Castle Peak & Conundrum Peak 14er Hike Guide
Castle Peak & Conundrum Peak are a pair of 14ers located near Aspen, Colorado. The hike to the summit of both peaks involves exposed ridge hiking and a long 4WD road approach. If you would like to add a mile to this hike, you can easily add a mile to your trip and bag unofficial 14er, Conundrum Peak. Most people count Conundrum Peak as part of the 58 14ers to complete them. Although the distance is long, this hike is a fun day with lots of beautiful views.
General Mountain Information: Castle Peak & Conundrum Peak
Virtual Trail Guide Hike Review: Castle Peak & Conundrum Peak – Saddle Descent
Virtual Trail Guide Hike Review: Castle Peak & Conundrum Peak – Standard Descent
Castle Peak Trail Rating: ★★★ (⅗ Stars)
Conundrum Peak Trail Rating:★★★ (⅗ Stars)
Distance:
14.16 Miles RT Castle and Conundrum from lower TH
13.26 Miles RT to Castle from lower TH
8.16 Miles RT Castle and Conundrum from Pearl Pass Split
7.26 Miles RT Castle from Pearl Pass Split
Elevation Start: 9,929 ft
Summit: Castle Peak 14,278 ft, Conundrum Peak 14,060 ft
Total Elevation Gain: 4,400 ft
Estimated Time to Complete: 6-9 Hours RT (the higher you can drive, the lower in this range you will be)
Difficulty: Moderate What does this mean?
Season: Year Round – Expect snow December – July
Class: Class 2 – What does this mean?
Directions to Castle Peak & Conundrum Peak
Trailhead: Castle Creek trailhead
Getting Here : From the lower trailhead, drive until you start seeing numbered camping spots along the road, this is about .5 miles in. If you have a passenger car, I wouldn’t recommend driving past spot #3 unless you have a high scrape tolerance. Once you pass the last camp spot (#8/9), you will reach a creek crossing at about 1.3 miles. From here, continue another 1.7 miles to reach Pearl Pass split on the left. In the summer, most SUVs should be able to reach this point but I would not recommend going too much farther past here. Take a right here to continue another 2.5 miles to reach the end of the mining road. This road is very narrow at times with few areas to turn around or park. If you have a higher clearance 4WD car, you should be able to make it to the end of the mining road where this is a small area to park about 4-5 cars. You can enter “Castle Creek Trailhead” into your favorite navigational device. This leads you to the start of the rough driving I describe above.
Parking: The only official parking lot for Castle Peak and Conundrum Peak is at the lower trailhead. If you continue from here, there will be smaller areas to pull off, but nothing that can fit more than 5-7 cars max. There are no bathrooms along this route but parking is free.
Summary
Dogs: Castle Peak & Conundrum Peaks are dog friendly mountain if you descent via the ridge of Castle. If you want to go down the “standard” gully on the saddle, I would not recommend bringing a dog, especially in the winter or spring. This area is very steep for the first 200 yards or so and any dog would have a very hard time stopping once they started to slide. If you do plan on bringing a dog, beware that there is a lot of scree, loose rock and some exposure along the way.
Camping: There are 9 official spots past the lower trailhead to camp which are the most common to use. Without a doubt, spot #7 is the best. These spots will fill up quickly, especially on weekends. If you are not able to camp there or want to drive up higher, there are a number of unofficial spots once you drive through the creek at about 1.3 miles past the lower TH. The time of year and snow level will dictate how far most cars can drive up this road.
Make it a Loop: This hike is a lollipop loop or out and back depending on your descent route.
Trail X Factors: The biggest X Factor for Castle Peak and Conundrum Peak is the descent. If you choose to hike just Castle Peak, your descent will be very straightforward with minimal risk. If you choose to hike both and descend via the saddle, the snow level will dictate your conditions. In the early spring, snow will cover the entire valley and make for a somewhat traditional winter descent. The start of this is very steep and will require a mountain axe and AT LEAST microspikes, if not crampons to safely descend. Being able to self arrest is also key here. If however you are hiking in early summer, snow will melt starting from the top of the ridge and there might be a mixture of steep loose dirt and gravel with snow. If this is the case, you will need to be very careful as a fall could send you hundreds of feet down the steep slope. Once the snow has melted, expect this gully to be extremely eaten out with lots of loose rock and gravel. At this point, I would not recommend descending via this route.
