Mountains, mountain goats, and 44 hours of sleep-deprived madness: A few words and photos from the Elks Traverse

_{Don't look at me like that, Kevin.}

_{Capitol Peak peeking at me from afar as I set up my tent. See you tomorrow morning, big guy.}

_{6:25am. The rising sun strikes the high country as slowly and gently as lightning doesn't under the setting moon's waning gibbous gaze. Capitol Lake, and Capitol Peak above on the left.}

_{6:25am. Looking back down on our first valley climb.}

_{7:15am. Me picking my way up the direct ridge route across K2. Photo credit: Wade.}

_{7:55am. Wade chilling on K2 just before we crossed the knife edge to Capitol's summit.}

_{9:07am. Snowmass awaits across a valley of boulders and talus and scree. It will be slow going.}

_{9:37am. Wade walking the snow up to our slot into the next valley.}

_{9:40am. The slot, aka Wandering Dutchman couloir, with Pierre Lakes below and Snowmass again in the distance.}

_{10:08am. Looking back at the couloir and the scree slope we descended.}

_{10:29am. A closer view on the Pierre Lakes.}

_{10:50am. Looking back on our tracks coming up a snow gully. Easier, and safer, than hopping boulders.}

_{11am. Wade found an old camera half hidden among the rocks. One can't help but wonder if the film was still good—and if the owner ever made it out of there alive.}

_{11:10am. Climbing…}

_{11:20am. A view back across the Pierre Lakes and the valley of rocks.}

_{12:23pm. Me, alone, contemplating the massive buttress coming down Snowmass' south side. At my (stupid) suggestion, we'd started up a more direct line to the ridge and summit, but it turned out to be beyond my technical climbing ability, so while the more experienced climber Wade continued on the high line, the less experienced climber Brandt descended and explored this safer and less stupid route around the buttress.}

_{2:07pm. A view on Geneva Lake and Meadow Mountain as I ascended Snowmass after skirting its south buttress.}

_{2:07pm. That's looking at the ridge Wade went up, and I tried to go up. Doesn't look too bad from this distance, but I assure you it was a wild one. I would've taken a picture when I was up there, but using my hands for anything besides holding on for dear life would've probably meant dying. So you'll just have to use your imagination.}

_{2:36pm. Almost at the top.}

_{3:30pm. Making our way down the slopes of Snowmass. North Maroon Peak and South Maroon Peak, aka The Maroon Bells, are visible way off in the distance, to the right. Pyramid is also visible, poking up even farther off and just to the left of the Bells. Just a hop, a skip, and a jump away, as I like to say. We'll be there in no time.}

_{4:16pm. Snowmass Lake. From this point we'll veer to the right, stay high, and take the most direct route we can find over to the Bells.}

_{4:33pm. Crossing the first trail we've seen in hours. This is the Geneva Lake segment of the Four Pass Loop, on its way up to Trail Rider Pass. That's not where we're going, so unfortunately we won't be making use of it.}

_{4:38pm. Leaving the stark white rock of the Snowmass area, heading into the epic reddish wonderland of the Bells and Pyramid.}

_{4:59pm. A gorgeous green plateau near the high point of our route away from Snowmass.}

_{4:59pm. Can't see it from here, but Snowmass Lake is directly ahead and below this point.}

_{5:55pm. In the valley that runs up to the west side of the Bells, looking back toward Snowmass.}

_{6:04pm. The Bells, as seen from their wild west side. From this point, we'll cross Snowmass Creek, drag ourselves up a scree chute to a little notch called the gunsight, and then swing up to North Maroon Peak. Photo credit: Wade}

_{7:54pm. North Maroon Peak, looking back to Snowmass and Capitol.}

_{3:46am. Overnight photos are few and far between. We meet a solitary prowling Kevin way up high somewhere on the side of Pyramid. I'm convinced he was stalking us and planning to head-butt us off his mountain. You can't trust mountain goats, especially not at night.}

_{5:24am. Looking southeast-ish, on our way down from the summit. Tired and sleep deprived. Second sunrise.}

