The Kid is Back — Castle Peak East Face
Louie starts in. The route begins with a rocky section off the summit, which dumps you onto this wide apron, which then funnels you into the couloir.
When the young college man shows up for spring break, the old guy has a tendency to come out of retirement. Into this past weekend it was pretty obvious our central Colorado 14ers were in excellent condition for early (not quite spring) ski descents. Avy danger was in the green zone, coverage was good — only concern being a warming trend. Indeed, knowing Jordan White and companions had recently nailed Mount of the Holy Cross and ever elusive Capitol Peak made me painfully aware our noble alps were caked and ready for the kiss of glisse.
Spring breaker enters the upper basin on north side of Castle Peak, Colorado.
The route. Summit is 14,265 feet, one of our higher fourteeners and a terrific ski peak.
Another shot of the start. Self discipline required to prevent publication of too many photos.
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| My favorite shot. In the couloir. Yeah, pretty similar to the photo up above. But that’s what happens when you’ve got a good skier in the lens — they tend to repeat the same moves. Please click image for massive enlargement. |
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These have become known as 'Davenport shots,' but I've got a few in my album that were taken when he was still a pup.
You need a lot of gear to do these things safely. We ended up not using our ice axes, rope or crampons, but we had it all. Our cord choice was interesting -- 29 meters of Blue Water Titan 5.5 mm Dynema, with a Yates screamer shock absorber on each end.
As I write this, a winter storm blows the last vestiges of spring away from our house and town. Spring will be winter by tomorrow — but what good is a spring break without some powder skiing to top it off?
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Comments
23 Responses to “The Kid is Back — Castle Peak East Face”
Right on, L&L, great spring break move. Looks like spring skiing.
Great pictures and story Lou. Your son is a smooth skier. I enjoyed watching him when I went out with him and his friend earlier this winter. You blog continues to provide many lunch time sessions of envy.
Gregg
Right on Lou! Its really cool to see a father / son team ripping it up together. Doesn’t look like being at sea-level has hurt Louie at all. Nice shots.
Boot question. I found some Scarpa 05/06 Magics (womens) for a dirt cheap price. If I measure my wife’s foot in cm, is that the same as mondo sizing scarpa uses? She measures at 25 ish cm, so a 25.5 mondo should work, or no?
Very kuhl trip, Lou & Louie!
My kid’s home on spring break, too – very special. Made the Ski Train – a classic day trip on the Alaska Railroad to the wilderness ski destination. Highly recommended experience.
What What What? No one’s caught mention of the super slick rope trick? 5.5 cord with screamers, how provocative! Any data/disclaimers/testimonials from those whipping on such a system? I think it sounds sweet!
Nice TR. My 8mm x 30 m Beal Rando rope is< 1 lb. Your 5.5 mm cord weighs what?
5mm Dyneema seems like it would basically be (light, mostly) static cord, hence the need for screamers. Sounds great as long as you don’t shock load the system enough to rip all the tacks in the screamers, after that happens, one would think it turns into a fall onto static cord and webbing – ouch.
It would also seem that you have to recognize the limitations of such a system – it doesn’t sound like Lou expected to use the cord much at all…..
What’s next? Tiny cord with a via ferrata system like what BD recently came out with:
http://www.bdel.com/gear/via_ferrata_overview.php
Nah, too heavy.
Yeah, the static line is for occasional use only, and still not refined in terms of technique of use. Static line is also problematic for rappels as every tiny bounce becomes a big shock load to the anchor and the body. We’re thinking the system might need something more absorbent than the screamers, to be really functional.
Excellent descent. Hopefully the snow that made it feel like winter around Copper Mountain where I was yesterday hit a lot of the mountain areas. I’m not ready to call it quits on spring descents yet. May we all remember that the first Monday in May last year was a roaring maelstrom of a storm in parts of CO.
Glad to finally meet the infamous Lou and Louie duo. Lou – your guidebooks are right next to my bed and totally worn out, even though I’ve barely scratched the surface of skiing all those lines…You both are so lucky to have each other. Can’t wait to see Louie’s video of this as well as the good tunes he does seem to pick for his videos. Back in Breckenridge now where we actually had a couple days of bonified corn skiing from about 12,000 feet on down. Hopefully in the next couple weeks we’ll be back to ski that elusive east face of castle.
Dude his poles are too long for the downhill. What does he think he is an euro rando racer 🙂
hey lou do me a favor and stop printing my name associated with anything in the BLOG( Boasting Loudly Over Greatness) world… I am sure you remember a day when people just skied for the joy of it ,… Not to print or take photos to post immediately over the world wide web for everyone to see… This box score mentality of who skied what , and were they first.. ,, in winter , spring or summer for that matter to ski it , has sullied what was once a pure endeavor… Besides that not everyone feels they have to Brag Loudly Over their own Greatness over the web or to others… Sean Shean ashcroft
Sounds like a fun trip!
Man with no name, I’m sorry to offend you… thanks for the feedback.
Randonnee,
Are you sure you are dealing w/ 60 meters of rope? My Beal Rando rope is only 30 meters long! I would have bought the longer rope If I had known it came in longer lengths.
Lou,
It sounds like you are becoming a much better “sledhead”! (lol)
ao
Randonnee, is that a typo? If so let me know and I’ll fix…
Yup, typo. I realized it as soon as I posted it. It is 30 m. Thanks.
Fixed it Randonnee
BTW, my Beal 30 m rando rope weighs 40.4 oz, the Titan 5.5 mm titan cord with two Screamers weighs 24.3 oz and packs smaller. For an ultra light emergency cord, the Titan cord can be carried without the Screamers and weighs only 19 oz!
Correction to what I wrote in blog, rather than the 5.5 mill being 30 meters, it is actually 29 meters.
Thanks Lou. My impression reading the g/ m for my rope was less than that., never weighed my rope.
Dawson(s) -awesome blog of your adventure. Which day did you actually ski E.Face? 20th? or 21st. Winter or Spring? Four of us hippies from Moab we’re @ the Taggert hut Mon.-thurs. & also summited Castle while staring down that E. Face. We eventually walked back to our skis @ the saddle then climbed Conundrum & skied C. Couloir in nice corn. Why didn’t you just climb that E. Face? Do you think it would have included some postholing? Also met new & old (Ellen & Deb) friends up there then skied out on Thurs. to meet the family @ Snowmass. From the top of the lifts I saw some sweet tracks on the N. Face of N. Maroon. Now who made those beautiful turns?????
Mark from Moab
Mark, cool you were up there.
Jordan White and friends made the tracks on North. We got to watch them from Snowmass, and got photos (tiny dots on the face).
Skied E. Face on Friday, 20th, first day of Spring. Back in my day I wouldn’t have thought of skiing the face without climbing it, but I’ve been schooled by the new generation about how that’s not always necessary. If we’d climbed the face, it would have been posthole city, and I knew the way down, so all good.
Looks like Louie had on his helmet cam. When and where can we expect to see some video? Looks like a great time and excellent photos as usual.
Tom, the video exposure got messed up so not sure that’ll get published. We’ll see. Thanks for asking.