Day 8, June 25, 2014
Capitol, Snowmass, North Maroon, South Maroon: The Elks Traverse.
A Slow Transition
The previous 3 days in the Sawatch had been difficult days. But the looming approach of the big Elks day was always on my mind. This was it, the big “Make it or Break it” moment of the record. What was at stake? The 10 day barrier. The record itself was in the bag! I only had two days left and I figured that I was still about 12 hours ahead of the record. But the 10 day barrier was dropping away from my reach.
However, Homie felt I had significantly over estimated the time it would take me to climb the Elks, by at least 3 hours. I hoped he was right. I try hard to make my estimates accurate, but on the conservative side. It is much more fun to be ahead of schedule than behind.
I originally planned to complete this traverse in the opposite direction. I had done the Pyramid to Bells, to Snowmass, to Capitol traverse 3 times, and had always gone in that direction.
However, on the early June scouting trip I had climbed up high on Pyramid and had viewed a good portion of the traverse. I had changed my mind that day for a couple of reasons. One was that I knew I had to climb at least either Pyramid or Capitol in the dark. To me Pyramid has always seemed a little easier than its reputation, and I thought climbing it in the dark would be reasonable, rather than Capitol with its confusing route finding on it south side. I also felt like I could start early and get several hours out of the way in the dark on the long approach to Capitol. The last reason was that I had taken one look at the east face of Snowmass, and I couldn’t resist the urge to slide down that face on my sled, what a blast! And as a surprise to those viewing on the internet, I wanted to glissade the Bell-Cord couloir, although maybe not at the top where the steepness exceeds 45 degrees, as this would avoid the South Ridge descent off Maroon which stands out as one of my least favorite routes.
Joining me for this climb was my well-known speed climbing friend, Stefan Griebel. I met Stefan years before on a long bike ride with our mutual friends Bill Wright and Emily Baer. We were surprised to find out we had been in the same electrical engineering class at CU Boulder and had never known each other. He had grown up only a few miles from my mom’s house in Cortez, Colorado, and we had never met, even though we knew many of the same people.
I had even helped introduce Stefan to adventure racing, although he’d probably like to forget his first race! He paddled for the first time and became severely dehydrated and demoralized on a long desert hike, where he had decided to abandon the race. That had been around the time that I gave up racing to stay at home with the kids, and in the following years Stefan had developed a reputation as a serious badass.
I awoke to bouncing with boxes falling down on top of me around 2:30 am. I had incorporated the bouncing into my dreams and I had absolutely no idea where we were. When it hit me that we were on the way to the Capitol trailhead, I thought we must be lost. We weren’t supposed to be on such a bouncy road. We were supposed to regroup and meet Stefan down at a huge flat area before the road gets rough. Did we miss this trailhead? I didn’t like the idea of beating up the van on such a rough road. How could we be lost? James lives in Aspen and this was his backyard, I couldn’t believe he could make a mistake around here. Maybe he should have listened to me and tried to get more sleep…
All of the cars stopped. James was trying to turn around, he was yelling at someone, Andrea was screaming. James was stuck. Will decided to keep on driving, and mom followed. It was a good move because soon we were at the upper trailhead, at least we had been driving up the right road. I had been scared that we were way off course.
Mom parked and I Andrea went looking around to double check that this was the right location. James was missing. In the meantime I started to slowly get ready to get going again. I wanted to get going as soon as possible, but there was a lot to do. This was going to be a massive effort. Potentially over 24 hours without support. I needed gear, including crampons, and warm gear for cold weather. I needed lots of food, and just took a whole bunch of sustained energy powder. I wore the mismatching shoes again, with one of my Asics running shoes on my right foot, and threw the right Hoka in my pack for good measure. The pack was getting heavy, ugh…
Finally James showed up. I am not sure what happened to him, only I imagine it was tough to turn around with the dirt bike sticking way out off the back end of the pathfinder. I ate some food, although I should have eaten more, considering the big day ahead. Mom, Andrea, and Kim were working hard to get me taped up, wrapped up, medicated, and well fed. It took a long time for me to be ready, and we didn’t get going until about 3:54 am. Darn! I had wanted to be going around 2:00 am. James decided to hike with us for a portion of the approach to Capitol, and brought along his big white fluffy dog, Wesley.
