| Peak: | Crestone Peak |
| Route: | South Face |
| Range: | Sangre de Cristo |
| Posted By: | the_hare |
| Date of Info: | 8/24/2022 |
| Date Posted: | 8/25/2022 |
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Made an attempt for the traverse but just ended up with the Peak, still had an incredible time out. Road up is Subaruable, there are several spots we had to slow down and think about our line but we made it up and down with an Outback just fine. Some nice camping spots close to the 4WD trailhead, at the Humboldt trail split near 11.1k elevation, and many more at the lakes around 11.7k. The Humboldt trail had quite a bit of deadfall, might be just as fast to keep straight and take the old road trail that contours the basin on the way up. There was plenty of water to filter in the Cottonwood lake basin just over Broken Hand pass and even from the lower section of the Red Gully. If I were to do this again I'd just carry enough water to get over the pass and thru the basin and filter where the horizontal shelf meets the bottom of the Red Gully at 12.8k, there were some heavier rains forecast over the past weekend. The Red Gully was a beast and we definitely underestimated how fatigued we might feel, especially after a 4 mile 1.8k hike up to our camp the night prior. The gully is a stiff 1.2k gain in 1/3 of a mile navigating a mix of sloping rock, loose gravel, stray scree and sturdy class 3 climbing. The loosest area though was on the initial descent from Broken hand back to S Colony Lakes basin but there's enough rocks anchored in the dirt to avoid slipping too much. This was an incredibly gorgeous hike from the very start. Innumerable stars at night, incredibly prominent vista of the Needle from the S Colony basin, views sweeping peaks all around in the Cottonwood basin, aesthetic rock up the gully, and dream-like cloud movement swirling all around us and the surrounding peaks mid-morning. Looking forward to being back here again!       
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