Crestone Peak

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: 8/7/2024, By: notidealbutfine
Info: Had a nice day ticking Crestone Peak, NE Crestone, E Crestone, Crestone traverse, then summit of the Crestone Needle. All routes are full summer conditions, just a little water running down the red gully. Beautiful climbing day. Back at the lake at 1:30pm and got rained/hailed on back to the car. 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 8/5/2024, By: James Dziezynski
Info: Red Gully is in great shape; no snow and only a trickle of water down the middle. Great conditions. 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 7/28/2024, By: sean23
Info: Perfect conditions. No snowfields, and you can navigate around the stream in the lower gully. The mosquitoes are bad at camp but fine once you begin climbing. 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 7/16/2024, By: AsTheDuke
Info: Basically summer conditions. No ice axe or traction required. Lower Red Gully has a small waterfall running through it. Upper Red Gully has a snowfield that can be passed on climber's left between the rocks and the snowfield. Worst mosquitos were by Cottonwood Lake and above Lower South Colony Lake. A little hazy as of 7/15 due to wildfire smoke, but not to the point it worsens the views significantly. 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 7/15/2024, By: jway2952
Info: Incredible night/day in the mountains. Yeah, the mosquitos are eat-in-your-tent brutal, but not if you're haulin ass up these beautiful peaks! Sunny, but hazy from wildfire smoke.

Summer conditions from the trailhead (4WD Lot with a lifted 4Runner) up, across, and down both peaks (Peak to Needle). Broken Hand Pass sucks. The traverse is not difficult if you have virtually any climbing experience and ended up being a delightful way to avoid regaining a ton of elevation with pretty simple routefinding. After spending a week in the Elks, it felt like a climbing gym out there.

Took me about an 1:30 to get to camp Saturday night. Then, with a 6 am start, 2:15 up, 1.5 across, and 2 hours down to camp followed by an hour of hiking out. 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 6/26/2024, By: haydenhogoboom
Info: Climbed Crestone Peak via the red gully today (6/26). As previous trip reports stated, ice axe + traction are required right now. There are two unavoidable & steep snowfields in the upper portions of the red gully, as well as steep snowfields on the ascent to broken hand pass (east side). 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 6/26/2024, By: greenonion
Info: Mosquitoes are HORRENDOUS at Cortonwood Creek TH approach. Could be a deal killer if not ready. Swarmed my vehicle windows trying to get in. 

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: South Face
Posted On: 6/24/2024, By: andy_schlichting
Info: Here's my report from this weekend that included Obstruction Peak, Kitty Kat Carson, Columbia Point, Humboldt, Crestone Peak, and Northeast Crestone...

Packed in Friday evening to South Colony Lakes and ran into a big thunderstorm about half way up the trail. I parked 0.8 miles below the 4WD trailhead in a Subaru Crosstrek--not sure if it's just me, but this road seems worse than in years past. It was an absolute adventure just to get there. A big wind and rainstorm hit about 7:30 pm and lasted for about three hours. I suspect this was the precursor for yesterday's mosquito infestation...

Saturday morning hiked up Obstruction Peak, KKC, and Columbia Point. Summer conditions all the way. Sticking to ridge-direct after reading the Humboldt saddle works really well. You can keep it at class 2 this way, albeit with some exposure. Nothing to report on Obstruction--that's a really easy class 1 peak after that ridge. The descent to the saddle with KKC is just a choss pile, but mostly stable rock. Ascending KKC was fun. The rock was still wet from Friday's rain and that made it a bit more challenging when we chose to stay in the middle of the gully and climb the class 3 rock band. Descending, we stuck more to the ridge (skier's left) and nothing exceeded class 2 over there--it's just steep.

Once we made it back to the Humboldt saddle, we decided to head up there (that's a new 14er for my sister, who was my partner for the weekend). Nothing to report here except there are SO many marmots up there. I don't think I've seen more marmots anywhere else in this state. I will say I forgot that route finding is a bit challenging about half way up Humboldt. We missed a cairns somewhere and ended up cliff'd out on on the left side of the summit and had to traverse back around to the ridge direct and right side of the summit to find the trail again. When in doubt, go right on Humboldt.

Sunday we headed up Crestone Peak. Ice axe and crampons are a MUST on Broken Hand Pass. Very helpful for the ascent in the pre-dawn hours, but absolutely needed for the afternoon descent. We watched two climbers have a difficult adventure heading down behind us on the soft snow with just microspikes and an axe.

