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Ascent of Castle Peak on 2012-08-16

Climber: Dennis Poulin

Others in Party:

Ken Jones
----Only Party on Mountain

Date:

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Ascent Type:

Successful Summit Attained

Peak:

Castle Peak

Location:

USA-Idaho

Elevation:

11815 ft / 3601 m

Ascent Trip Report

Ken and I drove to the trailhead from Hwy 75. We took Pole Creek Road seeveral miles east to the Germania Creek trailhead, then loaded Ken's stuff into my truck and we continued up to the Washington Creek trailhead. This last part of the road is supposed to be 4WD, but it wasn't a bad road. We hiked the Washington Crk trail until it crossed Washington Lake Creek, continued another 100 ft to a trail junction and turned left. We followed this new trail all the way into the Chamberlain Lake basin. We stopped at the first unnamed lake and set up camp. From camp we could see the entire route up to the summit of Castle Pk. The outcropping on the right of the ridge appears to be the highest, but it is not. The rocks to the left are higher. They sit back a little from the ridge and appear to be lower. In the morning we continued on the trail another .5 mile to where it passed the outlet of the next lake (9197 elevation) where the trail intersected another trail going east and west. We left the trail and went north directly at the large obvious gully straight ahead. We soon found a climbers trail on the left side of the gully and followed it upwards into the buff colored rocks. The gully we wanted has a steep waterfall looking area at the bottom, so we stayed on the rocky slope to the left of the gully until we could find a safe route into the gully. Once in the gully the route finding is pretty obvious. Go up. Stay in the gully and go up as safely as you can. Lots of loose rocks in the gully. Near the top of the gully (50 ft from the ridgeline), the gully splits, go left and hopefully find a rock cairn up about 20 ft into the left gully at the bottom of a ledge. Follow the ledge up about 30 ft where it seems to end. Look to the right, step up on a rock and find another ledge that leads into another gully. Follow the ledge into the gully and then climb the gully (Class 3 in spots) up to the summit Ken used his sighting scope to verify the rocky outcropping we climbed was indeed the highest rock on the summit.

Summary Total Data

Elevation Gain:

5634 ft / 1718 m

Distance:

14.1 mi / 22.7 km

Route:

South Gully

Trailhead:

6181 ft / 1883 m

Route Conditions:

Maintained Trail, Open Country, Scramble

Gear Used:

Tent Camp

Nights Spent:

1 nights away from roads

GPS Data for Ascent/Trip

GPS Waypoints - Hover or click to see name and lat/long
Peaks: climbed and unclimbed by Dennis Poulin
Click Here for a Full Screen Map
Note: GPS Tracks may not be accurate, and may not show the best route. Do not follow this route blindly. Conditions change frequently. Use of a GPS unit in the outdoors, even with a pre-loaded track, is no substitute for experience and good judgment. Peakbagger.com accepts NO resposibility or liability from use of this data.

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