The Approach
Stefan both carried my pack and set a blistering pace, at least it felt that way to me. I don’t think he was working very hard. My foot was hurting. I had injured my feet and gotten Plantar Fasciitis several years before, and it had taken several years to get through the injury. Since then I have been totally dependent upon heat molded shoe insoles that gave my feet excellent arch support. But something felt wrong, it almost felt like there was no insole in my shoe.
I mentioned this to James and Stefan, but then said that was silly, and that we should keep going. But James insisted that I check, and sure enough, there was no insole. Yikes! James immediately turned and ran back towards the trailhead, while Stefan and I continued on.
We didn’t slow down very much, and as we neared a highpoint, James was desperate to catch us before we starting descending. His dog had run off and he needed to go find him. Fortunately, we heard his faint, far-off screams and waited for him to catch us. I have never seen him breathing so hard. He handed me the insole, and deliriously said that he needed to go find his dog.
Stefan and I followed the trail and we descended to the valley below as the sky began to lighten, but in order to get to the main trail heading up to Capitol, we needed to cross the stream. Up and down the stream for a couple of yards there simply was not a single log or rock that we could use to get across the stream.
So we decided to wade across the stream, but we had to take off our shoes and socks first. It was cold water! But it felt pretty good afterwards.
We found the main trail in the light, and soon we started running into snowfields. I just followed behind Stefan and let him find the trail (still below the 3000 foot zone). There was a lot of snow, and we were not anywhere near treeline. When we finally came to 11,000 feet, I put on my heavy pack. Ooof, I didn’t want it! I took the lead now and Stefan had to follow behind me. We continued up the trail, and there was still plenty of snow, but because it was early it was firm and we walked across without any difficulty.
For the first time I mentioned to Stefan about my reasoning for choosing to change the direction on the Elks traverse. I was surprised that by his grunt he didn’t seem to approve. He seemed to think that Capitol was relatively straight forward. Hmm, usually people don’t say that about Capitol…but now that I thought about it, I realized I considered something. There is a ridge route on Capitol that avoids the tricky routefinding on the south side of Capitol. If you were climbing in the dark, and didn’t mind 4th class intermixed with a little class 5, the routefinding would be easy, and that is a big deal. Contrast this with Pyramid, which in the daylight is straight forward enough, but thinking about that route in the dark was a little scary. It could be easy to get off route. Perhaps I had made a mistake. Well, not much we could do about it now!
We reached the lake and turned up for the steep pitch up to the Capitol, Mt. Daly saddle, which we reached at about 7:00 am. The climb was about to get interesting. The normal trail contours south across some narrow gullies and joins heads into the rocky basin without sacrificing much elevation.
Capitol and the Knife Edge Ridge
However, it looked treacherous and time consuming to follow that route. So instead we descended down one of the gullies directly into the basin. I just figured it would take less time to descend and go back up than to try to cut across all of those steep snow gullies. From below it sure looked like we made the right call. There was nothing but a sea of snow surrounded by rocky ridges in front of us. It was getting steeper so we stopped and put on our crampons, then made very good time walking up the snow. We stayed on the snow up passed the entrance to the Wandering Dutchman Couloir (our route to get to Snowmass) and up to the ridge near the summit of K2, a mini-summit that guards the entrance to the east ridge of Capitol. I almost felt like it was faster in these conditions than normal hiking conditions in the summer. Up to this point the snow was firm and with the crampons on we could just walk straight up with worrying about following cairns. It was about 8:10 in the morning. We drank up, and left our packs behind, and headed up with just our crampons and ice axes. I had my satellite tracker dangling from my neck. The easiest way to get around K2 is normally on the north side, however, this route was guarded by steep snow, and it so exposed that I wanted nothing to do it with.
Instead we just climbed directly up and over K2, and dropped slightly North off of it to drop to the ridge. We were nearing one of the most famous 14er features: the knife edge of Capitol. The route is heavily exposed on both sides, and for some people the exposure can be quite terrifying. The 100 foot section that gives the ridge its name, unless you are fearless and have good balance, requires a short distance of literally straddling the top of the ridge and crawling across as if you were on a horse’s back.
