From South Colony Lakes, traverse from Needle to Peak
Our afternoon hike of Humboldt the afternoon before gave us the extra benefit of sleeping solidly. Even though we were car-camping in a popular spot like South Colony Lakes, we heard no disturbances during the night, no one showing up at 2 in the morning and waking everyone else up. We awoke around 5:30 and were on our way about a quarter after six. Being the middle of September, it was still a bit dark hiking through the woods. We had our headlamps on until we broke out of the trees with great views of Crestone Needle and the setting moon.
The day had a bit of chill in it as fall was almost here. However, September is probably the best all-around month for hiking in the Rockies. Although the days are a bit shorter, the weather is usually more calm. The sun isn’t quite as intense as July and August hiking. September probably offers the best chances for summiting peaks in Colorado
We crossed Lower South Lake in a spot that had dried up and eventually found the climbers trail leading up to Broken Hand Pass. The trail to Broken Hand Pass is at first easy, then crosses a large talus field, then gets considerable steeper. There’s a good bit of scrambling to get through one narrow section. After that, it’s steep grass and dirt slopes and suddenly you’re at the top of the pass which has great views down into Cottonwood Lake basin. From the pass, Crestone Needle looks like a massive leaning rock tower. The hike over to the Needle is along a well-established and very pleasant trail. The terrain is really neat here: lots of grass and giant rocky ridges.
The standard route from this side on the Needle is the South Couloir. The guidebooks talk about two couloirs and switching between the two but we saw no reason at all to change couloirs. The main South Couloir will take you to within 20 feet of the summit and isn’t a scary climb at all. Although the trail leads you around corners and continues on a bit past the couloir, it’s so prominent that it’s almost impossible to miss. We started up the couloir and stayed in it the entire way. The difficulty never exceeds 3rd class and the scrambling is very solid. I don’t recall any serious exposure really (not like we’d been dealing with!). Strangely enough, however, some of the lethargy was leftover from the hike from yesterday and I found myself struggling near the top. As we neared the top, the weather seemed to get worse. It was pretty cloudy and wet feeling though no rain had fallen yet. Rain did appear to be falling over the southern Sangre de Cristo range. Directly to the west though, the weather appeared fine.
Finally, on top , we took in the astounding views all around us. Arriving at the summit and eyeing the traverse suddenly gave me renewed energy and enthusiasm (I’d need it). We stood on top for a few minutes eating when another pair of climbers arrived as well. After talking with them for a while and scouting out our route, we headed down. The climb down to the rappel point is obvious…and one of the scarier sections of the climb. A thin ridge snakes it’s way north, then east and descends about 50-75 feet to the top of a small gully on the massive north face of the Needle. Here, we found several slings around a large, solid spur. As Ken set up the rappel, I spied our route and picked out several prominent rock outcroppings to help guide us as we got down into the maze of steep and rocky couloirs.
The rappel was very long (about 100) feet and went straight off the main ridge. As you rappel, you can look straight down a couple thousand feet to Upper South Colony Lake. The rappel is surprisingly very easy. Although it is steep, there are no vertical or overhanging points. However, I would never downclimb this part without a rope. It’s very steep, long, and exposed. If faced with a downclimb, the safest way would probably be the gully leading down from the top of the rappel point.
At the bottom of the rappel, we realized there was no turning back and we began the traverse. The most difficult part of the traverse is unquestionably the descent off the Needle. Once you’re past the largest gendarme beneath Crestone Needle (called the “Black Gendarme” even though it’s not black), the major difficulties are over. Getting off the Needle is a matter of picking the easiest route through a enormously complex series of gullies and cliffs. Ken and I cliffed out a few times and had to retrace our steps. At one point, we were faced with climbing back up a 4th class section and descending an easier way. Instead of doing this, we rappelled another section, which was a lot of fun.
The route is impossible to describe. The best advice to give to others is, when still on top of Crestone Needle, look for very prominent ledges that lead all the way to the south couloir on Crestone Peak. Be warned that it is very tough to get to them if you don’t have a good sense of routefinding and memorize the landmarks. When Ken and I were in one of the last remaining gully-crossings, we saw another pair of climbers rappelling. By the time we emerged out onto the ledges, we saw them again but they were WAY off route on the very steep parts of the north face of the Needle. After a while, we lost them.
Once we were through the major difficulties, we had a great view of the entire route. Many parts of it, however, were obscured by cliffs and gullies.
Although I knew we were on the right route, we did manage to find a few cairns. We tried to build them up and construct new ones as we hiked along the ledges.
Once we got onto the ledges, we moved pretty quickly. Eventually, we ended up in the south couloir on Crestone Peak. This couloir leads up to the Red Saddle. On the opposite side of the Red Saddle, the North Couloir tops out. The North Couloir is the standard route on Crestone Peak. The Red Saddle is also the dividing point between the two summits on Crestone Peak, the main summit being to the left or west. The south couloir on Crestone Peak is considerably looser than that on the Needle but it’s much more stable than the majority of couloirs in Colorado. Parts of the couloir and the entire top is covered in red rock, hence the name.
