Skimo Expeditions
Green-Wilson Hut Trip 2024
Castle Peak's East Face & Conundrum Peaks Southeast Face Ski Descents
May 13-15, 2024
The east face of castle peak is nothing short of incredible. A broad and open upper face leads into an incredibly narrow, steep, and sustained couloir weaving through pillows and cliffs. It is reminiscent of the Chugach and much unlike the harsh, cold, and windy mountain ranges of the rest of Colorado.
Day 1
Four of us rallied of the original 7 who booked the hut, and we made the arduous 3.5 hour drive to Aspen. It was many people's first hut trip and the first I've ran myself. The goal, Castle Peak's East face and the classic Conundrum Couloir. But we had many options in this beautiful area. We were blessed with 30 inches of fresh May snow 3 days before the trip, and the area was blanketed in a beautiful white cover.
After way too long getting everything into (and on the outside of) our bags, we were ready to depart. We had a moderate 3.5~ miles to the hut over a pretty mild 2000 feet. It wasn't totally flat, but it was a summer road so travel was fast and efficient.
The views were in absurdly beautiful. The broad elk valleys framed the snowy peaks in every direction, and lines were revealing themselves left and right! We'll have to make it out to the big splitter line on Greg Mace's NW aspect. Maybe from the Lindley Hut next year!
We were shocked to see someone had abandoned a snowmobile with the keys in it! It was an old polaris Indy not unlike the one we have! Given it was underneath the fresh snow, it must have been there a few days. We played around with it a little before moving on. We were all moving pretty slow, exhuasted from the finals push, but eventually we all made it to the hut!
The Green-Wilson hut is awesome! It's this cute little one room cabin up Castle creek and it is the perfect base for some of the most aesthetic lines in Colorado. This part of the mountains is the perfect mix of snowy and steep terrain. I can only imagine if there was another hut over the valley in the Maroon Creek area! I (against my better judgement) brought charcuterie. steak & potatos, italian sausage & pasta, and bacon, egg & cheese for bagels. So we feasted that night and the next morning!
Day 2:
The weather was incredible, but hot. Really hot. The heat bubble that ruined our June had already started building so we had to be out super early for mid-May. So we awoke, cooked, and prepared in the dark, leavuing just around sunrise.
We quickly made it past the lower reaches and into the upper basin. It is a long way to the summit and we ended up needing to split up due to Quintin's cough. He skiied some lower angle terrain back to the hut while Eddie, Lucas, and I pushed onwards.
The snow was a bit soft once we passed Malamute Peak, but it was overall pretty quick and efficient until we reached the ridge. Due to it's West aspect and high elevation, we were breaking through some weird, crusty, wind-affected snow. Finally we made it to the ridge where we got significantly slowed down.
The ridge is class 2 in the summer but the snow significantly complicated that. Ski boots didn't help either! The slow scrambling threw us a good bit behind schedule but not so far back that we would need to turn around. The views were entirely stunning, and we caught a view of the Southeast face of Conundrum Peak that almost looked skiable, with an exit that dumps you in the classic Conundrum Couloir.
At Long last we made it! It was later than we liked so we took very little time at the summit to relax. We quickly moved to transition and begin our descent. What came next was probably the coolest descent of my life! A Large expansive upper face quickly drops into an extremely narrow, steep, and continous couloir. A quick transistion from sunny to snowy gave us a little extra time to enjoy the skiing.
The skiing was incredible. A little hot, but such an insane line to score any sort of powder at all on. I felt like I was in Alaska with pillows of snow everywhere. You could spend weeks on this one face alone! This is still one of the highlights of my life! When we returned to the hut we celebrated with the Kentucky Bourbon Tri Tip, dried potatos, and cold beer. The sun came back out and the post ski porch reminicsing was almost as good as the descent itself!
Day 3:
We were not done yet, as we still had one big line in mind. On our ascent of Castle yesterday I noticed something unique, the southeast face of Conundrum had filled in! A narrow couloir dropped you into the classic conundrum couloir, but the upper face is what stole the show. Exposed but expansive 40-50 degree turns.
Up we went! We skinned up the Montezuma bowl until it got too steep, booting to the ridge from there. It was a easy (but postholey) walk to the top from there, a breeze compared to the prior day!
The snow was still rapidly warming, so is Colorado May! So we had to put a kick in our step but we kept on pushing.
There was one single exposed move to get from the saddle to the true summit, but Eddie made it look easy! The worst part was having to re-summit the south peak to begin our descent!
Clicked in looking over the edge was equally enticing and terrifying! The Snow was completely untouched and a perfect sheet of white. A blank canvas!
The Ski down Conundrum was also nothing short of incredible! The snow was soft but not too dynamic, the turns were wide and fast, and best of all the scenery was stellar!
One of my favorite shots of me skiing ever! I wish it was on a good camera! Guess I'll just have to go back! After we got down we spent a good 10 minutes admiring our turns!
The way out was pretty easy surprisingly! We were able to ski at least half of it, although the bottom had completely melted from two days ago! This is one of those trips that doesn't come around too often. All the variables line up perfectly, everything goes right, and you can ski your dream lines!