Malemute Peak

Malemute Peak - 13348' - South Face class 2
September 2014

See my Malemute Peak page on SP

After climbing Independence Monument, Josh and I planned to meet for a weekend of 4-wheeling and to climb something even if the weather didn't look ideal. We were going to climb Peaks P, Q, and R in the Gores but the horrible forecast for Sunday forced us to change our plans. We decided to drive the Crystal Loop road outside Marble and search for some aspens. We started driving up the Lost Creek road to the north of the road that follows Crystal River. We did a short hike up to a ridge above Lead King Basin and then drove down the steep switchbacks passing through thousands of aspens all of which were glowing yellow and red. We then continued to the Crystal Mill, and went down the Crystal River Road which was much rougher and took quite a bit of time to drive back to Marble.

Later that afternoon, we drove over to Aspen and went up the Castle Creek Road. The road all the way up to Montezuma Basin wasn't as rough as I remembered and we made it to 12,750 feet at the end of the road an hour before it got dark. We threw up the tent and went to sleep at the Castle Peak trailhead. Unfortunately it was quite windy over the night and I didn't get much sleep. We got up early as the temperatures were actually warm despite the wind. We spotted Malemute Peak as a silhouette in the vibrant sunrise to the east. We drove down the road a few hundred feet to the old mine at 12,600 feet and parked. The sunrise was very nice as orange and red glow basked the entire valley.

From here, we began hiking straight up the south facing talus slope. We went to the cliffs and then followed them left around to a broad gully that brought us straight to a tiny saddle at 13,000 feet. The west ridge of the peak was just beyond and we traversed a short bit of Class 2+ terrain and we met the west ridge at another small saddle at 13,080 feet. From here we quickly ascended the west ridge as the clouds began to deepen and snow began to softly begin falling. Right as we reached the summit, snow began to fall but only briefly. We could still see the summit of Cathedral Peak to the northwest but Castle Mountain was fogged over. We only stayed on top 10 minutes before quickly retracing our steps and making the descent in 20 minutes back to the truck. The rain started really coming down as we drove down the road back to Aspen and never stopped until I made it to Vernal on my way back to Seattle that day.