Date: June 21, 2002
Elevation: 14,197'
Rank: 19th
Route: South Face, Grade II, Class 3, 4.0 miles, 3130ft vert.
GPS: N 37° 57.883' W 105° 34.566'
Team: Matt Esser (Toid), Andrew Tobin
Crestone Needle Trip Report:
Pre-climb: Reading through the forum on one of my favorite websites, 14erworld.com, I happened to see a post from a guy (Andrew) who lives no more than a mile from my house and wanted to go climb one of the harder peaks. How could I pass this up!? After a few email exchanges, a time and date was set.
Climb: Leaving after work on Thursday from Boulder headed south was probably not the best idea. Talk about traffic! I couldn't believe the volume. Anyhow, after we got through Colorado Springs the driving was ok, well, that is until we got to the 4x4 road up to South Colony Lake.
This road deserves its own paragraph. There is a sign that says 4x4 only and it honestly does mean it. We saw a 4x4 Subaru parked on the side of the road not even half a mile in! Now, before I get into the details of the road, let me say this. I'm not a 4x4 expert as this was probably the first real 4x4 road I've ever driven, but I do know that I would think twice before doing it again. It's 5.2 miles and you are counting down every bit of it. There are places where you get out of your vehicle and look at the jeep trail and try and pick the lines of least resistance. It takes about an hour to get all the way to the top, which I can proudly say I did in my Blazer. I am happy to say, the ZR2 off-road package I got with the Blazer came in good use, as the skid plates on bottom hit a few rocks. The first two miles are relatively easy with only two sections being testing. When you reach the sign that says 3 miles to go, that's where the fun begins. When you do finally reach the top, there are a couple places to park, I gladly parked at the first one. There were probably 5 other cars at the top and they didn't look in too good condition either! Also on this road there are a few stream crossings, although this year they weren't so bad due to the drought, but nevertheless, worth mentioning. With this said, drive up it at your own discression, although I would almost prefer to put the wear and tear on my body and not my car next time. I don't have money for spare parts!
Andrew and I got to the top of the 4x4 trailhead at about 10:30pm and hiked in fully loaded with camping stuff and gear and got to the South Colony Lake at about 11:30 under the moonlight. We setup camp and quickly went to sleep. There are many places to camp starting from before you get to the lake to a little bit after the lake. Remember, stay 300ft from the lake when camping, and there are signs posted that remind you of this.
At 6am we were taking the first footsteps towards Crestone Needle. What a view! Andrew took off way ahead and I moved at my own pace. I've read a few trip reports and I've heard Broken Hand Pass is a good "warm up" to the actual Needle. This isn't true. Broken Hand Pass is way harder than the Needle, IMHO. The rock is really loose and also it's the first thing you come to early in the morning and it definitely wakes you up. Everytime you slip you slide downhill some in the scree. It sucks. I was very happy once I got to the top and saw Cottonwood Lake and the trail leading up the Needle. It takes about an hour to get here.
Going up the Needle is rather fun. Much more interesting than slogging up some mound on some other peaks. Since the rock was much better (solid) it made a world of difference. Crestone Needle is what I think of when I hear the word fourteener. Something that has altitude AND a challenge. There are essentially two colouirs that Roach speaks of when describing the South Face route. I couldn't tell you which one I went up, because I went up one and came down a different one. I just tried following the cairns as best I could and then just climbing up. I might have switched back between the two a few times, I don't really remember where these points were at, but both routes lead to the top. Next thing I knew I, myself was at the top! I arrived probably 5 minutes after Andrew.
From the summit you can see a lot of things, including the Blanca group, the Great Sand Dunes, and the summits of Humboldt and Crestone Pk. Looking over the edge towards Ellingwood Arete is breathtaking. That would definitely be a full days climb but wouldn't that be one heck of a sweet climb? Andrew and I peered over the traverse and thought about it. I wanted to do it, he didn't. We of course sided on the conservative side of things and went down the route we came up, but let me say this. That traverse makes the Sawtooth look like a wannabe! Had we seen some people doing it we probably would have done it, but just looking down on it and being the only ones that summited the Needle in the past few days we decided that we would just call it a day ourselves.
On the way back down, I managed to get a little lost. Notice in the trip times below, it took me longer coming down then it did going up. You ask how could this be possible. Well, downclimbing sucks. Second of all, especially when you get lost and end up downclimbing a 5th class route (without a rope) that leads to the edge of nothingness! I didn't realize I was off track until I was about 30 feet to the edge and Andrew looked at me and I asked him if it were down-climbable. He said, "I think so." I tried the best I could to downclimb the last bit of it with Andrew's eyes from below, and had to throw my pack down to him and then eventually jump from about 10ft as I was out of energy and my forarms were pumped and I couldn't wait to find footholds lower. He caught me and kept me from rolling off the edge of the ridge. Bottom line is this. Take your time downclimbing, don't slip or lose control, because you don't know when you will get to a ledge to stop at, or what is at the bottom of whatever it is that you are downclimbing.
That little escapade drained my energy and I took it really slow coming down. Broken Hand Pass is worse coming down than going up. I slipped and fell and hit my knee on a rock and it was bleeding and swelled into a bruise. Uggg, this was turning into a nightmare! After another hour I was back at camp, relieved, but happy.
The Needle isn't really that bad. I think what would make it hard is if a) you didn't start at South Colony Lakes and hiked all the way up, or b) you added the traverse to the hike. Doing it by itself however made it for a short day as we were down and back at camp by noon. The views were amazing, and I can't wait to do Crestone Peak.
We had plans to do Humboldt the next morning, but it rained from about 5pm that afternoon we did the Needle, all the way until 4am the next morning, not to mention the wind was LOUD and it even hailed a few times. It was severely overcast and Andrew had to get home by 3:30pm. I don't think I would have made it up if we had tried, but I would have given it a try even though my knee hurt. The 1.4 mile hike back to the car was enough for me. The drive back down the 4x4 trail was just as long and just as bad, especially after the rain turned the dirt into mud. I think everybody from the Denver area should do a peak from this range, as it is such a contrast to the Front Range. And beautiful.
Pictures: (Click on picture for caption)
Time:
| Drive |
Ascent |
On Summit |
Descent |
Drive |
Total |
| 5.5 h |
2.5 h |
30 min |
3 h |
4.5 h |
6 h |
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