An oldie but a goodie TR for this weekend. Heading down to Wolf Creek tomorrow, should be fun..
Crestone Needle, 14,197’, South Couloir, March 12, 2007.
Partners: Pete Sowar, Scott Yost
Of Colorado’s 54 peaks over 14,000’, the last one to be climbed was Crestone Needle, in 1916 by Albert Ellingwood and Eleanor Davis. The two returned in 1925 and were joined by two others on the first ascent of the arete that now bears Ellingwood’s name (5.7). The history of mountaineering is chock-full of pioneering women, and the Needle is no exception.
Last week, a group of us skied Crestone Peak, and as soon as I looked at the South Couloir on the Needle, I knew it was a line I wanted to ski, and soon, before the Sangre de Cristos’ short spring season started to end.
Brittany and I headed off to ski Mt. Sherman in the Mosquitos on Sunday. It was a nice relaxing fourteener descent, in good snow to top it off. After that, we parted ways and I headed off from Fairplay to Salida to meet up with Pete and Scott. We got to our hotel in Westcliffe, and headed to the local Irish pub for a Guiness and some grub. The day dawned bright and clear, and we fired up the snowmobiles and made our way to South Colony lake. Even though Scott has his own snowmobile, we tandemed in order to avoid taking 2 cars and 2 trailers from Crested Butte.
We skinned right up this gully, which provides easy winter access to the upper lake.
Crestone Needle and the elegant Ellingwood arête drew us forward and after 40 minutes of skinning, we were already done with all of the skinning we would do that day. Skis and poles were traded for ice axes and crampons, and we made our way up towards Broken Hand pass. By now, we had picked up on the fact that someone had been this way recently. Sadly, the bootpack that they had made was blown over and gone for all intents and purposes, so we made a new one.
Once over the pass, the previous day’s tracks were now visible and useful as we traversed the south side to get to the base of the couloir. The most difficult climbing of the day was soon encountered at the end of the traverse. Thankfully, Crestone conglomerate rock is a joy to climb and this rock band was negotiated easily.
From this point forward, there was only one track in the snow, where there had been two. This gave us something to ponder as we made our way up the couloir.
At this point the ski tracks ended and it was clear we had reached someone’s highpoint. The slope got steeper and narrower at this point but things were going smooth and the climbing was a blast.
Pete, minutes from the top
From the top, Humboldt and Pikes in the distance.
Looking down the north side.
From left to right, a gaper with a camera, the Needle-to-Peak traverse, Kit Carson, and another camera-wielding gaper. Photo taken by a camera toting gaper.
The mountains were already inspiring, but thanks for adding to it, Mr. Davenport.
The “Dav shot”
All these action shots were taken by Pete Sowar. I screwed up my continuous settings AGAIN and all my action shots are blown out. We were able to ski all the way down to the end of the previous days’ tracks without taking our skis off. The climb out of the couloir up to the traverse proper was probably the scariest part of the day, with mud and wet grass and rocks and ice and snow.
The snow was ripping up Broken hand pass, but we knew once we got down a little we would have a pow run to finish off the day.
Up to this point, the Sangres had been treating us right.Sadly, our luck was about to change. During Pete and Scott’s tandem snowmobile ride out, they came up on a corner too fast and had a head-on with a tree. Thankfully we were able to tie my tow rope to Pete’s sled and move it enough to get it out.
It still ran and we got to the trailhead OK. The front end was pretty smashed up unfortunately, but at least it was fixable and at least none of us were broken in the process. Crestone Needle is truly one of Colorado’s finest peaks.
