Capitol Peak is widely regarded as Colorado’s hardest 14er. After summiting this beautiful and horrifying mountain and coming safely back to earth, I finally see why it holds that superlative. I wish this was a simple tale of taking the standard route, “only” a Class 4 scramble, but my friend Ryan and I chose to climb Capitol the harder way – a technical route up the northwest buttress.
Capitol’s NW buttress starts with a 5.9 hand and finger crack. The second pitch starts with a 5.8 move, then eases up from there. After pitch 2 there is roughly 1,000 vertical feet of Class 4 to easy Class 5. The final head wall has two pitches of 5.7 to the summit for a total of ~1,700 feet of climbing. The descent is a “walk off” down the Class 4 standard route on the NE ridge.
At the time of this trip, I was a solid 5.10+ sport climber with, by most measures, a modest amount of trad climbing experience. On paper this seemed like a challenging yet approachable objective. If the first pitch was too difficult, we could either bail or “French free” through the cruxes, and from there it ought to be totally doable. Strictly speaking, we were successful, but this climb pushed me to my psychological limits. I recognize that this trip report may be a bit dramatic. Forgive the hyperbole, this is just my effort to convey what I was feeling on this day.
24 July 2025
Ryan and I drove up to the Capitol Creek trailhead where we packed up to hike in and camp near Capitol Lake (yes, we had a permit). It was a novel experience for me to pack climbing gear with my overnight backpacking gear. All my investment in ultra light gear was swiftly undone by pounds of metal.
We set off close to 6:45 pm, later than we wanted to cover the 6 miles to the lake. Ryan and I took the Capitol Ditch trail, which seems to be the preferred route to save descending to the creek and climbing back up. Ryan brought a laminated wildflower identification card, which was fun, but gawking at flowers definitely slowed us down a little. I was squirming at every little micro delay since it was becoming clear we would be getting to camp in the dark.
Capitol Peak is quite visible most of the way on the approach. It looks quite intimidating even from 6 miles away, but its beauty only becomes more apparent as the details come into view. It’s just so steep! We were lucky enough to catch golden hour on Capitol.
Ryan and I found our campsite as dusk was giving way to darkness. We set up, fetched water, prepped our climbing packs, and crawled into our sleeping bags around 10pm. We talked ourselves into a 4 am wake up with the intent of reaching the summit by 11. Six hours of sleep felt fairly humane, but I wish I could go back in time and tell myself to wake up earlier. It mostly worked out in the end.
We did have an ace up our sleeve – Maggie was sleeping at the trailhead that night. She would be climbing the standard NE ridge route to meet us on the summit. Having Maggie on the mountain with us provided peace of mind if something went wrong. Also, she would be able to help guide us down the NE ridge, which would turn out to be immensely helpful.
25 July 2025
Ryan and I slept about as well as anyone could in a tent, at 11,000 feet, with a big scary objective looming ahead both in space and time. We got some hot water going and quickly realized that I had no mug for my tea, and Ryan had no bowl for his oatmeal. After one brew, the fuel can expired before we could get the water back up to boiling. Off to a great start. We coped with this minor hiccup through laughter and improvisation. Ryan chugged his coffee, then ate his oatmeal from his mug, while drank my tea straight from the kettle.
We set off around 5 am with head lamps on, and by the time we reached Capitol Pass, dawn was draped across the Elk Range. Ryan and I were both feeling giddy, optimistic, and psyched as the route came into view. The base of the climb is above a short scree slope. You access the route by walking out on an exposed, narrow ledge. (“Exposure” will almost certainly be the word of the day, so please pardon my limited vocabulary.)
I radioed to Maggie as we were getting ready to start climbing. She replied that she had made it to the lake! Even though we couldn’t see her, hearing her voice through the radio let us know we had a guardian angel with us.
We tied in, Ryan racked up, and he started questing up pitch 1 in a thin finger crack. A cold breeze was blowing. The rock felt icy both in temperature and texture. It was clear Ryan’s climbing shoes weren’t getting the full friction in these cold temps. Somehow he pulled through the initial crack. Once he was about 30 feet up, I realized Ryan definitely started in the wrong crack, but only about 10 feet to the right. The first roof crux was obvious and he was able to traverse over to get back on route. We reckon this start was more like 5.10a/b.
Ryan got in position below the first roof. He took ample time to warm up his hands, reworked some gear placements for security, then finally committed to find a Jesus flake on the face above. I try to avoid foul language on this blog, but this was definitely a “fuck yeah!” moment.
Ryan was challenged a bit more by the upper finger crack. He finally decided to French free a couple moves, bumping a cam up through the crux. It took Ryan nearly an hour to climb the first pitch, but he made it to the belay station.
I started following up. My shoes were equally as slick in the alpine chill. I started up the finger crack and lost my footing about 8 feet above the deck. The rope stretched and my hands skidded down the slab until my feet met the ground. Falling right off the deck was decidedly not awesome, but at least I was on top rope. I collected myself and tried again, this time barely making it through the first section of fingertips crack between glassy slabs.
