Castle Peak
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It wasn't until August before the snow and avalanche debris were cleared, thus allowing vehicle access to Castle Peak. Just in time, as it was likely to start snowing again soon. I joined a group online and we made plans to gather at the lower Castle Creek trailhead and carpool up to the 4WD trailhead. I connected with one other hiker at the campsites just past the lower trailhead the night before, but we never were able to connect with anyone else. As neither of us had 4-wheel drive, we ended up hiking from the creek crossing, almost two miles below the upper trailhead.
The first four miles was along the road to the base of the smaller, lower headwall. 
Once over that I could see the massive upper headwall and discovered that, despite it being mid-August, it was still covered with snow. It was still early morning and the snow was icy and hard. I could not get any traction, so I stuck to the rocks along the edge, which varied from loose to awkward. In places I could find sections of trail that made things easier. I was putting in a lot more effort than my climbing partner who was able to walk on the snowfields. Note to self—buy a set of micro-spikes!
At the top of the upper headwall is a well established trail heading up to the ridge. I encouraged my climbing partner to go on ahead since I was getting pretty slow. I finally made the summit long after everyone else. Most of the other climbers were continuing over to Conundrum Peak, returning to the saddle, then working their way down to the snow field to glissade back to the top of the upper headwall. The only problem was that the snow didn't extend up all the way up to the saddle, so climbers were working their way down a rock and dirt gully to reach the snow. All morning the valley echoed with yells of "Rock!" as rocks were getting dislodged onto climbers below.
I had brought neither helmet nor ice axe, and did not consider that route to be a safe option. I did meet one climber who reminded me that I didn't have to do the glissade, I could climb back up Castle and descend the same trail I came up. He should know, because he was crossing Castle for the THIRD time that day as he was climbing other neighboring peaks. I didn't feel I had the energy to do that, so I settled for just the one summit today.
I descended to the lower headwall where the road started and waited for my climbing partner to finish the traverse to Conundrum and the glissade back down. We hiked out the final four miles back to the creek crossing by the lower trailhead. Ten miles, 4,100' of climb, and over nine and a half hours. It sure would have been nice to skip the extra two miles up and back down below the upper trailhead from where we started.
While driving back out I was stopped at a one-lane section of road waiting on traffic heading the other direction. While sitting there a very large black bear just wandered out of the woods and meandered along the side of the road. No, I didn't grab my camera. I rolled up the windows—what do you think I am, crazy?
Note: This climb was four days after my colonoscopy when I was informed I had Colon Cancer.
Pictures