Starting Elevation: 8,405 feet Distance: Guessing 6 to 10 miles, round trip Elevation Gain: Uncertain and not particularly important Difficulty: Class 4 to 5.2 approach, 5.6 or 5.7 to climb highest tower. Classic. Quad: 7.5 minute Windy Peak Trip Date: June 6, 1999
Situated at the east end of the Lost Creek Wilderness Area in Pike National Forest, The Castle stands sentinel over the private campground at picturesque Wellington Lake. The Castle may not be one of Colorado's highest peaks, but its dramatic rocky summit cap more than makes up for its lack of altitude.
For the past three summers, I've had the opportunity to camp at Wellington Lake during an annual retreat held there. The first time I went, I tried to hike up The Castle. I didn't make it all the way to the summit, but came close. Last summer, I met Mark Snyder at Wellington Lake. He and I were both interested in doing The Castle, and planned to do so sometime this year.
On the day that we went, I had prior plans to hike Mount Audubon (13,223 feet) with another friend, Jim Harrington. However, Jim decided that he would rather wait for Audubon until the snow had mostly melted off. He agreed to try The Castle with Mark and me instead.
On Sunday morning, I picked up Mark at his home and Jim at the bus station. To reach the trailhead for The Castle, we drove southwest from Denver to Bailey on U.S. 285. As soon as we entered the town of Bailey at the base of Crow Hill, we took the first left on Park County 68 by Bailey Station. Park County 68 becomes Forest Road 543 after the pavement ends. It is 8.3 miles from the turnoff in Bailey to the lower trailhead parking area. Along the way, we stayed right at two junctions at miles 6.3 and 7.1. (If you follow the signs toward Wellington Lake, you're going the right way ñ just don't go all the way to the lake.) We parked my car at a small trailhead parking area by a dirt side road on the right marked with signs for the Colorado Trail and the Rolling Creek Trail. Like most dirt roads, FR 543 has a fair amount of washboard, but it is passable for passenger cars.
We started hiking around 9:30 am. I was packing pretty light. Food, water, and climbing shoes accounted for most of the weight I was carrying. Mark was packing pretty heavily with climbing gear, but he said he wanted practice carrying the weight. Jim's pack was somewhere in between.
The three of us followed the Colorado Trail 0.3 miles up the dirt side road to reach another parking area. This parking area should also be accessible for passenger cars. I just wasn't aware of it when I planned the hike. At the upper parking area, the Colorado Trail goes right while the Rolling Creek Trail goes left. We signed a trail register and started down the Rolling Creek Trail.
The Rolling Creek Trail is a nice hike for people of varying abilities. It is well-maintained, with good creek crossings and wonderful scenery. We hiked along the trail for about a mile and a half through aspen groves and evergreen forest into the Kenosha Mountains of the Lost Creek Wilderness Area. There are many interesting rock outcroppings in the area. The distinctive rocky projections of The Castle rise to the left of the trail while the higher, but easier summit of Windy Peak (11,970 feet) rises to the right.
The Rolling Creek Trail meanders through rolling terrain before reaching its namesake creek. The trail is no longer where it appears on the 1984 Windy Peak 7.5 minute map, so don't be fooled by the map. Likewise, don't be fooled by a sign at a trail junction pointing left towards "Windy Peak." The sign refers to Windy Peak School, NOT Windy Peak, which is in the opposite direction.
The Lost Creek Wilderness Area looks like a great area for backpacking, with an extensive trail system. In their book, The Complete Guide to Colorado's Wilderness Areas, John Fielder and Mark Pearson describe an 80 mile backpacking loop here within reasonable driving distance of Denver. This wilderness area contains no fourteeners or thirteeners, but there are several 12,000+ foot peaks, including Bison Peak (12,431), McCurdy Mountain (12,164), Knobby Crest (12,429), North (12,319) and South (12,323) Twin Cones, and Mount Blaine (12,303).
The route from the Rolling Creek Trail to The Castle is difficult to describe. We bushwhacked east to The Castle, contouring across the north side of the forested slopes southwest of The Castle. Then we climbed southeast up a boulder-filled drainage to the saddle southwest of The Castle.
The map contours gave us the impression that the easiest approach to The Castle's high point would be from the south, so we worked our way generally toward the south end of the peak. As the hike became more of a climb, Jim decided to hang out in an amphitheater around 9,140 feet which we called the "Courtyard", while Mark and I continued up.
We climbed over boulders and rock faces of every imaginable shape and size through an enormous rock playground. The exact route to the upper part of The Castle was a matter of personal preference. We mostly stayed to the right, but passed left of the southernmost tower. We found a pretty good sized "cave" under the rocks, then climbed and crawled through passageways under the rocks. We reached the 9,650 foot level after extensive third, fourth, and lower fifth class climbing.
The Castle has many towers, but the three highest are of nearly equal height. Mark climbed all three, while I climbed two of them. We started with the most exposed of the three highest towers ñ the one furthest to the southeast. First, we scrambled to the top of an exposed pillar which Mark rated as 5.4. The tower was separated from this pillar by an exposed gap above an airy crevice. We had used our hiking boots up to this point, but we switched to our rock climbing shoes while resting atop the pillar. Then Mark made some tricky (and scary) moves to climb up across the gap to the top of the tower. I took his picture, and he jumped back over to the pillar.
Next, we downclimbed the pillar and scrambled north to the easiest of the three summit towers. With judicious route finding, it may be possible to get all the way to this point with no more than fourth class climbing.
In his Guide to the Colorado Mountains, Robert Ormes wrote that The Castle is a "semi-technical" climb. However, if you want to reach the highest point, forget "semi." The highest point proved challenging. We surveyed several possible routes. Mark tried to climb a narrow chimney crack on the east side, but it proved too difficult for him. Together, we decided that the most prudent route was a south end pitch which Mark rated as 5.6 or 5.7. This would be my first roped climb, and Mark's first lead climb. Mark gave me my first technical climbing lesson, then placed some pieces of protection while I belayed him from below. Then he belayed me from above. I was amazed to discover how the security of a rope transformed a route that I would not have attempted otherwise into a fun, quick climb. The highest tower of The Castle was the technically most difficult summit I had ever reached, thanks to Mark's help. Now Mark and I will have to do Wham Ridge on Vestal Peak!
The Castle is an awesome mountain. It would be easy to spend several days exploring the rocks here and testing out climbing routes. We had spent too long here already though, with Jim patiently waiting for us below. Mark and I downclimbed the summit tower and he packed up his gear. We made a few deviations from our ascent route as we returned to the "Courtyard." We each ran into some tricky spots, but made it back down okay. I kept my rock shoes on until we were within about 100 yards of Jim's location.
The three of us took a different line on the bushwhack back to the Rolling Creek Trail. This time, we started off higher on the ridge and slopes southwest of The Castle, dropping down a different drainage further to the west. We found a small waterfall where the drainage met Rolling Creek, and stopped there for an icy shower. The trail was just on the other side of the creek, a bit higher up than the point where we had previously left it. The remainder of our hike was an easy trail walk. It was 8:00 pm by the time we reached the car, only to discover that it had a flat tire. We put on the spare and headed home.
I recommend that anyone who wants to climb The Castle should get the 7.5 minute Windy Peak map so that they can follow the contour lines as an aid in route finding.
Gary Swing