There was a fair amount of snow to deal with on the ridge, and it was definitely getting soft by now. It took us about 20 minutes to cross over the ridge from K2. From this spot the standard route contours south along loose rocks and gullies on the south side of the summit. However, the steep snow all over the place looked totally undesirable. I asked Stefan how he felt about the ridge route, basically staying on the ridge all the way to top. That was a silly question! 5th class moves? Check! High mountain ridge with dangerous exposure? Check? Of course that was the route that Stefan wanted.
The nice about hiking with Stefan, and this is not common, is that when we were hiking on technical terrain, I didn’t have to worry about him at all. He is a master of this terrain. When I knocked a rock loose, I didn’t have to worry that he wouldn’t be able to get out of the way. If we came to a hard spot, I knew that the challenge was getting myself over the hard spot, he would easily be up and over before I thought about.
So we continued up the ridge. I won’t lie, I was pretty scared in a couple of places. There was one spot where I just barely put some weight on a rock, and the entire rock, about the size of my motorcycle, fell off and crashed down the south side of the mountain. It was a good thing nobody was climbing up the standard route today!
We reached the top at 9:30 am. I went to send my satellite tracker message, and was horrified to find that it was completely dead, and it would not turn on. What rotten luck to have this happen here on Capitol. I figured there would be conspiracy theories about how I turned off the tracker and didn’t climb the summit! Stefan offered a solution in that he was tracking the route on his own GPS watch, and could post it later. He also took a picture of me tinkering with the tracker on the summit. I knew it had plenty of battery life, we had charged it on the drive from Mt. Massive, and it was almost full when we started in the morning. That should have been enough battery power to last the rest of the trip.
This had once happened before, and it was solved when at home I learned how to do a soft reset on the device. I tried the soft reset procedure but nothing happened. I turned off airplane mode on my phone, and saw that somehow, even with Sprint (Gasp!!!), I was getting one bar of cell phone service. I sent a text to Natalie, and she responded right away. She tried to help me figure out the soft reset procedure, but it just wasn’t working. Finally, after about a half an hour, I had to give up. There was nothing I could do. I was completely bummed out that people wouldn’t be able to follow along anymore.
So at about 10:00 am we gave up and retraced our route down the ridge all the way to K2. I was surprised in these conditions to meet another climber headed up Capitol. Only a confident climber, or complete idiot, would climb Capitol in these conditions, I hoped he was a confident climber.
We climbed over K2, and were definitely starting to fall through the snow more easily as the bright sun began to heat up the snow. We made it back to our packs and both needed a drink. I remembered a trick I learned from Kim, when in snow, without good sources of water, you can drink up to half of your water, and then you fill up the rest of the bottle with snow. This is important because without that water in the bottle the snow will not melt. Stefan was running low on water. I happened to check the satellite tracker again, and to my delight it was working. It must have taken some time for the soft reset to reboot the device!
I immediately turned back on the tracker and was immensely relieved. It was about 11:10 am.
The Capitol to Snowmass Traverse
Traversing to Snowmass from Capitol is not a commonly climbed route. Fortunately I knew the route well as I climbed it about 3 times. But I had never seen it with this much snow. During the traverse I learned another good reason why I chose the wrong direction on the traverse. It seems that south and west facing snowfields melt out into those pitted golf ball formations much more than northern and eastern facing fields. It seem that whenever we were descending, I was trying to glissade horribly pitted, bumpy snow, and it was not very pleasant. Stefan quickly gave up on the sleds and would just walk by me as I persisted to avoid taking even one more step than necessary. However, whenever we were climbing uphill, the snow was beautifully smooth, perfect for glissading. So in the future I want to keep this in mind.
First we backtracked to and descended the Wandering Dutchman Couloir into Pierre Lakes Basin, definitely lousy conditions for glissading. Then as we passed a pretty heart shaped lake, we took a small detour to fill up our water at a place where water was visible. The water in the lakes was not accessible as the lakes were still frozen.
Then we continue along rolling hills in the snow until we were near the lowpoint in the saddle between the long rotten connecting ridge between Capitol and Snowmass. We had to put our crampons back on to ascend this very steep pitch up to the saddle. The super steep snowfield got us most of the way to the saddle, but the ridge was guarded by a 100 foot, steep class 4 pitch on a rotten cliff band. It was intimidating climbing up to this cliff band while on the snow field because looking up the rocks literally hung over us. It looked as if a rock knocked loose from the cliff band with freefall straight to the ground.
