standing out, geared up with relatively heavy AT boots and randonee skis/bindings. This strong team was doing well until Richmond Hill, when the teams on traditional nordic skis passed them before the descent down Aspen Mountain. However, Wick/Sulli ended up in 6th place. Surprisingly, this "fad" caught on, and in 2008 the top 3 teams (among others) finished wearing rando skis. The trend continued, and last year it was rare to be using traditional nordic skis, although the first place team of Kloser/Henry skied on lightweight nordic gear and in the top 10 there were 3-4 teams wearing nordic skis. Interestingly, however, is the fact that races for 5th and 7th places were narrowly (under 30 seconds) won by rando teams quickly racing down Aspen Mountain, scooping the nordic teams out of those respective places. This demonstrates the far superior performance of rando skis over nordic skis when descending to the finish. My brother and I were in this spot last year on nordic gear as the team of John Brown/Brian Smith eyed us from the top of Aspen Mountain and hunted us down, like falcons swooping down on their prey. All we could do was watch as those nice shiny edges carved up the corderoy and we were cheated out of our hard-earned 7th place!

Ultimately, the nordic vs. rando dilemma will depend upon race-day conditions. To prepare oneself for the rigors of the GT, it is best, therefore, to be flexible. My brother and I are registered under the team name of "Edges are for Pansies", mostly based on our bitter disdain for randonee equipment and the high costs associated. However, both of us are now thinking that having rando equipment in our quiver might be prudent. However, I am still hesitant to kick down a bunch of money for rando skis (although I have purchased Scarpa F1s and some nice dynafit bindings) and I am a big believer in the power of wax and kick-and-glide if the conditions warrant. Therefore, I am using a setup that uses beefy AT boots and bindings combined with a sweet 3/4-length metal edge ski with a double camber, perfect for both descending icy crust and corderoy as well as kicking and gliding using wax. The ski I am using is a circa 2003 Asnes Marka ski that I used in the 2005 Grand Traverse - this pair of skis has had SNS Profile, NNN-BC, and now dynafits mounted on them - hope that doesn't come back to haunt me 'cause of all the screw holes!

The development of my new ski setuphas not been without difficulty. Two weeks ago, while kicking and gliding up to the Ben Eisman Hut, one of my AT bindings popped off of the ski, presumably due to too much beef for the relatively light Asnes Marka touring skis. However, I have hopefully fixed the problem by adding an 8-inch long aluminum plate to the bottom of the toe piece. This will eliminate torque on the screws holding the toe piece to the ski and is also why, as I surmised later, traditional nordic bindings come as a single long piece, not just a toe piece. I just can't seem to learn that the binding-ski interface can be the weak link in the system - during my first GT back in 2001, I had a telemark binding mounted to some touring skis and the beefy plastic telemark boot popped off the binding of one ski at Star Pass, the halfway point of the race!! Suffice it to say, it was a long ski/hobble to the finish...

Attaching the toe piece to the custom aluminum plate (thanks to Stefan Griebel for use of his equipment!).

Affixing the plate/toe piece combo to the ski.

Making sure the heel lines up with the heel piece before screwing/epoxying!

UPDATE (3/11/10) - After weeks of testing out this setup, I have had ZERO technical or mechanical problems, even breaking trail through a foot or so of snow. If anything, tightening up the top buckle of the boots makes this setup feel a bit awkward. Furthermore, locking down the heel for the downhill feels really strange and unnatural, so even on the downhill I prefer to be in touring mode. During an 8-hour ski tour around Vail Pass a few weekends ago I didn't lock down the heel once! The heel piece does make climbing a little easier, but the extra weight of the heel piece tends to weight down the back of the ski and makes it difficult to skate in since the ski tips go up into the air. When the top buckle is left unbuckled, this setup skis downhill slightly better than skate or classic skis; but when the top buckle is clamped down it is quite stable! Will be perfect for the dreaded descent of Star Pass!! In addition, I was able to find some dynafit climbing crampons on ebay.com for only $15 that hook into the binding behind the toe piece. I'm hoping that this might be the secret weapon for Richmond Hill this year!! Due to the extra weight of the heels and the fact that I don't use them much, I have decided to jetison them and fill the holes with epoxy. This is the final setup I'll be using for the GT (see below). Wish me luck!