The next several feet had me stumped as well. I must’ve bumped my tailbone when I fell again, sending one leg behind a flake, but the adrenaline blocked any pain I would’ve experienced normally. I finally yanked on a cam to quit wasting time and get up to the roof.
I was wearing my crack gloves in the wild for the first time and boy was I stoked to have them. There were so many hand and fist jams on the first pitch alone. I wound up wearing the crack gloves all day, and it was so worth it. I jammed my way up the roof crack, fueled by top rope confidence and the knowledge that a great hold was waiting for me above. I kept up the momentum and cruised through the upper finger crack crux. I would describe it as off-finger width – too narrow for full hand jams, but too wide for finger locks, at least with my skinny fingers. Ryan was impressed with my crack climbing ability, which is thanks to many laps on the crack trainer at our local gym.
I took the lead for pitch 2, a sort of wide blocky chimney which has a 5.8 crux in the first few moves. There was a trickle of water flowing down the right side of the chimney, so I started up a finger crack on the left, placing a cam then clipping a fixed piton soon after. I was trying to avoid the wet rock since I had no trust in my shoes, but the moves were too difficult where the rock was dry. I hung for a minute to figure it out. Ryan pointed out a small foothold to stem on in the trickle, so I gave it a try. That was the key beta to get through the crux. From there it was cruisey 5.6 to the top of the pitch.
Once Ryan followed up, we were feeling a bit better about the situation since there was clearly easy climbing ahead of us. Those first two pitches took far longer than we anticipated, so we were eager to move quickly over the easy terrain. We continued up the next 4th class section with a short rope between us, trending right around Unicorn Spire.
As we started up the right side of the ridge, we were climbing up a section of loose rock which got progressively steeper. I paused as Ryan climbed ahead. “This looks sketchy, dude. I think we need to place some pro,” I said. Ryan carefully down climbed back to me, then proceeded up a different line towards the ridge proper. The rock was rotten lego blocks and difficult to place gear in. Once Ryan found a couple placements, I followed this little 5.5 pitch.
The rock quality was just terrible on this side of the ridge. The route description suggests taking the arete or left side, so we worked our way back left. Ryan went out of sight around the arete, then I heard the mountain starting to crumble. A series of massive rocks were crashing down. My heart sank as I jumped to the worst conclusion – whatever rocks Ryan had stepped on released and he was going down with those rocks. There was no gear between us, only 15 feet of rope. I anxiously watched the rope in front of me, fully expecting it pull tight and take me down too. Death imminent…
Two or three seconds passed. I didn’t get yanked off the mountain. “Are you ok?!,” I asked. “Uh.. yeah. I kinda thought that rock might come off,” Ryan responded. The smell of burning broken granite hung in the air as we heard the tumbling boulders slowly grow fainter. So far, this climb had presented more stress and anxiety than enjoyment.
Ryan and I started up the left side of the ridge. The rock was generally more solid and the climbing was 4th to easy 5th. We continued simul climbing for several hundred vertical feet. This section actually was kind of fun. It felt like steep scrambling on a beautiful mountain face.
Somewhere in there Maggie radioed us and said she made it to the summit. Ryan and I were making decent progress, but we were still far from the summit. As we crested the top of this simul block, Maggie excitedly said, “I see you guys!” over the radio. That moment was a bit of a relief, waving back to Maggie as we walked across the chossy saddle towards the headwall below Capitol’s summit.
It was noon and we still had two pitches of 5.7 between us an the top. There had been some modest clouds hanging over the summit for most of the morning. Ryan was clearly feeling a bit frantic, since he had previously had a close call with lightning on Kit Carson. It didn’t seem to me like anything was building into thunderstorms, which is what the forecast predicted. Even so, I was also pretty ready to be done climbing, but I didn’t want to rush and screw things up so close to the summit.
Ryan took the lead for the penultimate pitch, about 60 feet of slab which terminates at a roof. There was no shortage of small loose rocks which came flying down towards me, but the angled slab in front of me was deflecting most everything at the last moment. Ryan picked his was through the roof and built an anchor after climbing to the end of the rope.
The roof moves were a bit tricky and delicate. I made it up, took the rack, and started leading up the final pitch. The rock directly above me had another roof. I got a pair of cams in, then traversed hard left below the roof, hanging on to a rail while smearing my feet.
I pulled over the lip and found easy terrain ahead of me. I built an anchor maybe 30 feet below the summit, in sight of Maggie. Ryan climbed fast up to me. Before I could even break down the anchor, he had untied to start coiling the rope. “Let’s get off this mountain,” he said.
The final bit was a short scramble to the summit. As Ryan was going up the last few feet in front of me, he kicked off a softball sized rock. I wasn’t quite in the line of fire, but it was close. I took two more steps when a tombstone sized rock started falling right towards me. I knew this one would actually be problematic if it struck me. Fight or flight instinct kicked in, and knowing I would lose the fight, I dodged hard right as the rock flew past. Just.. gah. After all that effort, I was not about to go down only 10 feet from the top of this mountain.
