Standard route on west ridge from South Colony Lakes
This was our final big hike of the summer. We knew that if we didn’t tackle this group of 14ers soon, we’d probably have to wait until next year. Well, Humboldt was the easy one…it’s two neighbors, the Crestones, are very different and can become exponentially more deadly with a coating of slick fall snow. We headed down to these peaks on Saturday morning (the 16th) with the intent of driving up the grueling 4WD road to South Colony Lakes and then having a leisurely afternoon hike of Humboldt Peak. On Sunday morning, we’d attempt the traverse between Crestone Needle and Crestone Peak.
After setting up camp and eating a bit of food, we set out for Humboldt. The standard trail leads well along the south side of Broken Hand Peak and Crestone Needle then back up to the lake. There’s a much better and more direct trail that leads out of the parking lot before the stream crossing; it’s a little faint at the beginning but saves a lot of time. Once getting above lower South Colony Lake, the trail switches back and forth and eventually arrives at the saddle between the the ridge leading to the Bears Playground and Humboldt Peak. I was expecting Humboldt to be a total pushover since it was only just over 3000 feet of elevation and not that long but I was feeling strangely anemic.
From the saddle, Humboldt is a straight shot up the ridge. It’s best to stay to the right of the ridge when it gets rockier since the left side is considerably rougher than the right. The higher you go, the more amazing the views are of the Crestones. From here, we were able to see that the Crestones had already received an early snowfall. Even though I was enjoying the views thoroughly, I was feeling weaker and slower the higher we went. What appears to be the summit is actually a false summit. The true summit lies a couple hundred yards ahead along a neat wide ridge in the sky. Upon arriving at the summit, I just sat down and held my head in my hands. I had a bad headache and felt really weak. These were classic signs of altitude sickness, something that I haven’t had a trace of since my first couple attempts at mountaineering. I didn’t feel like taking any pictures, eating, or drinking. Ken had to prod me along to get me to come down, but by the time I was back at the saddle, I felt good again.
We got back down to the car-campsite and prepared an outstanding hotdog dinner while making final plans for the traverse tomorrow. I wasn’t too worried about that random visit of altitude sickness and was sure I’d be fine for the Crestones. We went bed and slept solidly, ken in the back of his XTerra and me in my bivy sack about 30 feet away on a nice smooth grassy spot.
We awoke the following morning refreshed for the Crestones.