The Zion Traverse

Zion Traverse at SpotAdventures

Map created by SpotAdventures:GPS Geotagging

My fiancee (Tina) and I decided to head down to Zion National Park for the week of Thanksgiving. I had thought that I'd never been to Zion before, but my mom corrected me when I told her of our plans; apparently, my family visited Zion long ago on a family vacation to the West but the three of us kids were sick of traveling and we all put our hands over our eyes and said "NO MORE ROCKS!" Interesting considering that I love rocks now and couldn't get enough of the place during our recent visit; I am super excited to return and do some climbing in the near future.

Tina had found on the internet a trip report by Karl Meltzer and Jared Campbell, who had linked up a bunch of trails for a trans-Zion traverse. We found additional information about the route on Andrew Skurka’s website and were excited to do this route and see much of Zion. We would be doing the route unsupported, meaning we’d have to bring all our food/clothing with us and get water along the way. This time of year, we’d need to bring a lot of warm clothing, especially Tina, who can’t even stay warm in our living room! Due to logistical issues we’d decided only to do about 37 miles of the true “Zion Traverse” so that we could finish our day in style – a night at the Zion Lodge. (Later in the week we finished the last 11 miles of the full route via another bike shuttle “Traverse ‘n Reverse”.)

Having only run a handful of times in the last 4 months due to post-Hardrock burn-out, I was excited just to get out and do a nice long hiking adventure in a new place. Tina had other plans; she wanted to run a lot of the route. Tina is a little Energizer Bunny and keeping up with her proved to be challenging. It is refreshing to be with somebody who has so much motivation!
On Sunday we pulled into Zion in the early afternoon and checked the weather forecast. Tina's Blackberry told us that we only had one good day of weather (Monday) and colder temperatures and significant rain were headed our way the rest of the week. We wanted to make the most of our one good day of weather, so we set up the Zion Traverse for Monday. We feared that the rest of the week would be spent sipping coffee, perusing through gift shops, and driving the tourist routes – but we later realized that the forecast we had gotten was for Zion, ILLINOIS!! The rest of the week proved to be stellar weather…

We booked a room at the Zion Lodge for Monday night, locked our bikes up, left our bike shoes and helmet and change of clothes, then headed for the town of Hurricane, where we stayed in a motel to get a good night’s sleep. Up at 4:00 am on Monday, we drove the 30 minutes to Lee Pass. Cold temperatures (29 degrees F!) and wind greeted us as we headed down from the trailhead. It was nice to be moving. We ran most of the downhill here, despite my wanting to “just hike”. The EB was on her way! After a little over an hour, we reached La Verkin Creek, then headed up the Hop Valley trail. The Hop Valley is awesome. The sun came up and light touched the red rocks, surrounding us in an amphitheater of pink. Various sections of the Traverse reminded us of different parts of the world. For example, the Hop Valley section was exactly like places I’d been in Denali NP, Alaska. The creek winded back and forth from one side of the valley to another, requiring many stream crossings. Furthermore, there was no solid trail so route finding was difficult. We finally made our way up to the southern terminus of the Hop Valley trail and we were greeted by sun on our faces.

The next section took us from the Hop Valley trail along a connector trail to the Wildcat Trail. We ran much of this as it is flat and gently rolling terrain. The West Rim trailhead is at about 23 miles into the route. The West Rim trail heads south and was not that exciting. This part of the route may as well be called the Zzzzz-ion Traverse! But eventually the route climbs ridges and the views to the west and southwest were amazing! Canyons and rock pinnacles galore! We continued to the intersection of the West Rim trail with the Telegraph Trail (closed due to recent forest fires in the area), descended sandstone cliffs that literally had the trail blasted into vertical cliffs, and made our way to below the famous Angel’s Landing. Beautiful! Finally, we descended down into the Zion Valley as the sun was setting. Total time was around 12 hours and we headed straight to the Zion Lodge for a hot meal and a good night’s sleep.