_{5:34am. There's not really a trail to speak of up here. Cairns mark the way, and we moved slowly at times struggling to find them at night. The daylight made things easier, and we picked up the pace again as we descended.}

_{5:53am. This is the crap we came up last night. What a slog. The Bells Traverse is visible directly across the valley at the upper left. Snowmass and Capitol are the farthest peaks in the distance.}

_{5:54am. Go away, Kevin.}

_{5:55am. Goddammit Kevin you come any closer I'll stab you with my fucking hiking pole. Go find someone else to murder.}

_{7:14am. Almost down Pyramid. Who needs sleep when you can just pop one of Wade's 200mg caffeine pills. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO}

_{10:46am. Down along West Maroon Creek to the confluence, turn south and head up the valley along East Maroon Creek. Sure we might've lost our stash but we're moving fast, and there's still just enough food between the both of us to make it to the finish, and hey, at least we weren't here when the avalanche mowed these trees down. Over the next few miles or so I'll take my second 200mg shot of caffeine and get both feet soaking wet trying to navigate treacherous creek crossings. The mosquitoes will swarm us anytime we stop and the crows will keep eyes on us from above, hoping to see us stumble and fall and die.}

_{2:17pm. All the way up to the top of the valley, over Cooper Pass, and around to Triangle Pass. Here we pause for a break, and I take my shoes and socks off to dry my feet and stave off the trench foot. We think we're looking at Castle and Conundrum here, but that reddish one on the right is actually Point 13,550 and to the left is Castleabra. Mass confusion ensues as we follow Eric Lee's GPS track down the valley, wondering why we're deviating so far from the obviously correct route. Something's wrong… STAY ON THE GPS TRACK! Something's not right here, shouldn't we be way over there??… WE'RE SLEEP-DEPRIVED, NOT THINKING RIGHT, JUST STAY ON THE GPS TRACK! …and eventually, we realize that the error was ours, and the GPS was right all along, and we find our final approach and begin the climb into and up the last valley.}

_{5:17pm. After a long and slow climb up the rockiest highway ever we've got a sight on what I think is the saddle between Castle and Conundrum. Wade doesn't recognize it. I've been leading this section and I'm having my doubts now but we're already so high that we might as well just go all the way up and see what we find, so that's what we do.}

_{5:33pm. Looking back down over all the nonsense we had to come up. As soon as we hit the saddle I realize my mistake. We aren't in the saddle between Castle and Conundrum—we're in the one directly east of Castleabra! Uhh… whoops, I guess? LOL}

_{6:31pm. Castleabra. The mistake forced us to do a bit of extra ridge climbing to arrive at the proper Castle approach, but I think the mental toll of confusion and uncertainty was greater than the physical price we paid. Oh well, at least the weather held. Got to stay positive.}

_{6:31pm. Above to the right is Castle, and to the left Conundrum. The long scree slope in front of Wade is where we should have gone up. Put another way, we just pioneered an alt route up C&C for future Elks Traversers to explore :)}

_{7:17pm. Castle summit.}

_{7:50pm. Conundrum summit. Far below stretches out the road we'll march down to reunite with Yolo McFukitol. To the right you can glimpse a bit of the trail we'll follow off Castle's northeast ridge.}

_{7:50pm. Castle viewed from Conundrum. Did you know there are people crazy enough to actually ski down that kind of crap? Yep, ski season lasts all year around here.}

_{8pm. Second sun sets as we head back to Castle and begin the long final descent. It will be nearly 4 hours till we make the trailhead and the road will seem neverending as we shuffle down slapping at the bugs dive-bombing our headlamps, and seeing weird things that aren't actually real. But as all mountains must have a summit, every road must come to an end. It's just a hop, a skip, and a jump away.}

_{(43hrs 51min 30sec. Max elevation was 14,265, so clearly something is wrong with my InReach. All other stats look good though.)}

Flyover

Wade's better flyover

_{(Flyover mileages are inaccurate; use them for visuals only.)}

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_{8-1-21. Let's do that again sometime. Maybe Hive account@otherbrandt will want to tag along.}