Humboldt Peak Trip Report 07/08/2007

Peak(s):	Humboldt Peak - 14,068 feet Crestone Peak - 14,299 feet Crestone Needle - 14,196 feet
Date Posted:	07/08/2007
Date Climbed:	07/07/2007
Author:	Jcwhite

A quest for punishment
A quest for punishment Peaks: Humbolt, Crestone Peak, Crestone Needle in a day Crew: Jcwhite, Elin (Jc's gf), and Kent Routes: Standard up Humbolt from South Colony, Traverse to bears Playground, North Buttress of Crestone Peak, Traverse to the needle, Descent of standard route of the needle. Date: 7/7/07 Well we decided to go for a big goal for one day. The weather report looked reasonable, and turned out to be just that. After driving up the South Colony lakes road on Friday evening and getting to bed fairly early, my body woke up before the 3 am alarm, and we walked up to meet Zacob and his friend Kent who camped a little up the road from us. We left the upper parking lot around 3:40 am and made some fairly good time up the trail. Not too far below the lake, Zacob wasn't feeling all that well and headed back to camp. Elin, Kent, and I continued on up and made great time with just a couple short breaks to the top of Humbolt. Couple pics: We watched sunrise from about half way up the summit ridge. We arrived at the summit at 5:52 am. After a quick snack and short break we took off across the extremely long ridge towards Bears Playground around 6:20 am. It was obviously early, and not a cloud in the sky. The easiest way to get to Bears Playground from Humbolt is to just climb up the low 13er on the way and walk a long ridgeline over there. We stopped about halfway to throw on the sunscreen. Upon reaching Bears Playground we grabbed a quick snack and off we went. Having climbed the North Couloir before, I didn't have much interest in that crappy thing again, so we were headed for the North Buttress. What a great route! The climbing stays class 3 until you are over 14,000 feet. Most of the snow was avoidable Kit Carson in the background At one point you have an easy class 4 down climb to a fairly hairy class 4 traverse to the red saddle, where you actually end up climbing the top 50 or so feet of the couloir. We topped out on the couloir and weren't there more than a minute of so before we saw a mountain goat up on the East summit, and right after this, they 4 legged climber sent some watermelon sized rocks down that landed about 6 feet from where Kent had been standing. We then watched him run down a section of rock that took us about 10 minutes of climbing in about 10 seconds. Anyway after that little episode, we scrambled up that last 200 or so feet to the summit and found we were the first of the day at around 9:45 am. We sat around eating, drinking, and resting for about 15 minutes, and took off around 10 am with the traverse in mind. We found the traverse to not be cairned all that well yet this year, and the ones that were there were fairly far between one another. As we left the summit Kent made the comment "This usually takes 3 hours right?" "Something like that" I said. We downclimbed a ways down the south gully until we saw a cairn across the way, and we headed across towards the cairn perched on a small ledge. None of us had bothered to carry the guidebook with us, so it was somewhat of an exploration with the lack of cairns. We followed them for a while and eventually lost them. I went out ahead for a ways to explore, and found that I couldn't be on route really considering that there was some climbing below me that I felt was more difficult than the traverse should have involved. I pointed Elin and Kent down and around the gnarly stuff I had done, but when they came back into view I realized they were were in for a nasty downclimb. Too bad I had the rope...Kent went first and with a little help from my vantage point, found a "doable" route down and Elin followed, both of them agreed it was the hardest climbing they did all day. It was at this point that it was 12:40 and Kent mentioned "3 hours might have been a little generous." I found a cairn where I was and so we made our way to there and had another short downclimb to a traverse across some loose slopes. At this point the cairns were not longer obvious (to bad we didn't bring a route description). Well after exploring some false cairns that cliffed out horribly we found the route that squeezes itself inside next to the black gendarme. After exploring a little bit I found a cairn up high and we climbed up a ways to the crux of the route...the climb up the needles face. I was a little high for the easiest route and climbed a steep class 4 to the base of the needles face while Elin and Kent stayed a little lower and met me on the other side. I had a scary moment on this wall when a fairly critical handhold pulled out on me. Talk about butterflies! We were all ready to get this beast done and running out of juice, so we climbed the class 4 crux to the top of the needle and topped out at 1:05. Well 3 hours may not have been fast, but the amount of backtracking we did, I feel like it was decent time. Unlike the peak, the needle had seen lots of traffic that day judging by the summit register. We didn't wait too long on the summit, I think we felt like we would fall asleep if we stayed much longer. So we headed off down the standard route of the needle and caught up to 3 other climbers downclimbing the needle. We hit Broken hand pass and caught up to 5 or 6 search and rescue people returning from bringing the man off the mountain who fell a couple days earlier. We enjoyed some bootskiing down the snow below the pass and traversed to the trail. We slogged on down back to the parking lot and ended the day around 4 pm making for a 12:20 minute day. My opinion on this way of doing the mountains is that it isn't as much the distance or vertical that wears on you as much as the mental concentration on the more technical parts. Great day all in all. Congrats Elin on 14ers number 3,4, and 5. Great climbing with you Kent, lets do it again!

