On the Divide: Crestone Needle

Since we didn't complete all three peaks on the Aug 29 trip, Rick and I returned on Sept 10 with the summits of Crestone Needle and Humboldt Peak as our goal.

Again, we started out plenty early, meeting at IHOP at 3:30AM and starting the hike at 5:50AM. It started to get a bit light in the east around 6:30.

On the last trip, we climbed up Broken Hand Pass in the dark. This time it was light but that just kept reminding us of how much we had left to go. On the way up, Alpenglow on the face of Crestone Needle lit up the whole valley.

We got to the top of the pass and then headed along the back side of the ridge over to a couple of gullies where we made the final ascent. The gullies here were steeper but the rock was generally good and solid.

At the top of the gully, there is a short walk along the rugged summit ridge to the peak itself. This is Rick negotiating the last few hundred feet. Directly above his head is Broken Hand Peak.

We gained the summit at about 9:15AM and were the only ones there.

It was 11:30AM when we completed the descent back to Lower South Colony Lake. Then up the other side of the lake toward Humboldt Peak. Although not as tough a climb as the gully portion of Crestone Needle, a mile of negotiating a path through large boulders took its toll.

We finally gained the summit of Humboldt about 1:30PM. The weather was deteriorating so we didn't spend long up there, just long enough to find the summit log and the geocache. We got sprinkled with snow and rain on the way down, but there was no lightning.