Right now, there's a fun, sporty/mixed move to get off the snow and onto the rock feature on the pass. It's easier than it looks--just stem the rock and the snow. On the Cottonwood side, it's summer conditions, but crampons and an axe are really helpful on Crestone Peak. Lots of snow in the gully still and it's a lot of effort to avoid it. The first snow sections takes you to a waterfall with a short, steep mixed ice section. If you choose this route, you'll have a class 3/4 narrow gully to climb (roughly 100-200 feet long) to then traverse back into the red gully for the final 600 feet of snow to the saddle. The snow near the rocks at the top of this section was really soft.

I added Northeast Crestone to this and that was super fun, but a bit sketchy. There's some snow in the north couloir down to the saddle that I planned to use my crampons and axe for, but needed to downclimb a bit of class 3/4 to get to the snow and decided to just downclimb the rest and stay off the snow. There are some low class 5 moves going down/back up this couloir if you stick to rock. Northeast Crestone itself was mostly class 3/4 with maybe a couple class 5 moves that I was able to avoid on the descent, but it can be very exposed. This completed my Crestones massif summits :)

I cannot understate how bad the mosquitos got on Sunday. They were mostly fine on Friday and Saturday and it's like all the rain from Friday breeded a million mosquitos by Sunday. I grew up in Minnesota where we joke that the state bird is the mosquito and I have honestly never in my life been attacked like I was on the Sunday--continuously from Cottonwood Lake, to the top of Broken Hand Pass, and all the way down back to the car.

TL;DR--bring crampons and an ice axe for Broken Hand Pass and Crestone Peak, and do not forget bug spray. 

Route: Crestones Traverse
Posted On: 6/24/2024, By: Ellwood
Info: Started from South Colony lakes and Broken Hand Pass is still holding a lot of snow. Would recommend an ice axe and maybe crampons for the approach in the morning. Red Gully is holding continuous snow and made for some difficult climbing on climbers left. We down-climbed on the opposite side to find the traverse entrance since we did not want to cross the icy and snow filled gully. Rest of the traverse was pretty straight forward but required crossing of 2-3 more snow filled gullies. There is still a snow bank under the crux and it definitely made it easier. Headwall was dry but route finding down the Needle was rough. No cairns above ~13,000' and digital maps can always be a challenge. 

Route: Crestones Traverse
Posted On: 6/16/2024, By: calhack7
Info: Did the Crestone Traverse yesterday via the Cottonwood Creek Approach.

The approach was dry up to the base of the Red Gully. The gully was continuous snow; we stayed on climbers left and avoided most of it with some more difficult climbing.

Getting to the traverse required crossing the Red Gully, which wasn't bad, and another steeper snow filled gully that was very icy. We opted to go up and around this one, adding some additional 4th class up and down climbing. Once on the traverse it was dry until just below the bulge; there was a snow bank under it that actually made the crux easier. There was a bit of snow above the bulge, but the headwall was dry.

Crestone Needle was in summer conditions, the descent to Broken Hand Pass and down to the basin were completely dry. The east side of the pass was still holding a lot of snow. 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 5/28/2024, By: haydenkast44
Info: Skied red gulley on the 26th! Excellent conditions up high, snow is melting fast below 12,500'. Approached from cottonwood, did have any real snow until after the 2nd waterfall. The choke on the couloir is pretty spicy, had to downclimb around to avoid it 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 5/23/2024, By: jmanner
Info: Bailed at the water flow on Red Gully yesterday, partner wasnt feeling great and we needed to head home. Saying that, C peak was skiing pretty good from 13,200 down and Broken Hand Pass, skied off both sides. Road was skiable back to 1.8 miles(10,700ish) from the summer TH, two two or three short gaps. It never warmed up even skiing off BH Pass at 12 pm. 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 5/17/2024, By: Hjelmstadlt
Info: Skied the Peak from Cottonwood TH in the SLV. Dry conditions up to the first Waterfall, patchy drifts to the second Waterfall, continuous snow from there to the top. Only about 30 down trees to navigate. The Red Gulley was good, although things are heating up fast and may not stay that way for long. Lots of weird crusts and layers of unconsolidated gropple near the surface that have serious wet avalanche potential if things heat up. Surface Snow was starting to melt around 10:00am today and we were glad to be on our way down!