A quest for punishment

A quest for punishment
Peaks: Humbolt, Crestone Peak, Crestone Needle in a day
Crew: Jcwhite, Elin (Jc's gf), and Kent
Routes: Standard up Humbolt from South Colony, Traverse to bears Playground, North Buttress of Crestone Peak, Traverse to the needle, Descent of standard route of the needle.
Date: 7/7/07

Well we decided to go for a big goal for one day. The weather report looked reasonable, and turned out to be just that.
After driving up the South Colony lakes road on Friday evening and getting to bed fairly early, my body woke up before the 3 am alarm, and we walked up to meet Zacob and his friend Kent who camped a little up the road from us. We left the upper parking lot around 3:40 am and made some fairly good time up the trail. Not too far below the lake, Zacob wasn't feeling all that well and headed back to camp. Elin, Kent, and I continued on up and made great time with just a couple short breaks to the top of Humbolt.
Couple pics:

We watched sunrise from about half way up the summit ridge.

We arrived at the summit at 5:52 am.

After a quick snack and short break we took off across the extremely long ridge towards Bears Playground around 6:20 am. It was obviously early, and not a cloud in the sky.

The easiest way to get to Bears Playground from Humbolt is to just climb up the low 13er on the way and walk a long ridgeline over there. We stopped about halfway to throw on the sunscreen.

Upon reaching Bears Playground we grabbed a quick snack and off we went.

Having climbed the North Couloir before, I didn't have much interest in that crappy thing again, so we were headed for the North Buttress. What a great route! The climbing stays class 3 until you are over 14,000 feet.

Most of the snow was avoidable

Kit Carson in the background

At one point you have an easy class 4 down climb to a fairly hairy class 4 traverse to the red saddle, where you actually end up climbing the top 50 or so feet of the couloir.

We topped out on the couloir and weren't there more than a minute of so before we saw a mountain goat up on the East summit, and right after this, they 4 legged climber sent some watermelon sized rocks down that landed about 6 feet from where Kent had been standing. We then watched him run down a section of rock that took us about 10 minutes of climbing in about 10 seconds. Anyway after that little episode, we scrambled up that last 200 or so feet to the summit and found we were the first of the day at around 9:45 am.

We sat around eating, drinking, and resting for about 15 minutes, and took off around 10 am with the traverse in mind. We found the traverse to not be cairned all that well yet this year, and the ones that were there were fairly far between one another. As we left the summit Kent made the comment "This usually takes 3 hours right?" "Something like that" I said.

We downclimbed a ways down the south gully until we saw a cairn across the way, and we headed across towards the cairn perched on a small ledge. None of us had bothered to carry the guidebook with us, so it was somewhat of an exploration with the lack of cairns. We followed them for a while and eventually lost them.