The scramble to the true summit was very easy and rewarding. Although both peaks were individually easy, the traverse was undoubtedly very difficult but we had succeeded in making it without any real problems. From the top of the summit, we had commanding views of all the nearby peaks. In the valleys to the west, the aspens had begun to change. We signed the register and discovered that we were the only people on the summit this day. After staying on Crestone Peak for maybe an hour, we headed back down the south couloir. Our plan was to go down to Cottonwood Lake and back up over Broken Hand Pass and back to the truck. The North Couloir was reputed to be very loose and, to make matters worse, had snow in it. Besides, I wanted to see Cottonwood Lake. The only trick in downclimbing the south couloir was exiting to the left before the couloir got too cliffy. From here, we had some tricky 3rd class scrambling but we eventually found a trail leading down towards Cottonwood Lake. The terrain around Cottonwood Lake was very pretty…this would be an excellent place to camp.
The hike back over Broken Hand Pass was easy. I still had plenty of energy in me. It felt like I was going backwards; the longer I hiked, the more fresh I felt. Ken didn’t feel the same though…probably because it was his turn to carry the heavy rope! As we were hiking down from Broken Hand Pass we heard voices behind us. It was the other two climbers who had gotten way off route on the traverse. Apparently, they had to climb back up the Needle and back down the standard route or had somehow had to abort and traverse around underneath the backside of the summit. We were well in front of them and didn’t stop to find out (they probably weren’t in the mood for talking about it). It was amazing to think that the whole time we were traversing the two peaks, climbing Crestone Peak, and returning to the truck, they were trying to just get back. They spent a long time up on the Needle, but at least they made it down safely.
This was our third major 14er traverse of the summer and unquestionably the most difficult one. Looking back, the Maroon Bells traverse was relatively easy. It required two rappels but was very straightforward and short. The Mount Wilson-El Diente traverse was the longest. Although it didn’t require a rope, it had plenty of tricky sections. The Crestones required a rappel and had routefinding that was considerably more difficult than the others. That was the main challenge of this traverse…but we were up to it.
Posted 9 years, 5 months ago. Add a comment
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.
Posted 9 years, 5 months ago. Add a comment
From Silver Pick Basin, Traverse from Mount Wilson to El Diente
For the Mount Wilson – El Diente traverse, we set the alarm at 3:30 am. I slept great again and had no problems getting up. We began hiking from the Silver Pick trailhead around 4 am. We had to use headlamps for about an hour and a half. Once we were high in Silver Pick basin, we were able to turn them off. It looked like we were way in front of anyone else this morning. We arrived at the Rock of Ages saddle just a little after 6am. We immediately began the 800 foot descent into Navajo basin knowing that we wouldn’t enjoy the hike back over the pass. On the way down, we passed a creepy old mining cabin and even and old iron mine car. At the very bottom of the basin, we met two other hikers who were packing up and heading back over the pass to head home. That had completed the traverse the day before.
We had spied our route from the day before. Basically, our route ascended the lower grass slopes that were to the right of the Navajo snowfield. We would keep going up until we hit the first big snowfield on the left side of the mountain, then begin an ascending traverse to the snow gully. From there, we’d shoot for a notch that was described in one of the 14er books and then from there over the airy ridge to the summit. A climber back at the trailhead had told us how scary he thought the ridge was so we were a little apprehensive. For some reason, I never really assumed Mount Wilson was a very hard peak.
Ascending the lower part of Mount Wilson was really nice. It’s super solid and there’s lots of ledges and grassy paths. We did pick some scrambling sections from time to time but this wasn’t necessary at all. We arrived at the high snowfield and began our ascending traverse. We passed one small gully, then another, then finally arrived at the gully with the snow in it. By this time we were a hundred feet or so below the ridge so we climbed to the top of the gully to a prominent notch. This was not THE official notch though as we realized when we got there. We took a quick bearing and studied the map and realized that the summit was still to the west of us. So, we stayed just under the top of the ridge and soon arrived at
You can’t see the summit from here but you do see the ridge that will take you there and it is very airy indeed. It’s not far at all though. I was leading so I started out by climbing up to the ridge proper. Then, I went right over the tip top of the thin ridge. The exposure over the right (west) side was tremendous and it was really exhilarating although probably a bit too scary for my liking. Once I was perched up there though, I decided that it would be even harder to turn around, so I kept going. From this airy aerie, however, I was able to point out to Ken the best way to go which is to stay on the left (east) side of the ridge the whole time. This side is really exposed too (nothing like the other side) but the moves aren’t that hard. We soon converged back on the ridge at a much safer section. I led on and picked another route on the left side. At this point you have to swing around a large chockstone and then ascend a short little 4th class section that will take you right to the top. Again, the moves were not hard, but this is one of the more exposed 14ers there are. Ken thought this was the scariest fourteener that he’d been on to date and we’ve done just about all the hard ones.
