Capitol Peak | Colorado's Most Difficult 14er | Solo Female Climb

Oh my god you guys, I don't like the looks of this route ahead of me at all. Wednesday, September 6th at 1 50 p.m. I just left the Capitol Creek trailhead. We're doing Capitol tomorrow. I'm hiking to Capitol Lake tonight. I hope I don't freeze. I camped last night probably around 11,000 maybe 10,000 feet in elevation and I woke up to 36 degree temperatures so we'll see how it goes tonight backpacking. I think I'm gonna be cold but I brought a lot of warm layers but I just have my sleeping bag without any blankets so it's okay it's just one night we got this. All right at about 1.2 miles you take a turn off towards Capitol trail. That first 1.2 miles was entirely flat. It looks like we're about to start climbing now that I took the turn off. First river crossing. This group of hunters had llamas. Just over two miles in and you can just see Capitol. I think that's the peak peeking out. No pun intended. Oh what is this bug? I've never seen anything like that. Just over three miles in and there she is a perfect view. River crossing number two. 4.3 miles in and after this point you have to have a permit to camp so if you can't get a permit because you're too late or yeah they're all booked up you can still disperse to camp before mile 4.3 so keep that in mind. Been a more consistent uphill battle since about mile four and a half. Another creek crossing at mile five and a half. This is mile six. Getting closer to Capitol. Here it is. This should be a Capitol lake at any moment. All right that's me. So I think the lake is up there. My campsite's that way. I'll go check out the lake after I'm done putting all my stuff down in camp. All right number seven. That's me right here. Wow look at that backdrop. Are you kidding me? Also as interesting as all these campsites were reserved except for seven on these dates and there's nobody here but there are like three groups behind me so maybe they're coming or yeah they just haven't got here yet in general but yeah I don't know but this is amazing. All right so it took me just under three hours 6.3 miles and 2,500 feet of elevation gain to get to my campsite. I'm headed to the lake or that creek right there. Let's go fill up on water and get water for cooking tonight. All right we're making some pork jambalaya tonight for dinner. Yum. 6 30. Super windy out so I don't know how well I'm gonna sleep tonight. Um I'm not tired or anything. I'm just laying in here staying warm. It's not terribly cold. I don't have all my layers on yet but it's cold enough to where I'm happy. Well I barely slept last night because of the wind so I'm getting a late start. It's 6 30 but I'm headed out to do this final climb. We're starting up this morning with a 900 foot climb up to the saddle there. You can see Mount Daly up there and capitals up this way. All right it took me 32 minutes to reach the top of the saddle. 0.73 miles. Just descended down the first gully. As per the instructions you are not to turn up there to the right. You are to descend down. So now here we are at the canyon. A little trail. All right one mile in from camp. We're entering all the talus field stuff. I do see a trail in the snow over there. Found it. A mile and a half from camp. One hour 21 minutes later. All right I'm 1.91 miles in. One hour 47 minutes from camp. I finally spotted K2 and there's two hikers up there. First I've seen all morning. Fun supposedly begins as soon as you hit K2 and afterwards. Right here's the class 4 section if you want to ascend K2 which is what I intend to do right now and I believe over here you can see a bit of a trail for the class 3. That looks steep and sketchy. Honestly this looks better to me so here we go. Just summited K2. It was definitely doable but I'm not gonna lie the exposure made me nervous but there was great hand holds, great footholds. It was totally fine. It's just exposure. Anyway I'm at the summit. I still have a class 4 move to get down and look what's ahead. You can see someone on the knife edge right now. Oh I am so nervous for all of this. He's scooting. That's what I'm gonna do. Oh my god. There's capital. There's people on the summit right now. Oh my god. This is the remaining route. Not far but this could take an hour or more. Here's heading it down back the trail down the summit of K2. This part was tricky. I did it but it was not super easy for me. It doesn't help to be short. Solid rock. Oh my god you guys. I don't like the looks of this route ahead of me at all. I'm terrified. I keep having to remind myself to breathe and I can always turn back if I have to and one step at a time. All I need to focus on is what's immediately in front of me. I don't need to worry about what's up there yet. One step at a time. The exposure is drastic. I think it's extreme. I'm not even at the knife's edge yet but I'm almost there. Okay I got this. All right we've approached the knife's edge. Scooting along. This part's not terrible actually. All right after the knife's edge there was some fairly easy ridge scrambling. Doable. Not too scary. It's 10 o'clock. I just passed a group and one of the guys said it gets worse from here so that's not what I wanted to hear but anyway on that news I'm gonna