Trip Report
Basic Alpine Climb - The Castle/East Ridge
Basic Alpine climb of The Castle.
Mark Scheffer
- Sat, Feb 26, 2022
- Basic Alpine Climb - The Castle/East Ridge
- Pinnacle Peak & The Castle
- Climbing
- Successful
- Road suitable for all vehicles
-
The road was icy getting into longmire. When the gates opened at 9:10am the road was well sanded to Narada falls. the return trip out of the park was sanded and mostly wet pavement in the late afternoon.
We started out about 9:45am from Narada Falls taking the trail up to the road to Reflection lakes. Due to the winter break this week, the route had been heavily traveled and we were on broken trail the entire way to the ridge between Foss and The Castle. This made for fairy fast progress.
The climb to the summit was about 40' (we used a single 50M double rope doubled up on itself. This was more than enough to get to the top of the ridge). We placed two pieces of pro, the 2nd one being a cam just before starting the 4th class traverse and protected it at the top pillar with a triple we brought to donate for a top anchor. There often is no runners on the pillar I would trust on past trips so I always bring my own to leave behind.
The weather was closing in on us but we got back to the cars at 2:34pm before much started coming down.
The gate is now closed at 4pm, rather than 5pm as in past years thus making this a bit of a tight squeeze if you have to break trail.
We brought crampons and a picket for an anchor at the base but did not use either of them