The next day we fetched our bikes from Lee Pass. This day was an adventure in itself, including a flat tire from a 1-1/2 inch screw (see photo) necessitating hitch-hiking into the town of Hurricane, biking uphill along I-15 with 30 mph headwinds, a second flat tire, hitch-hiking again along the interstate (dangerous!), and being picked up by an Air Force pilot who drives his SUV like he’s being chased by Maverick in Top Gun - even more dangerous!

All in all, it was a great adventure, but we’d recommend against doing the “Traverse ‘n Reverse” with the bikes – pretty dangerous and not that aesthetic. Definitely get a shuttle bunny (fiancée, husband, wife, or friend) to help you out with getting back to the start.

The Zion adventure to end all adventures would be: DAY 1 - start at Lee Pass, hike the 23 miles or so to the West Rim Trail (get a large portion out of the way initially), camp overnight at Lava Point (your shuttle bunny can set up camp); DAY 2 - do The Subway canyoneering route – pretty easy if you have dry suits (available for rental in the town of Springdale) and a 20 meter section of rope (your shuttle bunny can get permits and dry suits and can even join you for The Subway!), camp at Lava Point again this night (drive down to Springdale for dinner?); DAY 3 - continue on the Zion Traverse route from Lava Point to Zion Canyon, stay a night at the Zion Lodge (14 miles during this day); DAY 4 - peruse the canyon on a day off (or later on DAY 3); DAY 4/5 - finish with the stellar climb up to the East Rim Trail and to the East Rim trailhead near the east entrance to the park (11 miles this day). This would be a worthwhile Zion adventure that would take 4-5 days and would eliminate the “death march” aspect of doing this in a day!

The Subway

Long's Peak Triathlon, August 28, 2009

On August 28, 2009, me and my good friend Stefan Griebel attempted to break the record (or the "fastest known time" - FKT) for the Long's Peak Triathlon. The goal of the LPT is to bike from Boulder to the Long's Peak trailhead via South Saint Vrain canyon and Allenspark, hike/run from the trailhead to the base of the Diamond, solo the North Chimney, then rope up and climb the Casual Route. The descent is via the North Face Cable Route then bike back to Boulder to complete the Triathlon. The current record was 10 hours, 30 minutes (see the following website for more info: http://www.wwwright.com/climbing/speed/neal_info.htm), and we hope to beat this time.

Here is a quick trip report I sent to the Satan's Minions Scrambling Club after the adventure:

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Hello Minions!

Thanks for the support yesterday, it was fun to come home and realize some of you had been "watching" us! Glad to distract you during your work day... Well, if the Minions don't have the FKT on the Long's Peak Triathlon, we now have the SFKT (second fastest known time)!

A trip report has been requested. I'll provide just a short one; maybe Stefan will make up a more detailed one. It was a great adventure, glad to have the help of Bill and Mark and to have completed the trip with Stefan! Stefan was the glue that held this attempt together.

We started at 5:03 am from Broadway/36. The bike went smoothly. Got to the Trailhead (Stefan's car was there, driven up by Mark and Bill) after 2h32min. Transitioned to running gear, left the TH at 2h38min. The hike up was rather brutal for me; Stefan seemed to just glide along. This is where I usually shine, but I guess the bike took it out of me. We reached the base of the lower wall at 4h8min I believe (Stefan has exact splits). We looked up and lots, I mean LOTS of people on the wall already. As we unpacked the gear (left last Sunday, hidden in dry bags and garbage bags under a pile of rocks, I realized my climbing shoes weren't in my bag that I stashed. "Stefan, do you have my climbing shoes?!" Big mistake, in the hurry off of the face last Sunday I had accidentally left them on Broadway. ... ... not at the base of the N. Chimney like I had wanted. At this point my heart sank and I got really nervous. My palms got sweaty. Last Sunday we soloed the N. Chimney with climbing shoes, and I'm glad I had sticky rubber. We decided to continue. I tried on Stefan's climbing shoes but a size 40.5 won't fit someone who normally wears 42.5. Stefan is much more comfortable scrambling stuff than me in running shoes. As I climbed, I was super nervous and slow. The last thing Tina (my lovely fiancee) said to me as I left the door was "Be safe, okay?" I would do one or two moves, take a break, and think to myself "There's no way I'm going to be able to get up this in my running shoes!" At this point, I also thought that there was no way anyway we'd be able to climb the route. Above us on the first pitch were already two climbing parties (one with 3, one with 2). Waiting at the bottom of the pillar were 2 more parties roped up and ready to go.