When we reached the cliff band, we each chose our own path, parallel to each other. This was a good idea, especially because Stefan knocked loose a bunch of large boulders, and I was happy I did not get squished.
Once at the saddle we began a time consuming traverse across snowfields intermixed with rock fields. This was frustrating because the snow was steep enough to warrant crampons, yet hiking through the rocks with the crampons was not very fun, but I didn’t want to waste time by continuously taking the crampons on and off. Much of the snow was getting mushy, and Stefan and I took turns falling in up to our knees, especially when near the rock fields.
We traversed around a couple of the west facing gullies leading up to Snowmass and North Snowmass. The rock was just awful and loose. Eventually, I just decided to head up some pleasant class 3 slabs. And it was a good choice, although the relatively solid slabs eventually gave way to the loose, sharp, large boulders that define most of the west face of Snowmass. I was moving extremely slow, and I felt a little guilty that I was so slow when to Stefan everything seemed like child’s play.
We reached the top of Snowmass at 3:37 pm. So the traverse had taken about 6 hours. Funny thing was, on my plan I had estimated 6 hours, but that was with the assumption that some of it would be in the dark. So I had been hoping to climb it about an hour faster. Of course technically I could chalk about 30 minutes of that time to the satellite tracker having troubles. During the traverse, Stefan had been eating a lot of food. Man did he bring a lot of food! All I had was my powder. When he would eat and the smell of the burrito, or salty food, or candy would drift by my nose, I admit I was pretty jealous. But of course, even if he wanted to share with me, he could not unless we dropped below 11,000 feet.
In any case, it felt late, and I sent a message to Natalie to tell James that we were well behind schedule, and to bring food, dry clothes, socks, and shoes. James was supposed to meet us between the Maroon Bells and Pyramid, where it would be legal for him to support me. However, it looked as if we would be pretty late.
Snowmass to Maroon Bells Traverse
Despite the impending sense of doom at how slow I was moving, and how we were running late, it still seemed like with nearly 6 hours of light, that we should be able to climb up and be well of the treacherous high reaches of the Bells before darkness set it. Especially with the treat that we were about to be rewarded with. Ever since the scouting trip in early June, when I had taken a good look at the East face of Snowmass, I had been salivating over sliding down thousands of feet on the sled. The only bad news was that we were going for a higher traverse than I had seen before, so we were only able to enjoy a 2000 foot ride instead of a 3000 foot ride all the way down to Snowmass Lake.
We followed the ridge south from Snowmass until we found the first break in the cliffs, and we climbed down some steep snow to gain access to the snow field below. Stefan had decided that glissading was not his favorite thing to do, and he could move pretty fast by running. So I headed straight down on my sled while he traversed across and ran down the snowfields to join me.
It was as fun as I had been hoping for. I was even getting good at controlling my direction by using the edges of my feet like edges of a ski to help direct my body whichever way I wanted to go. Alas, the problem was that it was over too quickly. Soon I had to put on crampons as we traversed steep snow toward Trail Rider Pass. Once on a large plateau, we found that the snow was very soft, and in several places we had no choice but to push on postholing for hundreds of feet at a time.
We were low on water again and refilled at a stream running underneath the snow. And continued up yet another steep snowfield. Now we were at a highpoint on the traverse, and were able to gradually descend, with our lengthening shadows guiding the way, to the base of the west side of the Maroon Bells.
The Injury of Doom!!!!
On this descent I started to notice a sharp pain in my right shin. It was the same location as the spot that had been bothering me a couple of days ago. The pain had gone away, but now it was back with a vengeance. I didn’t know exactly what was wrong, but there wasn’t a whole lot we could do about it.
At 6:40 pm, I realized that my goal of glissading down the Bell-Cord couloir was fading quickly. I didn’t think it would be a good idea in the dark. So I stopped to send Natalie the following message “Hi Natalie. Rough day! Just heading to bells now. How is crew holding up? We will probably be coming off south maroon std. Route”.
We were not far from the Bells, but that shin injury was really starting to bother me. I slowed down dramatically. We tried stopping several times. I massaged it, stretched it, and just tried to tough it out. It wasn’t working. I asked Stefan if he minded if I listened to some music. I was embarrassed that I wanted to listen to the soundtrack of Frozen. So I evaded his questioned of what type of music I liked and put in my headphones. I don’t know what I was so afraid, I shouldn’t have been so rude and should have played it out loud so he could hear it.