We stayed on the summit for maybe 30-45 minutes (a short time for us). The summit is pretty small. In the picture you can see El Diente in the background. Our next goal in the day was to arrive at the top of El Diente via the long traverse between the two mountains. This ridge is reputed to be easier than the Bells Traverse. We had a rope with us because there was apparently one spot that we could rappel to avoid a downclimb. We weren’t sure if we would need it.
We climbed back down the ridge. Consequently, it wasn’t as scary coming down since I didn’t climb straight over the tip top of the ridge. Back down at the notch, we had another short rest and prepared for the traverse.
From the notch, which you can faintly see in this picture (left base of same ridge), we hiked down a gully and then ascended back up and started the ridge. The ridge is very tricky from the very beginning. There’s lots of ups and downs and thin ridges and exposed cliffs. The climbing switches between class 3 and class 4. We had a rope with us in anticipation of the rappel tower that was a quarter mile or so from the summit of Mount Wilson. The scrambling was slow going but eventually we arrived at the rappel point and noticed that it would indeed be easier to downclimb. So, we backed up a hundred feet or so and found a winding route down to the bottom. The climbing wasn’t too hard at all. Along the way, we found and intermediary rappel point. There were about twenty slings wrapped around the boulder serving as an anchor. Apparently, no one was trusting anyone else’s sling.
Eventually we arrived at the bottom and hooked back up with the ridge at the saddle beneath the rappel tower.
Back on the main part of the ridge, we had a long stretch where we cruised. We were able to make up a lot of time. Just over halfway is a large set of towers. According to the route description, we could easily bypass these by dropping 250 feet down on the left side. We dropped down 100 feet and picked a fun route that hugged the towers. The route finding was really fun and this was one of the highlights of the traverse for me. The route took us on small ledges and over small chasms, on top of large pillar-like rocks we used as stepping columns, and in and out of small, solid couloirs. We had to scout here and there for the best route but overall, we had no problems at all. Eventually the climbing relented and we found ourselves at the base of the Organ Pipes gendarmes. These small towers looked really thin too so we passed them on the left as well.
At this point we were getting really close to El Diente. I figured that we’d just go straight up to the peak. However, the trail is deceptive. It passes over the ridge to the north side of the peak, traverses under the summit above some steep cliffs, then climbs a short gully, and finishes with a short scramble to the small blocky summit. From here, Mount Wilson looks a long way away. Overall, I’d rate this traverse more difficult than the Bells traverse. Though the Bells demanded a rope, this traverse was narrower in places, was a lot longer, and demanded a lot of 4th class scrambling. The traverse took us just over two hours.
On the summit of El Diente we rested up for the long, steep descent and the hike back over 13,000 foot Rock of Ages saddle and back to the truck.
The descent off El Diente was miserable. It was super steep and loose. I would not recommend ascending the north face at all…the traverse was a lot more solid and a lot more fun. In contrast, the climb up Mount Wilson was surprisingly solid and a joy to climb up. Finally, we made it back down to upper Navajo Basin. Looking behind us, we saw some really dark clouds. We began picking up the pace since we didn’t want to be caught in a storm. We rested one last time, ate some oreos, and drank some water. The storm seemed to be moving faster; there was now some lightning flashes and thunder somewhere behind Gladstone and Mount Wilson. We decided to zoom up to the old mining cabin near Rock of Ages and wait there if we had too…and zoom we did. I’ve never hiked so fast in my life; it took us a mere 10-15 minutes to arrive at the little cabin, which appeared to be haunted. We rested here for a while and at the last minute decided to zoom over Rock of Ages and back to the truck.
We made it up and over the saddle in no time at all, however, thunder was now sounding over nearby Wilson Peak. A couple of hundred feet down from the saddle it began to rain. We yanked our shells out of our packs and put them on and began going straight down the talus and scree. The thunder was getting closer. Then, it started to hail. Hard. And then the lightning came. And the thunder – at the exact same time. We were caught right in the middle of an absolutely vicious storm. We had hurled our trekking poles down the mountain like javelins and holed up, so to speak, in a narrow gulley. We crouched down, being careful to only allow our boots to touch the ground (nearby lightning strikes could conduct through the ground) as the lightning struck all around us. After the lightning had discharged, we ran down the mountain, grabbing our poles and hurling them again, repeating the process. After about 30 minutes, the storm abated. It now looked like a winter storm had moved through.
We got back to the cars to find a nearly vacant parking lot. The hike from upper Navajo Basin to the truck had been with the aid of adrenalin and, as a result, seemed a lot easier than we were expecting. It took us maybe an hour and a half to do the whole thing which is a super fast pace. In so many ways (except for the storm), this weekend had been the best hiking experience to date.
.
Posted 9 years, 7 months ago. Add a comment