Embracing with Maggie on the summit overwhelmed me with comfort. I felt as though I had cheated death to get there. Holding my beloved partner brought me back to reality. The three of us had the summit to ourselves, everyone else had left hours ago. Ryan and I had scarcely eaten or drank water on the way up, there hadn’t been any time to stop and take a break. Finally, we got a chance to rehydrate and get some food down, but we didn’t linger. We were only half way, and it was 1:45 pm.
I naïvely thought the hard part was behind us. Surely the Class 4 NE ridge would be a cake walk compared to what we had just climbed. Right..? RIGHT???
Wrong. While the terrain certainly didn’t warrant a rope, the way down was continuous no fall zone. There was still plenty of loose rock. Covering ground was just so slow, carefully picking our way through steep blocks and ledges. I put on a smile for the camera, but I must confess I was not having a good time. I was in a mental purgatory, fending off consistent primal fear and simply focusing on the next move in front of me. The cumulative exposure and constant need to focus was taking a toll.
This trip report wouldn’t be complete without talking about the knife edge. Honestly, I was so jaded to the exposure at that point, the knife edge didn’t seem particularly severe. It is definitely a very serious position, but straddling the ridge felt completely safe, if a bit uncomfortable. The pictures are absolutely epic though!
The final bit of scrambling around K2 was probably my least favorite part. I wish we had gone up and over the top. I shouted a sincere, “FUCK,” when I saw the last gully. It was so steep and loose that we paused for a minute to consider some other options, but eventually decided to go for it, one by one. I was done tip toeing down 50 degree choss, but the mountain wasn’t done with me.
It was almost 4 pm and we were still above 13,000 feet. I had resigned to the fact that we were in for a very long day. At least we were done with the worst of the exposure and scrambling. Rock hopping down the big talus slabs below K2 was almost enjoyable for a little while, but it soon became tedious. Maggie and I stopped for a quick break to filter water. I relaxed my whole body, laying on my back pack, and dripping water into my mouth straight from the filter. I felt a bit like Samwise Gamgee, pathetically squeezing the last few drops from his leather flask in Mordor, but I knew my situation was decidedly less dire.
At last, we made it to dirt trail. It was no short distance to the car, but I knew we were going to make it back eventually. One last little bit of uphill took us over the Daly saddle, then we descended back to camp. The afternoon sun was beaming on the west face of Capitol. What a beautiful and horrifying choss pile.
Back at camp, there was hardly any time to rest or refuel. It was nearly 6 pm. Ryan and I packed up all of our gear while Maggie graciously fetched some water for the hike out. We finally departed at 6:45. Six miles at three miles per hour meant we were getting back to the car at 8:45. I felt like a zombie, marching with one foot in front of the other just to get back to some semblance of civilization. There were a handful of people hiking in that evening. In a weird way I was jealous that they hadn’t experienced Capitol yet, souls untarnished by the insanity that they were eagerly walking into.
Maggie and Ryan were talking about going to a restaurant on the way down. Even if I could have operated a motor vehicle (which I didn’t want to), we were doubtful anything would be open in the nearby mountain towns after 9 pm. We all agreed that it made sense to make dinner and sleep in our cars in the parking lot. After forcing down a double ramen, I crawled into the back of my Crosstrek with Maggie, absolutely exhausted. At last, a chance to truly rest after being “on” for 36 hours…
Even though I’ve learned how to suffer over the years, this one was different. I was legitimately scared for a full 9 hours while we were on the mountain. The non-stop exposure was mentally taxing, the rockfall was terrifying. On one hand, I am very proud of what we accomplished, but I wish I could look back and say I had fun on Capitol. Any feelings of success have been smeared with fear and self doubt. Did I bite off more than I could chew? I am tempted to say “yes,” but I did the damn thing. I came close to the edge, but never went over. These are the experiences which mold us and help us take on even bigger, more daunting objectives. Resilience through adversity. I want to continue my alpine climbing journey, but maybe on routes with a little lot less objective hazard. Climbing Capitol the harder way taught me so much. Now I need to take those lessons to new heights.
Post Script
About half way up the mountain, Ryan and I realized we were missing a piece of climbing gear, a red #1 cam worth about $95. We were confused for a few minutes until I realized I must have left it at the anchor station for pitch 2. What a rookie mistake! I dejectedly told Ryan I would replace his cam…
Back at home, I was recording my climb on Mountain Project. It’s possible to see who else climbed the route if they record a public “tick”. I saw a tick from the day after we climbed. Not only that, but they were from a town less than an hour from us in Northern New Mexico. I sent a message, thinking worst case scenario was they didn’t find the cam, but maybe, just maybe, the cam made its way back to New Mexico.
By some good grace of cosmic karma, these guys had Ryan’s cam and they brought back to our hometown of Santa Fe! What are the odds?? Ryan retrieved his cam and gave the guy a 12 pack of craft beer to give thanks. Other than survivng the day, this was one small silver lining from our experience on Captiol.
Distance Over Time 