Crestone Needle (14,197) by Brian Schultz Saturday August 28, 1999
I left Westcliffe Friday for the drive to South Colony Lakes and set my focus on the Needle and Kit Carson. I also looked forward to meeting Steve Helle in person after initial contact on internet site abovethetimber.com last December. We kept an ongoing correspondence and agreed our climbing experiences and expectations were similar enough to warrant a climb together. My main concern, being a Minnesota flatlander, was whether I could keep up with a Colorado native who lived at a high elevation.
I had the dubious honor of going from driving the worst four wheel drive road (Lake Como) to the second worst (South Colony Lakes) in succession. I hit the road early in the afternoon and found its condition to be even worse than the last two times I drove it; it took an hour and thirty minutes to reach the parking area before the gate. I rearranged all the overturned gear, etc from the jarring ride and cleared an area for sleeping in back. I had no interest in setting up the tent and getting wet from the probable rain.
Steve pulled in and we spent the afternoon visiting, discussing fourteeners and finalizing our plans for our climbs. It started raining in the evening (of course) and it continued all night long. I wondered if we'd even get a chance to start but it finally quit before 4:00, that being the time I woke up for good. A little after 5:00 I was up and about and surprised to hear first and then see a motorcycle coming into the parking area with the driver shining his headlight back and forth by the gate. It seemed so weird at the early hour. We found out later it was Andrew Hamilton, on his first day out to set the speed record for climbing all the fourteeners. He was looking for a spot to park the bike but turned around and went to the other parking area.
At 5:45 we stepped past the gate under very overcast skies and headed to the lakes, where we were greeted with a fine sunrise on Broken Hand Pass. It was the last we'd see of the sun as the Needle was already completely clouded in. We scrambled up to the pass and made the top at 7:35, quite aware that our climb would continue in limited visibility. How disappointing- this would be an exact repeat of last year on Crestone Peak. The wind was fairly strong as we hiked along the ridge to the couloir, blowing my hat into oblivion. Or so I thought. Steve was out in front, spotted it and retrieved it.
We entered the couloir at 8:05. The guide books suggest starting in the right couloir and switching over to the other one later. I knew of three others who took the first gully all the way up and we decided to do the same if we had to. With the poor visibility, we couldn't identify one from the other so we just kept going up. The rock in the gully was wet and steep but all holds were solid. We climbed up two streams of water, with difficult moves required to get above them and when we got higher we weren't sure which way to go. We spotted some very small cairns which prompted us to climb left. We scrambled up and eventually topped out on the ridge, took a left turn and after a few moments stepped onto the summit. Don't know if it was the standard route but it worked. The time was 9:05 for a 3 hour 20 minute climb from the gate.
Too bad the visibility was so poor. This was the second time I wanted to look over to Humboldt where I sat in 1996 and said I would never do the Crestones. We had the summit to ourselves and stayed 30 minutes.
We departed at 9:35 and worked to our left to avoid the water and steep crack moves. But the terrain steepened considerably on this side and big time caution was necessary as we slowly descended. At the bottom of the couloir we stepped onto the trail and noticed the imbedded stone arrow at our feet- I'm not sure how we missed it earlier, perhaps we traversed below it. We were likely in the first gully all the way up, but for sure that's the one we came down. No matter- in the end it all worked out fine.
At Broken Hand Pass we stopped for a rest and chatted with numerous climbers still on their way up and then waited above the gully for several slow moving groups. Some had started all the way from the car parking area. I felt pity for them.
When we reached the lakes we kicked back for a long time resting and enjoying the scenery. The cloud cover on the Needle was still heavy but breaking a bit. At least it wasn't raining. We hit the trail again and made it back to the trucks at 12:50.
Although the climbing was steep in the couloir, neither of us felt it was overly dangerous. The solid rock was fun climbing but I'd like to do this one again when I can see more than 50 feet in any direction.
Total climb time- 7 hours 5 minutes