Steady as you go... We trudged up and over
the pass, afterwards aiming right towards the upper basin. We took care to
not stay too high based on our previous experience on this segment...
The trudge up the basin is long...picking
our way through the talus we meandered upward and onward towards K2. As we
approached the final push on K2 the route became steeper...Finally Sam gave
it up. He would wait for us below K2.
Laila and I continued up and over K2. From
K2's top we were faced with a treacherous descent from the north face before
we could reach the ridge to Capitol...Worse, the steep slab rock was covered
with a thin sheen of new snow.
Reaching
the main ridge about 75 feet lower than K2 initially we were on an easy ridge.
It wasn't long before we found the infamous "knife edge" ridge. The
knife edge runs for only 100 feet and is highly overrated for its difficulty.
Laila chose to straddle it, but I found it easier to grasp firmly to the solid
granite edge and friction walk below. One can actually completely avoid the
knife edge, as my good friend Bill Lhotta tells me, by staying 150 feet below
the ridge to the south. This is the route I will use to take Sam the Wolfdog
up Capitol. It's a long way to the summit of Capitol though. From K2 in the
best of conditions it took Laila and I two hours to reach the summit. To get
Sam to the summit I will have to reserve a full day for the climb with a high
camp at Moon or Capitol Lake.
Sam was sandbagging it on this trip though.
We would find him nearly four hours later waiting perfectly content 300 feet
below K2.
Laila and I, however, were still early on
in our attempt to tame Capitol. The knife edge, while moderately difficult,
is by no means the end of the difficulties on this 14er, usually acknowledged
as the hardest 14er to ascend by the "normal" route.
Staying on the ridge we soon found ourselves
confronted with some "mini" knife edge ridges. Perhaps if we had
stayed lower to the south of the ridge we could have avoided these perilous
cliffhangers. As it was we found ourselves on at least one occasion forced
into a friction walk along the ridge with breathtaking exposure.
Mostly though the climb from knife ridge
on consisted of carefully picking our way through talus boulders--the exposure
kept us on our toes though.
Finally
we found ourselves on the 500 vertical feet finale to the summit of Capitol
We followed cairns as they led us about 100 vertical feet lower than the main
ridge line. As we came to a "corner" along the way (where the main
route bends around the main mountain) we noticed cairns higher--leading up to
the main NE ridge. We followed. Later on the way back we would find that other
cairns led around the corner on a better route--a route that
did
not attempt to gain the summit ridge until the final moment. This route is no
more than class 3 all the way from the knife ridge to the summit. Given the
relative "easiness" of the knife ridge, I would have to conclude that
if one follows the optimum route -- of course one must find this route -- that
Capitol is really "not that bad". But of course no 14er is particularly
difficult by the "standard route".
Following
the false cairns we moved up gaining the ridge. Laila had been complaining of
headaches. She wanted to get the ascent portion of the climb behind her--the
headaches were more persistent during the sustained ascent portion of the climb.
She felt that if she could gain the ridge that she would feel more relief.
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