I went out ahead for a ways to explore, and found that I couldn't be on route really considering that there was some climbing below me that I felt was more difficult than the traverse should have involved. I pointed Elin and Kent down and around the gnarly stuff I had done, but when they came back into view I realized they were were in for a nasty downclimb. Too bad I had the rope...Kent went first and with a little help from my vantage point, found a "doable" route down and Elin followed, both of them agreed it was the hardest climbing they did all day.

It was at this point that it was 12:40 and Kent mentioned "3 hours might have been a little generous." I found a cairn where I was and so we made our way to there and had another short downclimb to a traverse across some loose slopes. At this point the cairns were not longer obvious (to bad we didn't bring a route description). Well after exploring some false cairns that cliffed out horribly we found the route that squeezes itself inside next to the black gendarme. After exploring a little bit I found a cairn up high and we climbed up a ways to the crux of the route...the climb up the needles face. I was a little high for the easiest route and climbed a steep class 4 to the base of the needles face while Elin and Kent stayed a little lower and met me on the other side. I had a scary moment on this wall when a fairly critical handhold pulled out on me. Talk about butterflies! We were all ready to get this beast done and running out of juice, so we climbed the class 4 crux to the top of the needle and topped out at 1:05. Well 3 hours may not have been fast, but the amount of backtracking we did, I feel like it was decent time.

Unlike the peak, the needle had seen lots of traffic that day judging by the summit register. We didn't wait too long on the summit, I think we felt like we would fall asleep if we stayed much longer. So we headed off down the standard route of the needle and caught up to 3 other climbers downclimbing the needle.

We hit Broken hand pass and caught up to 5 or 6 search and rescue people returning from bringing the man off the mountain who fell a couple days earlier. We enjoyed some bootskiing down the snow below the pass and traversed to the trail.

We slogged on down back to the parking lot and ended the day around 4 pm making for a 12:20 minute day.

My opinion on this way of doing the mountains is that it isn't as much the distance or vertical that wears on you as much as the mental concentration on the more technical parts. Great day all in all.

Congrats Elin on 14ers number 3,4, and 5.

Great climbing with you Kent, lets do it again!

Comments or Questions

skier25	GJ 7/9/2007 6:03am Awesome Report
lordhelmut	damn 7/9/2007 3:47pm thats a full day to say the least.
Jcwhite	Nice 7/9/2007 9:03pm Geez must of walked by you 3 or 4 times. You had the dogs right?
krz2fer	Sickles 7/10/2007 12:23am Time for a hundred hour nap.
cjw	Re: Popular spot this weekend 7/10/2007 6:10am Yes we had the 2 dogs. Thanks gb, great climbing in there.
Jcwhite	not bad 6/25/2008 4:35pm Except on the traverse with a lack of a description or cairns
wasclywabbit	Nice! 11/30/2010 5:28pm Great report and awesome pics. That's more than I could do in one day.
cjw	Popular spot this weekend 11/30/2010 5:28pm Surprised we didn't see you up there. We did Ellingwood Arete on Friday and the North Pillar to North Buttress on Saturday, got 1/3 of the way through the ridge traverse before it started raining on us and we bailed into Red Couloir. Camp was the Silverado with the tent attached to it.
gb	Nice work, Jordan! 11/30/2010 5:28pm Guess you didn't have to constantly text Elin on that trip Also, nice work cjw, couple of classics there on the arete and the pillar.
Jcwhite	Thanks Frank 11/30/2010 5:28pm I'll tell ya what though, I'm missing the snow on the way down...and up I suppose
MountainMatt	Great Job 11/30/2010 5:28pm Great Job and nice pics. We saw you on the ridge of Humboldt (just below the summit) as we were headed up Brokenhand Pass. We summited just after you on the Peak. The traverse looked pretty nasty and I'm glad we stayed off of it. All three peaks in one day... kudos to you!
benners	Nice Job! 2/5/2011 12:22am Sweet pics, way to go getting all three in a day. You guys are speedy!
Gueza	good job! 3/4/2012 6:31pm Awsome TR and pics! Was route finding hard at all?

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