take a quick snack break because I probably have an hour left even though it's literally right there. I don't know what to expect and he's like yeah you possibly do have an hour so yeah here we are. It's okay. We got this. Here's the remainder of the route. There's the summit. Staying to the left of the ridge from here. This is the remainder. There's that gray section and the summit is right there. So close. I hear there's one sketchy part left. I just passed the final group who was at the peak. That means I'm gonna have the summit to myself and look how close I am. The final stretch. There it is. I made it to the summit. We've got four hours 46 minutes and I don't know why but my watch says 3.4 miles which doesn't make sense because I thought I was only two to two and a half miles from the campground and I didn't lose the route so I don't know but um anyway I'm gonna have a long long trek back but once I get down k2 again it's gonna be smooth sailing. There's nobody else up here. Everyone else already descended. I can't believe this. That was the most nerve-wracking hike I've ever done. Well actually the LDI Day Wilson Traverse was pretty comparable if not more nerve-wracking. I'm honestly not sure which one was scarier. I think I had moments of panic more on that traverse than I did here. I only had like two moments of panic here in Capital and that was coming down k2 the back side of it. It's actually pretty sketched. The way up was no problem but the back side was slippery and steep and not many hand or foot holds so that was one moment of panic and then just walking across the ridge and not knowing what to expect in front of me and ahead of me the rest of the way had me kind of feeling panicky but it was mostly just the unknown. It wasn't like the knife's edge or the ridge was even that bad because I just butt scooted and that felt perfectly safe. Like the ridge wasn't just gonna break off and I wasn't just gonna go tumbling down the mountain. So now that I know what everything else was like I think I'm gonna be a lot less fearful and timid on my way back. Not to say I'm not gonna take it very very slow and still probably be scared but it's gonna be better. So we did it Capital Peak 14 and number 32 baby. Oh my god. Here's the back side. And let's go over you can see our campground and you can almost see my tent from up here. Okay you can see the orange tent down there. This is kind of what the down looks like. Steep, loose, exposed. Not the funnest time but you know you just focus on what's right in front of you one step at a time and it's doable. Okay we're back to the ridge. You can see K2 ahead getting there and then I'm in the clear. So going up the back side of K2 was surprisingly not much easier than going down it. It's actually really hard. I just made it. Not the best hand holds and footholds that's why it's a little bit challenging. Let me show you a better view again. Here's the back side and it's very exposed so no room for error. Two other girls I talked to and a guy they also agree that K2, this stretch, was the hardest part of the hike. So yeah yeah it was definitely class four challenging stuff. I think the front side or the back side depending which way you're going is much easier. That part's doable. So if you're going towards Capital climbing up that front side of K2 is not bad. It's just the way back down. My way coming down K2 I accidentally came down this way but it was much more difficult. I was like I don't remember coming up being so difficult but I think I had come up right there which is what it more looks like in the 14ers.com photo so that has to be the way. Definitely I would say do that. Don't go around kind of right there. Now that I have that done I'm in the clear. I'm just gonna go back down to the talus field. All the class four technical stuff is done meaning I survived Capital. I feel like I can officially say I made it and I survived and it's gonna be still a hard descent but like I'm not gonna die. Smooth sailing for the most part. My knees are gonna hate me but I did it. I did Capital. I'll see you when I'm further down. Also I should note that I left Capital Peak just before 12 and it's currently 1 45 so it took me an hour and 45 minutes just to do that stretch to K2. So yeah I am not gonna be back to my car until late tonight because I still, once I get back to camp, first of all I have like two hours to get back to camp and then once I get back to camp I have to pack up my stuff and then I have about two to three hours from there, six miles, to get back to the car. The plan was to drive home today but I might be camping another night tonight because I have a lot left and I can't do a four hour drive if it's already 8 p.m when I get back to the car. Long monotonous hike through the talus field. There's the ridge or the saddle should I say. It feels good to be on the side of the ridge. Capital Lake and I can see my tent down there. I made it back to camp. I was just up there. That's insane. Oh my god. So round trip from camp. There we go. We've got 9 hours 15 minutes 7.33 miles. I don't know where that came from but anyway it's what my watch says and that includes breaks. Look at the scenery. 12 hours 19 minutes later nearly 14 miles later We did it!