When the gradient turned uphill, the pain became much worse. I couldn’t deal with the sharp pain. The shin muscle, or whatever tendon it was, did not want to be moved at all, but it was especially when the toe rose up, as it does when you go uphill, that I experienced the worst pain.
I had to drop out of a previous 14er record attempt back in 2001. It was the first time I tried the Self-Powered 14er Speed Record realized that I finally succeeded with in 2003. I had succumbed to Achilles Tendonitis fairly early, an issue that always plagued me during my bicycle racing days. With my experience on 14er records, and with limited experience in Adventure Racing and 24 hour mountain bike racing, I had come up with a philosophy that most pain was mental. Usually it is just a matter of pushing through it, as in “Mind over Matter”. However, I had also learned that some injuries you cannot push through, unless you really want to cause some long term damage. I was afraid of tendonitis because of the trouble it had caused me in the past. And tendon injuries take forever to heal because of the lack of blood supply that tendons receive.
I feared that this was no ordinary injury. It could be just some over-use injury that would not let me continue, I just didn’t know. Was it caused by all of the postholing? Was it aggravated by all the time in crampons? That certainly make the shin muscles work a little harder.
I started to question my ability to even make it up and over the mountain, and I briefly considered the consequences of calling for rescue. But we were so remote, rescue would certainly not be able to make it until the next day. No, that was not an option, I was not prepared to spend a night up here with my limited gear.
The closest way to get help was literally up and over North Maroon, or at least up and over the Gunsight Couloir. The Gunsight Couloir wasn’t the exact route I wanted to take up the west side of North Maroon, but it was the easiest to find given the snow conditions, so during the traverse we had aimed right at it. It was horribly loose. We were at the base of it now, and I desperately needed to immobilize my leg so that my foot was in a permanent 90 degree bend at the angle. However, I had nothing accomplish this with. I tried tying my toe to my knee using my ice ax leash, but that was not even close. Stefan had some medical tape, but I was afraid to use it because I stubbornly did not want to violate the rules that I was trying to follow, even though I was pretty sure I was done, over and out, as far as the record was concerned. Could an exception be made for medical emergency? In the future I might suggest such an addendum, but I decided against it.
There was nothing I could do. I had to tell Natalie the bad news, so I sent the following message: “Nat I am having serious injury. Likely not make it back tonight”. Then I tried to talk Stefan into leaving me behind. I felt responsible for him. At his speed he could probably be up and over and down to the cars by midnight. Why should he have to suffer out here with me because I was so slow? I guess it may have been a silly thing to ask. I can’t imagine ever leaving an injured friend behind, and that would only be to get help. But we had the tracker and could communicate, so there was no need for him to leave. Still I hated the horrible guilt that I felt.
Stefan never once waivered with his positive attitude, and consistently told me there was nowhere he would rather be.
We began the steep, loose ascent of the Gunsight couloir. It was mostly melted out. Normally I would have preferred snow, but in the current condition my foot would have had trouble ascending with crampons on because of the steep angle of the foot at the ankle. Stefan eventually decided to go up and wait for me at the top of the couloir. He would never admit it but he must have been frustrated by the slow pace. I did the best I could, one slow excruciating step after excruciating step. When I reached the top of couloir he had been waiting for a long time. I sat down next to him feeling demoralized, I needed a nap. I asked Stefan for a 5 minute nap and he patiently agreed.
When I woke up, I remembered something! I had duct tape! I had completely forgotten about it. It was wrapped around a container of chapstick that James had lent me. I only had a small enough, but it was worth a shot. I took the tape and wrapped it tightly around my ankle, just above the ankle bone. (Later I would find out that this was a bad idea, more on that later, but I had to do something). I tried it out, and took a couple of steps. This could work! I thought.
I noticed that Natalie had tried to send me a message on the tracker. All it said was “What’s up”. I started typing in a response, but I was too tired and it seemed too difficult, so I gave up on it. I had been trying to save battery power, but in hindsight I wish I would have just paired the tracker with my phone, which makes sending messages as easy as sending a text on your phone. Trying to type in messages on the tracker itself is pretty tedious. Lacking a response from me after the serious injury, she was quite worried. However she could still follow us and see that we were moving so she at least knew we weren’t in imminent danger.
