Crestone Needle

Route: South Face
Posted On: 10/13/2024, By: amderr22
Info: Great conditions. Route was still in winter conditions with only a little snow (I think I might have stepped on snow twice, if that). No spikes were required for me, but others might like them. Trek poles were helpful. Watch the weather closely but until the next storm rolls in, things are in good shape. 

Route: Crestones Traverse
Posted On: 10/10/2024, By: timkoh
Info: The only unavoidable snow/ice was in Broken Hand Pass. We probably took 3 or 4 steps on snow/ice. But other than that, completely clear conditions, not a single bit of ice and snow we couldn't avoid beyond Broken Hand Pass. The red gully was fine, the traverse was fine, the knife's edge was fine, and the final climb was fine. Summer conditions all around! Just keep an eye when the next storm rolls in. 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 9/29/2024, By: seanhouseworth
Info: Recommend micro spikes for BHP otherwise completely dry. 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 9/7/2024, By: wildschut
Info: Perfect conditions. My bud and I had a blast. East gully was perfect. Get on it while the getting is good. Props to the Virtual Sherpa for guiding us along the way. Great to meet such a cool dude. 

Route: Crestones Traverse
Posted On: 9/3/2024, By: durkan
Info: Some water flow low in the Red/Bacon Gully ascending Crestone Peak. Dry and well-cairned across the traverse. Saw one climber lose a rock on the headwall while ascending the Needle, so definitely check all those holds. I personally never ascended the East Gully for Crestone Needle, so descending it after the traverse was done so cautiously. (3rd time up the Needle, previous ascents were the West Gully twice) 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 9/2/2024, By: statzell
Info: East Gully direct route on Wednesday, August 28th. Climbers right entire gully up after dihedral and climbers left on descent. Skip west gully and crossover confusion. 

Route: Crestones Traverse
Posted On: 9/3/2024, By: chelsluckb2
Info: Hiked this on 8/28. There is a good amount of water in the red gully going up Crestone Peak. It is mostly avoidable but definitely more than a trickle. The traverse is very well cairned, so if you study the pictures and keep an eye out for cairns, you shouldn't have much trouble. The hardest part for me was the class 5 move, but I made it up ok. The final headwall was awesome climbing but in my opinion, a little overhyped in terms of difficulty. I did the north ridge of Kit Carson several weeks prior, and I found it comparable to a much shorter version of that. Slightly steeper but over before you know it. I decided to go down the east gully direct on the needle to avoid any confusion with finding the crossover. Doing it this way made the route finding quite easy. There is a proper class 4 downclimb around the dihedral, but if you are good with that I recommend the east gully direct. Overall the hike was awesome. A lot of the traverse is fairly tame but all of the climbing was a blast and you can't ask for better rock quality. 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 7/28/2024, By: sean23
Info: No snow whatsoever. Absolute perfect conditions on the needle. Go get it while it's good! 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 7/11/2024, By: evanm137
Info: Summer conditions outside of one single snowfield up to broken hand pass. It's packed in quite well, and no additional equipment is necessary. It was an absolutely beautiful day on the 6th. No rain the entire day! The gullies have absolutey no snow. Completely dry and summer! 

Route: Crestones Traverse
Posted On: 6/28/2024, By: Cadorade4403
Info: Broken hand pass is great going up in the morning, had spikes and an axe and flew right up it. Coming down anytime after sunrise is a nightmare. Slow stepping backwards, super soft but doable if you take your time. The red gully, as everyone has said, is full of snow the entire way up. We were able to stay out of it entirely by staying climbers left. If you stay about as far left as possible without hitting class 5 climbing, you can keep it to a manageable class 4 but it just about doubled the time up the gully compared to past climbs. To get to the traverse, there is a small break in the snow right where you need to crossover the gully on the way down. The traverse is in complete summer conditions, as is the way down the needle. Definitely doable, but make sure you have the appropriate gear and be prepared for a long day. 

Route: Ellingwood Arete/Ledges
Posted On: 6/27/2024, By: Camden7
Info: Forgot to post until now so maybe there is newer info. Simulled up the direct start, unroped and scrambled to the headwall, then belayed the 5.9 variation and 5.7+ summit pitch. Route is fully dry except for a small patch of snow at the base of the route totally avoidable with a little care. Standard route is dry and very well cairned. The Pass is still snowed in below the class 3 move, I would highly recommend an ice axe. Spikes are optional but if the snow is frozen you would need to be cautious without them. We carried them and chose not to pull them out. Mosquitoes are at their worst. 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 6/28/2024, By: MaryinColorado
Info: I didn't climb Needle or Peak, but I took shots of the stretch leading up to Broken Hand Pass that it dawns on me might be helpful to share here. :) Still plenty of lingering snow that warrants axe+crampons. 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 6/20/2024, By: seanhouseworth
Info: Broken Hand Pass was still full of snow, but it was sloppy by 9am even with cloud cover. We had spikes and axes and still needed to be super careful on the steep portion. Rest of route is good to go. 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 5/23/2024, By: jmanner
Info: Didnt ski the Needle but got several good shots of it. 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 4/15/2024, By: aksean22
Info: Linked ski descents of Crestone Needle and Crestone Peak on Saturday. Started from Colony Lake 2WD TH. dry for about 3/4 mile and patchy for anther 1/2 mile. Still lots of snow on the road past that but it's melting fast. Looks like the trail has seen a lot of traffic recently. A long, uneventful skin up to the lakes, firm snow up Broken Hand Pass. The snow climb up Needle was a lot of fun. There's two short waterfall sections near the bottom that we bypassed on climbers right. Airy ridge ski off the summit back to the face. The upper face was firm but skied well. The choke is getting pretty narrow and we had to take skis off for a short section near the bottom where it's not wide enough. I've read a few TR's where people brought a rope, presumably for the waterfalls at the bottom, but we did not and had no issues downclimbing. Having a second ice tool was helpful but not mandatory. Skied corn back to BHP and decided that going for Crestone Peak now sounded better than dragging our butts up that road again. Wind was keeping everything cool, so a quick ski down and a never ending booter later and we were on the summit. Kinda rocky off the top. Traversing the face from summit to the top of red gully was super icy. Snow in the gully was heavy, which is probably to be expected when you drop in at 4:30pm, but it's still very filled in. There's a short rock/ice waterfall in the middle that we had to downclimb. The spookiest part of the day was the road out, which was torn up from lots of foot traffic (major props to whoever post-holed a solid mile past the 4WD TH) and was refrozen, which made it really easy to go fast and really hard to stop/stay in any kind of control. Ended up being about 9000' and 19 miles RT.