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.:Getting to the trailhead:. The trailhead for the standard routes on Humboldt and the Crestones is at South Colony Lakes. To get to the South Colony Lakes trailhead from Denver, the quickest route is go south on I-25 through Colorado Springs, and on the south end of town take the Academy Blvd exit west a couple miles and take the exit south to CO 115, which runs southwest-ish through Penrose and over US 50 to Florence. From Florence, take a left at the junction of CO 115 and CO 96 (it's before you get into the town proper...there's a Carl's fast food joint at the corner), and head south for 11 miles to Wetmore. At the “T” junction in Wetmore, turn right (west) and drive to the hamlet of Westcliffe, about 16 miles away, over Hardscrabble Pass. Look sharp for the intersection of CO 96 and CO 69 in town, and turn left (south). Just about 4.5 miles down CO69 is the right turn onto Colfax Ln (it's signed). The road is paved for a few miles, then becomes well-maintained dirt. At ~6 miles from CO 69, turn right at the "T" intersection, and you'll be on on the S. Colony Lakes Road. The first mile or so is still pretty smooth, but as soon as you pass beyond the gated cattleguard (with parking are on the right), the road turns gradually steeper and rougher... plan on about an hour of slow, strategic and bumpy driving to get there. The next 1.5 miles are on private property, so pulling off to park is not an option. The trailhead is about 6 miles up the road, and the crux of the drive is about 3 miles up, where a series of steep slabs require some deft driving. Don't even THINK about attempting this road without a good 4x4. The trailhead is at the end of the far parking area, beyond a stream crossing that can be driven across, or hiked via a sturdy log crossing. .:The trail:. .:Trip Report:. The Crestone group of 14ers include 3 of the more difficult 14ers, technically speaking. Crestone Peak and Crestone Needle are sharp, arete-like peaks that require a lot of hand-and-foot work no matter how you approach them, and also hold some of the finer technical climbs to be found anywhere. Kit Carson Mountain is also a steep ship's-prow of a peak, requiring a good deal of scrambling from even the easiest approach. The fourth peak, Humboldt, is oddly out of place, a giant rounded hill in the midst of craggy peaks and ridges. After the success of the Wilson's/El Diente weekend, I decided it was time to attempt the Crestones and Kit Carson... a weekend of airy, exposed routes that really exemplify Colorado peak bagging! Our plan of attack for the weekend was going to be to climb Crestone Peak, then do the ridge traverse to Crestone Needle, and then Kit Carson on Sunday before coming home. After pitching camp at the lower South Colony Lake, Chris and Adam and I set out for Crestone Peak. The two most popular routes are the northern route and the southern route…we opted for the southern route in order to avoid the late-season snow and ice that the northern couloir is infamous for. To get to the southern couloir, our first task was to climb up and over Broken Hand Pass…the low point between Crestone Needle and Broken Hand Peak. The area around the lake are crisscrossed with trails, but it’s fairly easy to pick out the main trail on the south side of the lake, which wastes no time in ascending into the gully below Broken Hand Pass. The Colorado 14er Initiative folks have recently made a lot of improvements to this trail, despite the rocky and steep terrain. The 6-foot cairns leading to the gully are hard to miss! Once in the gully, it becomes a Class 2+ / Class 3 scramble to the 12,900’ pass. It’s not as hard as it looks, and the rock is very solid, with plenty of hand and footholds. In fact, it’s a great warm-up for what’s to come! The next phase of the hike is the mildly depressing part…from the top of the pass, you have to descend 800 feet to Cottonwood Lake. The trail isn’t nearly as rough as the climb up the other side, but it is a bit steep and loose, so be careful with the downclimb. From Cottonwood Lake, follow the trail as it goes under Crestone Needle’s south side and past the lake. Presently, you’ll find yourself looking into the basin between Crestone Peak (left) and Crestone Needle (right). Here’s where life gets interesting. I was following the directions in Roach’s book, and quite frankly, they weren’t good enough. At this point, he comments that you should “know the terrain before you proceed”, but doesn’t give you much to go on to get to know the terrain! Roach’s directions mention a narrow, red-colored gully that reaches the 14,180’ notch between Crestone Peak and it’s subpeak. The only problem is, there are about 4 gullies that seem to fit the description, and the trail disappears quickly, leaving the climber to guess which is the correct route. Let me try to help. From this basin, you will probably see what looks to be an obvious, wide gully right in front of you, just off to the right a bit. That’s a good starting point, but you should NOT follow it all the way to the top! If you look a little to the left, you’ll see a much narrower red gully. That’s your objective. The ideal thing to do is start out in the wider gully and traverse your way into the narrow one at about 13,500, then follow it to the 14,180’ notch. The summit is a quick scramble to the left, and never very exposed. So that’s what you’re supposed to do. We, however, didn’t do it like that. We struck off up the wider gully, which was an excellent, solid Class 2+ climb with a few Class 3 spots here and there. However, as we were soon to find out, this gully tops out well east of Crestone Peak… somewhere around 13,700’ by my altimeter. We weren’t quite sure what we’d done, and only through a process of gingerly making our way around various pinnacles and steep gullys did we finally migrate our way to the correct one…at one point we had to climb around a steep ice sheet, which was not pleasant at all. But finally, we found our way to the right place, which was confirmed by the people we encountered who were on the way down. The kicker is that everybody else had done the exact same thing we did…at least a dozen people had gotten off-track using the Roach directions and had to either descend and start over or find a way to correct their course. That actually made me feel better…that we weren’t the only ones who had trouble interpreting Roach’s directions. So we finally started up the right gully, and frankly, the remaining few hundred feet of elevation were a snap….once again, very solid rock with plenty of good hand and foot placement available. It was a really enjoyable climb. We finally clambered up to the summit right about 12:30….a good 5 hours after leaving our campsite. I estimated that our navigational problems probably cost us about an hour or so. The summit of Crestone Peak is big enough for about 3 people, and I’m sure the views are incredible, but a low, quick moving cloud system came in as we neared the summit, obscuring just about everything more than a few feet away. The racing clouds broke every now and then, providing glimpses of Kit Carson and parts of the traverse to the Needle. As we took a breather on the summit, it was quite obvious that the weather was going to stop us from attempting the traverse….challenging enough on a sunny day! And frankly, we were getting pretty darned tired, so we revised our gameplan…we’d head back the way we came, and decide once we had gotten back to Broken Hand Pass whether or not to make a direct assault on the Needle, or call it a day. The next 2 hours or so were spent gingerly picking our way down to Cottonwood Lake…luckily, the clouds moving in didn’t carry any rain with them, so the downclimb wasn’t too eventful. By the time we had climbed back up to Broken Hand Pass, it was just past 3pm, and no sign of the weather moving out. The top of the Needle, while only 1 mile and 1200 feet way, was obscured in thick fog, so we decided to call it a day, which turned out to be a good call. As we picked our way back down Broken Hand Pass towards South Colony Lake, a light rain began to fall…nothing serious, but trying to do any type of climbing on rain-slicked rock is more dangerous than I like to be! So we made campfall right about 4pm. The light rain subsided, and a decent campfire warmed us up as we all pulled our or various freeze-dried dinners. Tomorrow, we would set out for Kit Carson at first light, and then possibly think about making another attempt at the Needle! ...continued on the Kit Carson trip report... |
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