Castle Mountain Loop 25 Mile
Talkeetna Mountains
July 22
    Eliseo Marquez
    Jeff Arndt
    Rob DeVelice
3 starters

Yee Haa pardner!  Welcome to the Wild West!

Squint a bit and Castle Mountain would appear to be at home down south in Canyonlands or Big Bend.  Hoodoos, pour-offs, and amphitheaters provide surrealistic effects in this unique landscape of eroded conglomerate and limestone.

Pound for pound this route was the heavyweight challenge of the Quintessential series.  About half of the route lacks a trail of any kind and much of that portion involves radically steep side slope traversing.  Fortunately, the splendor of the circuit is so extraordinary that every fiber of ones being revels with each distorted step.

One of the adrenaline pumping highlights of the adventure came at the half way point.  After a long steep burn to the highest ridge of the route, a steep scree slope of fine gravel provided an unlikely avenue through the cliffs below.  A jump from the ridge onto the scree initiated a fun, high speed, barely in control, descent of about 2,000 feet vertical.

For Jeff and I, after the Castle Mountain Loop, only one event remained in our quest to complete the Quintessential series.