We started up again. I was tired, the leg still hurt, I was horribly demoralized, but there was a glimmer of hope.
Stefan commented later that it was frustrating waiting for me to find the right path up the maze of cliffs and cracks that make up the North West Ridge. He could immediately tell where to go, but I was slow to figure it out. I was trying my best. Stefan, if you are reading this, I am sorry! He was careful to let me believe I was leading the way, as required by the rules, however I suspect he may have been trying to guide me by pointing his light in the correct location.
The Maroon Bells Traverse
We made the summit at 11:40 pm. I did the math in my head, and really it wasn’t that bad. Sure, we had lost a few hours. But I had a huge lead on the record. Perhaps I could push on. If we could just make it down to James, perhaps he could properly tape up my leg, so that the foot wouldn’t bend. Maybe I could continue and still take a stab at the record.
So, with this faint glimmer of hope, rather than descending North Maroon’s standard route and giving up on the record, we went for the traverse to South Maroon. I had never intended to climb this traverse in the dark, especially go north to south, in that direction all of the hardest parts are downclimbs.
The intense feeling of being responsible for Stefan, and at least keeping on the correct route gave me new life, and I awoke from the stupor that I felt I had been in for the last couple of hours. However, it was difficult finding the route in the dark. And I know the route very well in the daylight, having completed the traverse at least 8 times.
We slowly made our way across the ridge. Every part was a challenge. Snow complicated the routefinding, and we tried to avoid it. The most difficult parts were 3 sections are often rapelled. We of course did not have the option of rapelling and had to downclimb carefully. Through the first section we found the chimney and descended it carefully, but why did it seem so much harder than usual?
The second and third sections seemed nearly impossible. This ridge is supposed to be 4th class, with a class 5.0 move here or there. Stefan was calling this stuff 5.7, and coming from Stefan that says something. On the last of these hard downclimbs Stefan and I got separated, and I found myself hanging on for dear life by virtue of a single hold that I had to pinch with my thumb and forefinger. Somehow I stretched my legs down and found a foothold, with the presence of a dark abyss, descending thousands of feet below me looming behind me. Stefan found another way down and we were together again. We passed the lowpoint where the Bell Cord couloir joins up with the ridge. We couldn’t get a good look at it, but the snow was so hard by now I wasn’t really interested in that route anymore.
We were on the last part of the traverse now, a series of rock steps on the 500 foot climb to the summit of South Maroon. These steps were complicated by the presence of hard snow and very slick ice. This was my best performance of the night as I managed, with a great deal of luck to always find a way around the ice and snow, even in some places where at first glance it looked difficult.
We reached South Maroon at 2:12 am. Two and a half hours is not generally considered a poor time for the traverse. However, normally I would have expected it to take no longer than 45 minutes.
To Hug, or Not to Hug
My mind lost some focus once we reached the top of South Maroon. We started to descend the South Ridge. We had both climbed the route before, and it was still relatively fresh in my mind, because that was the day that we met Kim and Andrea. However, it didn’t take long before we were helplessly confused. We were following cairns here and there, but sometimes they didn’t make sense. And there was steep snow, both blocking the route and complicating the routefinding.
We were also cold. There was a very stiff, cold wind blowing from west to east, and if we stood still we immediately became uncomfortable. I started losing the ability to think clearly, and was shivering pretty badly. We were both completely confused as how to proceed, the only thing we could think to do was to try to take cover until first light, which was only a couple of hours away. We made our way around to the east side of the ridge to try to get out of the wind. We found a little bit of cover but we were still relatively exposed. We sat down next to each and were both trying to keep warm.
At 4:00 am, I sent Natalie the following message “Hi. Stefan and I on south ridge of south maroon. My leg is so bad can barely move. Can you reach James?”
I thought about survival shows I had seen like one of my favorites: “Naked and Afraid”, and remembered how a guy once was docked points because he didn’t cuddle up with the woman in order to stay warm.
So I asked Stefan if he wanted to cuddle, and so we cuddled. I could immediately feel the warmth emanating from his body. I was like a baby wrapped in my mother arms, and fell asleep immediately.