I took my time ascending the N. Chimney. Stefan quickly made it up. I sat and waited at the bottom of the crux move (at 5.6, not too bad, but the exposure was tremendous), another team was there using a rope; Stefan had passed them while they climbed. I sat there, palms dripping sweat. Surely, any minute Stefan will peer above me from Broadway and tell me that we gotta bail, and he'll come swooping down on a rope to save me and we'll rappel outta here!!! But no such luck. I finally, carefully made it up to Broadway. Unbeknownst to me, he had already asked permission from 3 parties for us to go by! Okay, I guess we're headed up! At this point I really didn't care; I was just excited to have made it up the N. Chimney in one piece! Surprisingly, Stefan still thought we had a chance at the record. No way, I thought. Too much time had been lost.

We simulclimbed the first pitch (pitches 1,2, and 3 in any guidebook) in one mongo pitch, passing one team on the traverse. I followed, but had to take a 15-minute stop at the base of the 5.8 slot while the two followers in the 3-person team made their way up. Bottleneck at the Hillary Step!! It was rediculous. 20 people on the wall as we climbed, 13 of them on the casual route. When the route cleared, I quickly headed up and met Stefan at the belay. The 3-person team agreed to let us go by. We changed over gear and I led up the awesome 5.8 corner. Stefan followed. It seemed we were slow, but Stefan's watch told us it took only 35 minutes to do that pitch (pitches 4 and 5 in the guidebook); last week it took us 39 and we were relatively "fresh". Stefan still thought we had a shot at the FKT. As we headed up, we realized there was yet another team above us, they were on the crux pitch. Stefan headed up, had to wait a bit for them, but was able to pass them at the belay. I started climbing (simulclimbing) and Stefan was able to traverse out the ledge, allowing us to do the Casual Route in 3 pitches! I followed, made it through the 5.9 chimney (I never would've thought the first time I did the entire route would have been "racing" it! - last week we only made it to the top of the 5.8 corner before we had to bail due to weather and crowds). Finally, up and around the 5.10a crux move and we were golden.

It was around 12:38 (7h35min into the triathlon) or so by the time we reached the top. We power hiked to the summit in 10 minutes, then headed down the N. Face. I brought climbing shoes, unsure of how difficult the down-climb would be. Fortunately, it was cake. The rest of the route was an amalgam of on- and off-trail running, zooming through trees and over rocks like the Ewoks on there little hovercraft motorcycle machines - I'm surprised neither of us tripped on our faces! We made the descent from the summit in 1h9min. Transitioned to bikes. If we could do the bike down in 1h30min we'd have the record!

We hit it hard on the way home. We really pushed it and gave it everything we had. We thought we had it. Bill Wright was waiting for us (saw us on the SPOT radar network) at the Greenbriar. It was great to have some encouragement. It wasn't until we were maybe 2-3 miles out that we realized we weren't going to make it. Oh well, 10 hours and 36 minutes to do a human-powered round trip of the Diamond on Long's Peak ain't bad! This journey will remain vivid in my memory for the rest of my days. More importantly, I knew that we had left everything we had on the table; record or no record, there is much satisfaction out of knowing that you tried your best and gave it your all. However, I know that my mistake of leaving my climbing shoes on Broadway will haunt me for years to come!

Hard to compare it to Neil and Kevin's go at it in 1990. They carried gear up and over the summit, rappelled the N. Face, and left it there. They also had to wait on a party on the Yellow Wall ledge. Did they know of the shortcuts from treeline down? Were they "racing" it like us? Easier for us to have a time to chase after. Regardless, record or not, it was one of the craziest, intense, hard-earned efforts of my life!

Charlie