Hike Tip(s): Hike Early In Season & Start Early
My recommendation for Castle Peak and Conundrum Peak would be to hike early in the season (May, June, July). Although the snow level at this time of year may force you to hike in farther because of poor road conditions, the hiking will be MUCH more enjoyable. If you visit later in the year when the snow has melted, not only will you not have the option to descend via the Castle Peak & Conundrum Peak saddle, but you will also be dealing with a lot more loose rock and scree which can be downright miserable and dangerous. The second tip for hiking Castle Peak and Conundrum would be to start early. Although this could be said about many mountains in the state, these pair present a particularly high chance to get caught in bad weather. Once you leave Pearl Pass, the rest of the hike will be completely exposed to weather. If a thunderstorm or snow storm were to roll in, you literally have no place to take shelter.
Best Views: During my hike of Castle Peak and Conundrum Peak, I was fortunate enough to line my summit arrival with the sun rising. If you want to do something similar, this is a fantastic place to do it. The views east are quite good, especially with a colorful sun rise. Vic-a-versa, the sunset would be equally good with views west. I also enjoyed taking some pictures of exposed areas of the ridge line as well. In addition, there is a seasonal lake that sits in the basin below Castle Peak and Conundrum Peak. On the approach, you will pass by several sources of water including a large waterfall which is also a good photo spot. Finally, summit views from both mountains are fantastic as you get a great view of the Maroon Bells, Pyramid Peak, Capitol, Snowmass and a plethora of other Elk Range Peaks.
Castle Peak & Conundrum Peak Hike Route
Standard Route (Ascent started at camp site 6, descent goes all the way to lower TH)
Gear Needed
- 14er Day Hike Packing List
- Men’s Trail Runners
- Women’s Trail Runners
- La Sportiva Trango Hiking Boots (Men’s)
- La Sportiva Trango Hiking Booths (Women’s)
- Backpack
- Food & Water
- Optional: Climbing Helmet
- Optional: Garmin inReach
- Optional: Hiking Poles
- Optional: Headlamp
- Optional: Garmin Fenix Watch
- Optional: Camera and Lens
- Optional: GoPro, Joby Tripod
- *Links included in this description might be affiliate links. If you purchase a product or service with the links that I provide I may receive a small commission. There is no additional charge to you.
My Trip to Castle Peak & Conundrum Peak: July 2017
Castle Peak
For some reason, my trip to Castle Peak and Conundrum Peak was full of anticipation. Jackie, Juno and I camped in one of the spots near the creek the night before and I could not stop thinking about the hike the next day. I am still not sure why I was so anxious. This hike was not extremely hard technically and I would have plenty of time to get to the summit. I think part of the reason was the typical summer forecast of afternoon thunderstorms, paired with the long walk I had up the 4WD road.
Due to this, I decided to start my hike at 1AM. I know that this sounds clinically insane to some people, but I operate under the thought process of: I would rather start my hike early than come back and hike it again. I know this is not a fool proof method, because bad weather can always roll in. However, this is the best way to eliminate your chances of being caught in a thunderstorm, especially in the summer.
I kissed Jackie and Juno goodbye and hit the road right around 1:05AM. I love hiking in western and southern Colorado because the light pollution is almost 0. Even with nearby Aspen, the sky was full of thousands of stars. I crossed the creek at 1.3 miles from the lower TH in about 5 minutes and continued up the dirt road. In general, I hate hiking on 4WD roads. They tend to get extremely monotonous but do tend to gain elevation at a slower rate than a trail would. It took me about an hour to reach the split in the road at Pearl Pass and this was the first time I noticed that the moon was out. I was making great time, in fact, I would even consider my pace “rushing” because I could not get the afternoon forecast out of my head. Eventually, I had to tell myself to stop and enjoy the moment, so I did. I sat down on a rock, made myself a tripod out of some more rocks and snapped a few photos of the night sky. Since the moon was out, I was able to focus my camera (something I always forget to do when shooting at night). There was not another soul on the mountain. These are my favorite times to hike when you feel like you have a 1 on 1 appointment with mother nature. After a couple of minutes of gazing at up at the night sky and enjoying the site of a number of shooting stars, I moved on.
