Route: North Face Couloir

Team: Ted (solo)

This was a standard Castle Peak outing. Autumn rain in Aspen falls as snow up in Montezuma Basin. Mike Sladdin, Johnny Love, and I piled in the Tacoma and headed up to see how much snow fell.

I had been up here earlier in the week and knew the couloir was skiable. Mike wasn’t too interested in the summit, and Johnny regretfully left his ski poles in the back of his truck in town– so he wouldn’t be up for a summit either.

They were fine hanging out high in the basin, so I skinned to the Castle/Conundrum saddle and then hiked the NW ridge to the summit. It’s a quick trip. Being solo, there weren’t too many pics taken, and with Mike following my progress from below, I didn’t feel totally alone up there. Once into the couloir, the wintry snow made for good skiing.

The past two springs proved pretty productive for skiing 14ers. I counted 41 as having been skied. Earlier this fall I met Chris Davenport in a coffee shop to talk about his plans, he was just getting ready to announce his big project. As I stood alone on Castle that morning, I remember thinking about how it’s always a struggle to find partners for this stuff and that maybe Chris and I should hook up and help each other get some peaks skied.

The first one we would ski together would be Quandary.

Here are some photos from skiing the lower slope of Castle Peak that day.