Capital Peak Difficulty

[jrs1965]

Thanks, Rock-a-Fella. This picture is extremely helpful, because there aren't many pictures in the route description for right after the Capitol-Daly saddle, and the descriptions I've heard from other people are slightly confusing.

So it looks like the best way in the dark would be the green route. Go up to the saddle, go slightly down and to the right (I looked at the 14ers.com's gpx file on google earth, and it doesn't look like you lose much elevation at all taking the green route.. the ridge just rises to your right, so it looks like you're going down in the picture). After going to the right, go over two gullies (the first below where the blue route begins, the second below where the blue route goes up). Keep the ridge on your right, and make sure you go below/around the big cliffs (the brown ones in the pic with snow on top), then head right up to K2. Does all that sound correct?

Any other advice you could give me for this part of the route? I've heard it's good to get to the top of the saddle at first light, but I've also heard it's good to start from Capitol Lake/the camping area below it at 4 or 4:30. Starting that early would leave my friend and I going around the saddle in the dark I think (we're fairly quick hikers). Would doing some or a lot of the green route in the dark with headlamps be a lot of trouble, and difficult route finding?

We left from Capitol Lake at 4 AM and made the saddle pretty quick. Following the "green" route and the cairns we quickly made K2 by sunrise. I found the Knife Edge to be a lot of fun and shorter than I had anticipated. The route after the Knife Edge was loose, long, and took some careful route selection. At one point I had thought we had traversed enough to ascend up to the summit but had to back down and traverse more before gaining the summit. Video below was taken on the traverse back across the Knife Edge using my "Curious George" hopping technique. Capitol is pretty much one of my favorite peaks and I would love to go back and do it again someday...

[youtubevideo]AoEUufHhGjk?[/youtubevideo]

[bdloftin77]

jrs1965, sweet! The knife edge looks pretty fun.

Right after the Daly-Capitol saddle going down the first gully and going to the right of the gully.. do you go all the way to the bottom of the gully, or are there cairns showing where you exit? The second gully sounds like it's smaller, so probably easier to see the exit I'm assuming.

I hope we'll be able to beat any weather that comes. Right now, it doesn't look TOO bad for Saturday.. hopefully it'll stay that way.. :S

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EDIT: For after the knife edge to the summit... Some people suggest staying on top of the ridge with more exposure, but solid rock, others suggest staying very close to the top of the ridge, and others say to stay near the top while the ridge is flat, then keeping elevation but staying a lot lower, before going straight up the SW face. Which would you all suggest?

[HikerGuy]

Right after the Daly-Capitol saddle going down the first gully and going to the right of the gully.. do you go all the way to the bottom of the gully, or are there cairns showing where you exit?

There are two cairns, a small one before the gully opens up, and a larger one about 20-30 feet further down, both on the righthand side. You can climb out (one or two moves on side wall with good holds) at the first one to get off the loose surface earlier or continue down to the larger cairn and walk out to the right.

[Scott P]

Some people suggest staying on top of the ridge with more exposure, but solid rock, others suggest staying very close to the top of the ridge, and others say to stay near the top while the ridge is flat, then keeping elevation but staying a lot lower, before going straight up the SW face. Which would you all suggest?

Staying lower and climbing up the SW face is probably easier, but it has more rockfall risk. The closer you are to the ridge, the less rockfall danger, but the exposure is a bit more and it is slightly more difficult.

[bdloftin77]

Thanks, Scott P and HikerGuy. That is very helpful.

From the knife edge to the summit, we'll probably just see what it looks like I think, and how many people are there. I'm slightly leaning towards staying on top of the ridge the whole rest of the way, but we can see how hard it looks, and how windy/how the exposure is.

[Dan_Suitor]

We left from Capitol Lake at 4 AM and made the saddle pretty quick. Following the "green" route and the cairns we quickly made K2 by sunrise. I found the Knife Edge to be a lot of fun and shorter than I had anticipated. The route after the Knife Edge was loose, long, and took some careful route selection. At one point I had thought we had traversed enough to ascend up to the summit but had to back down and traverse more before gaining the summit. Video below was taken on the traverse back across the Knife Edge using my "Curious George" hopping technique. Capitol is pretty much one of my favorite peaks and I would love to go back and do it again someday...

[youtubevideo]AoEUufHhGjk?[/youtubevideo]

Jrs1965, love the “Curious George” technique. I’m going to have to start practicing that before my scheduled trip to Capitol in September.

I can’t tell you how helpful this tread has been to “fill in the gaps” of the Route Description. Thanks all.