Shortly after, I reached the end of the mining road and had hiked about 4 miles at this point. At this point, I stopped and shined my flashlight ahead of me to scope out the trail. There was still snow on the hills of the basin and I wanted to make sure I was following the most direct route up. Luckily, I easily found the well traveled trail in the snow and moved towards it. The snow was surprisingly hard for this time of year. Even though it was around 3AM, the temperature was in the 50s. I decided to skip my microspikes for the time being, which proved to be an okay decision.
As I traveled up towards the upper basin of Castle Peak and Conundrum Peak, I noticed that the sun was slowly replacing the moon in the sky. I could see tints of red lighting up the horizon and knew it was going to be a good sunrise. Before I realized it, I was done with the climb and facing the basin below both Castle and Conundrum. The trail to the ridge literally appeared right in front of me and I was thrilled because I had read it was sometimes hard to find.
As I reached the ridge, the sun was now beginning its journey across the sky and bringing with it marvelous shades of red and orange. Yet again, I forced myself to stop and take in the beauty of this morning. Eventually, I moved on and continued up the ridge.
I really enjoyed the ridge hiking that Castle Peak had. There were areas of exposure, some minor scrambling and great views in all directions. Best of all, I had the beautiful rising sun behind me. I was so distracted by everything that was going on, that before I knew it, I had summited!
My timing couldn’t have been better because the sun was just starting to fully rise above the horizon as I started to snap my summit pictures. All of the morning’s beauty did not let me forget about the weather forecast, so I eagerly scanned the sky for any looming clouds. Luckily, everything looked great and the weather ended up holding out the rest of the day for me.
I was thrilled with the time I made to the summit, the beautiful sunrise and the fact that I seemed to have this entire area completely to myself. I decided to ride the high and head over to Conundrum Peak without much of a break at all.
Conundrum Peak
The trail down from Castle Peak was very easy to find and follow all the way down to the ridge. There were some areas of poor trail conditions, but for the most part, it was issue free. As I walked down to the ridge, I began to check out the slopes in the middle. This was the standard way to descent the mountain after you summit Conundrum Peak. The slopes looked very steep and slick. I was not looking forward to descending that after I summited Conundrum.
After a few more minutes of hiking, I was now looking right at the ridge of Conundrum and I was ready to get up there. Again, the trail was very easy to follow and involved almost no technical moves and less exposure than the ridge of Castle Peak. Getting up to the false summit was a breeze and I could now see the true summit of Conundrum only a couple of hundred yards away. One quick descent of about 50 feet and one more scramble, I was now officially halfway done with all of the 14ers!
The weather still looked nice, so I spent more time than I usually would on the summit. I snapped more pictures, tried to FaceTime my family and just took a 15-20 minute break. This is really unusual for me, but given all of my luck with Mother Nature this morning, I thought I would soak it all in. As much as I wanted to sit up there all day avoid the ugly way down, I eventually started back towards Castle to make my final descent. I had read that this way down was relatively easy and from looking at it, I could tell that description was relatively wrong.
Wet, soft snow covered the steep slopes of the mountain. I put on my micro spikes and busted out the mountain axe for this tricky descent. I saw all of these glissading trails down the entire slope and thought that looked like an insane way to go. I wondered how many broken tailbones these trails had racked up over the weeks. It was absolutely insane in my opinion to glissade all the way down this steep slope. Instead, I walked down the loose gravel and dirt until I reached the snow line. Here, I tried to pick the best line down the mountain but made a lot of audibles along the way. I slowly back stepped, dug in my mountain axe, downclimbed, dug in my mountain axe. It was very slow going and I felt a little uncomfortable the whole time doing it. Once I was about ⅔ of the way down the slope, I thought it was safe to glissade so I sat down and enjoyed the ride.
Once I was down to the basin lake, I decided to stick to rock for the rest of the way back to the 4WD road. I did run into a couple of hikers along the way, but nothing like the weekend crowds this area is used to.
Overall I enjoyed my time on Castle Peak and Conundrum Peak, but just wish there were less 4WD roads involved. I love the ridges of both peaks but didn’t enjoy the trail down from the ridge. If you decide to descend via the saddle, I would recommend that you have experience using a mountain axe, microspikes/crampons and be able to self arrest in case of a fall on the steep snow.
