The Castle Peak area of the Elk Mountains has numerous thirteeners that most people probably don't even realize exist. Besides Cathedral Peak, a Centennial 13er, the others no doubt are further overlooked. Why climb Elk choss? Most shudder at the thought. That's why Whiley and I decided to climb these peaks in spring with a nice cover of snow, so as to minimize the usual Elk rock.

The route I had originally mapped out took the Copper Creek drainage instead of Castle Creek, but I didn't realize that Copper Creek is closed right at the 2WD Castle Creek Trailhead; I don't know if this is a permanent closure, but the signs indicated as much. We thus drove up Castle Creek Road as far as we could, which was to the end of the campsites along the road at the first creek crossing. The road up to this point was dry but after the crossing there were still deep snow drifts.

The snow in the morning was nice and hard and our efforts up the road were minimal. I carried snowshoes and Whiley did not, but they weren't needed at this point.

When the road split to Pearl Pass and Montezuma Basin we continued towards the former. A snowmobile track kept us on the right path as the road disappeared into the snow covered open space.

The route opened up near treeline into rolling terrain, probably moraines but hard to tell with snow cover.

"Oyster Peak" (also called "West Pearl") came into view as we slowly gained and lost elevation en route to "Oyster"'s north slopes.

Since Whiley hadn't brought snowshoes and I had we decided to split here with me following a trio of skier's up "Oyster"'s steep northeast slopes and her going up dry rocks. The skiers had to switchback up the slope, which is steeper than it looks from below, while I was able to go directly up. Switching to boots with traction probably would have been prudent here, but I was able to make it without much issue.

After ascending the first few hundred feet of each of our routes the slopes lowered in angle and became easier.

Whereas Whiley's route was more or less a direct shot to the summit mine traversed a little, which was somewhat irritating in snowshoes. Overall though our ascent was super fast, just over two and a half hours from the car.

We didn't spend long on the summit since we still had a snowy ridge to traverse to Pearl Mountain, then snowy slopes to descend. We wanted to get it all done before the snow became unstable. Once off Pearl Mountain we didn't have anything to worry about with exception of possible postholing.

Along the way we scared up a Mountain Chicken (a ptarmigan) from its rocky home. It was in mid-transition from winter plumage to summer.

The ridge down to immediately prior to the saddle was all snow covered and would go at Class 2 when dry. As we found it snow prevented the easiest descent to the saddle and we had to make a move or two of snowy Easy Class 3 down several ledges to reach the low point. Exposure was minimal.

Once down the ledges to the saddle there were a couple of small, rotten towers to scoot around. We just had to move around them on solid snow but there might be some minor scrambling involved if dry. Past the towers was a short, blunted snow knife edge with extreme exposure on both sides, but someone had already come across the ridge and left footprints for us to take advantage of.

The knife edge ended on Pearl Mountain's northwest ridge, which had a brief, wide snowfield to cross and then we stuck to Class 2 rock the remaining distance to the summit. The short bit from the saddle was the only real excitement on either of these peaks and it had lasted nowhere near long enough, but that's often how these things go.

The descent off Pearl was easy enough, just a bunch of talus and moderate snow, so we struck off northeast in search of the least steep path down we could find. The snow proved a little easier and there wasn't enough of it in any one spot to be a wet slide concern this late in the day, so we linked together a bunch of snow patches as we headed down.

The snow was still mostly firm so I didn't need my snowshoes as we made our way over to 12er Greg Mace Peak.

Greg Mace Peak is named in honor of Greg Mace, an Aspen Mountain Rescue member who died in 2005 on a training climb of the Bells. For more information please see http://www.wildsnow.com/754/mountain-rescue-honor-guard-greg-mace-tribute-june-2005/.

We stashed some of our gear at the toe of the ridge (snowshoes, packs) and took our axes, microspikes, and my inReach with for what we expected to be a simple peak. 500 or so vertical feet stood between us and the summit. The majority of the ridge was Class 2 with a bit of Class 2+ thrown in at the bottom on solid (for the Elk) rock.

When we topped out on the ridge Greg Mace's gnarly summit block popped out.

On the upper ridge the rock quality deteriorated significantly. This stuff was beyond rotten. It would crumble in our hands. Stepping on one part of a tower would cause the opposite side to shake. The scrambling wasn't particularly difficult but it was exposed and it felt like the whole damn thing could collapse on top of us. Scrambling to the right was out of the question, with rotten ribs extending too far down to safely cross under, but the left side would go.

We scrambled around the underside of the rotten block to a 20 foot wide snowfield that snaked down a rubble filled gully. The snow was only a couple of inches deep but soaking wet on top of soft, wet dirt. It was slick and our microspikes wouldn't cut it. Crampons would have, as would dry ground, but we didn't have either, so we turned back and planned to come back when it was dried out and make a quick morning out of it.

We carefully scrambled back across the choss and raced down the ridge to our gear. Even if we didn't get Greg Mace, the views of Pearl and "Oyster" were spectacular.

Back at our packs I put on my snowshoes and led off on the snow. Whiley stayed close behind and stepped on my tracks, hoping that the snow would be supportive. It only partially worked, and even I postholed into waist deep sinkholes of wet slop numerous times. When we reached the road Whiley went ahead, no longer caring about the postholing; her feet were soaked already, so no point in trying to save them from getting wetter. The road felt like it took forever but we made it back to Whiley's truck where she dumped out the fishbowl that had been floating around in her boots. The weekend was over and what a great weekend it was! Five more thirteeners, four of them ranked, and all in the Elk; a fine start in one of Colorado's most notorious ranges.

Statistics

Climbers: Ben Feinstein (myself), Whiley H.
Trailhead: Castle Creek Road (near the first creek crossing)
Total distance: 10.27 miles
Total elevation gain: 4,212 feet
Total time: 6:35:20
Peaks: Two ranked thirteeners

• "Oyster Peak", 13,312'
• Pearl Mountain, 13,361'

Splits:

¹Includes attempt on Greg Mace Peak.