Drive Snowmass Creek Road ~1.7 miles until the road ends in a “T”. Turn right again, this time onto Capitol Creek Road, and follow the road for an additional ~7.4 miles to the trailhead. From the turn at the “T”, the pavement ends after 5 miles, and the good dirt road gets steep and bumpy in the last mile or so. To get all the way to the trailhead, a 4x4 or raised vehicle is recommended. There’s plenty of parking for a few dozen vehicles up there.

The second trail is the Capitol Ditch trail, which departs from the west side of the trailhead parking lot. There is a map board and register at this trail. The Capitol Ditch trail contours the valley to the west and eventually merges with the Capitol Creek trail about 3 miles in. This well-defined trail adds about a half-mile to the trek to Capitol Lake, but does not involve a great deal of altitude gain or loss. That combined with the stunning views of the peak makes this the more desirable trail by far (author’s opinion, of course).

Depending on your route, it’s 6~6.5 miles to Capitol Lake, which is the preferred camping area for overnighters. There are a number of established campsites. Right before the lake itself, there is 3-way trail junction. Straight leads to the lake, right leads to a number of the campsites, and left will take you up to Daly Pass. The trail to Daly Pass gets progressively steeper as you reach the top. Once atop Daly pass, the trail turns right and eventually leads to the base of the sub-peak called K2. There are a couple of choices from here. You can continue high, just below the ridge, but it’s more of a Class 3 scramble. The easier option is to drop lower into the basin and ascend gradually towards K2. Depending on the time of year, this could be a mellow snow-climb, a boulder-hop, or a combination of the two.

At the base of K2, the trail skirts around to the climbers’ left, and the exposure begins. Follow the trail with some occasional Class 3 moves to K2 and try not to be intimidated by looming mass of Capitol! Descend K2 to the north. The steep climbers trail will angle towards the ridgeline and you’ll be on or near the ridge with variations to the climbers’ left. After a few hundred yards of scrambling, the Knife-Edge will be before you. Cross in whatever way you’re comfortable…tightrope-walking, butt-scooting, or traversing just below, using the edge itself for a handhold. After the Knife, continue high on the ridgeline, again with variations to the left and right. When the ridge steepens, traverse to the left and into the east face of Capitol. The trail generally stays high and moves through various Class 3 and 4 pitches as you traverse and ascend to the summit. The trail eventually mellows and the last 100 yards or so are a stroll.

Finally we got to the trailhead and I'd say there was a good 4 inches of fresh, wet snow. There was one other truck there, and from the looks of it, those folks had hiked in the previous day and camped. Here's where we made our first mistake. We didn't read the trail guide very well, and set off on the wrong direction! Having not been here before, we switched on our headlamps and took off west along the remnants of a jeep trail. After 1.2 miles, we came to another register! Turns out we were on the Hells Roaring Trail (or something like that). So we trudged back to the trailhead. In the pitch darkness, the full moon would appear briefly through the clouds, throwing eerie shadows. Adding to the eerie setting, we frequently heard sharp cracking noises, which turned out to be tree limbs and trunks in the distance, snapping under the weight of heavy wet snow. On the trek back to the trailhead, we found a 6-inch diameter aspen tree had fallen across the trail only minutes before. Spooky!

Anyway, back at the Capitol trailhead, we figured out our mistake and descended south into the Capitol Creek drainage. After a couple slippery stream crossings, the trail then turned mostly south along the creek for remaining ~5.5 miles to Capitol Lake. From 6:30 to 10:30 we slogged through fresh snow averaging 6 inches deep, and deeper the higher we went. In several places we had to do some very aggressive willow-bashing where the snow-bent plants obliterated the trail. The clouds ran low and fast, and we never came close to even seeing the summit of Capitol. About two-thirds the way up we ran into the two guys whose truck we saw at the trailhead. They told us that all the white stuff fell during the night, aborting their summit attempt as well. Finally at 10:30 we made Capitol Lake, where the snow came to mid-thigh (since I'm 6'2", that made it almost 3 feet deep), and the wind whipped it into even deeper drifts. Located just above treeline, Capitol Lake was an ominous sight, as dark clouds masked the mountain, the winds whipped the tiny lake into whitecaps, and distant rumbles could have been thunder or avalanches, we couldn't tell. Although we were both exhausted from postholing the last mile or so, we turned around immediately and headed down to treeline before taking a break to eat and relax a bit. The trip down was a slightly easier slog though the snow, and we finally made it back to the trailhead at 1:30pm. Let me tell you, the 400 feet you lose dropping into the Capitol Creek drainage at the start really come back to bite you at the end!

In closing, we missed the summit by miles, and wouldn't even have dared attempt it anyway. Just bad timing with mother nature on this one. Even though we missed the summit, it was my first pre-dawn start in new territory, and my first long snow hike (thank the gods for gaiters!). I'll try Capitol again next summer. At least then, I'll know what to expect for the majority of the trip!