We Do Stuff: Cathedral Peak

May 27, 2023

Cathedral Peak 13,944'

Pearl Couloir on Cathedral Peak is a sought after ski line in the Elk mountains of Colorado, but since neither Laura or I are good enough to ski it, we decided to climb it to add another checkmark to our list of climbing the highest 100 peaks in Colorado. The weekend was looking good weather wise and we fortunately had a short day at work on Friday due to the long upcoming weekend so we loaded up the car and drove to Aspen Friday afternoon. Castle creek road is curvy, with great views, but was completely dry. Turning off Castle creek road and following the dirt road to the trailhead, we arrived to dry dirt and were hopeful that we would not have a long snow slog in front of us to reach the good climbing. Overnight temps were in the high 20's overnight near 12,000' and because we were hoping to climb frozen snow and below a huge cornice, Laura suggested a 3 am wake up. After a few hours of sleep in the back of the car, our alarm sounded. I quickly got dressed and made us coffee and oatmeal before setting off at 3:45 am. The trail toward Cathedral Lake gained elevation steadily over the first 2 miles and we were quickly in the basin with Pearl directly in front of us. It took us just 1.5 hours to the basin and with a break for food and to put crampons on our boots, we reached the base of the couloir in just over 2 hours. We started up with good conditions and continued up the 1,500' to the top of the couloir and around the left side of the cornice in just under one hour. It was a short scramble on broken rock and some snow to the summit, topping out at 7:15 am. We descended the standard southeast couloir and had an easy hike back out to the car, finishing up a nice day in the mountains at 10:02 am.