Crestone Needle

Route: South Face
Posted On: 8/16/2022, By: wanderingsteve
Info: Climbed the East Gully direct. I did not feel like this was a Class 4 route; felt pretty solid Class 3 to me. Pretty solid rock throughout. Adding to what many others have said, I see no reason for anyone to do the crossover versus simply ascending and descending the East Gully. Beautiful day in the mountains. 

Route: Crestones Traverse
Posted On: 8/15/2022, By: climbingyogi
Info: The traverse was awesome! It was my first great traverse, and my first time on either the Peak or Needle. Even as a rock climber, I was initially intimidated by the bulge and headwall from the photos, but they were the best parts of the whole day.

My friend and I drove up to the upper 4wd lot at 3am on Sunday and it was almost completely packed, with the exception of one spot we snagged. People were also parked right off of the road leading up to the lot destroying the tundra. Super disappointing to see. The lower 2wd lot also looked packed when we passed it on the way up. I normally hike on weekdays so maybe this is normal, but I've never seen South Colony so busy.

Started hiking by 3:15am. The road was quick walking, but the ascent up to Broken Hand Pass felt like it took forever in the dark. That could also be me though, as I haven't been hiking many mountains this summer.

The climb up the Red Gully on the Peak also felt very slow going. There was water running down part of it, but it was easy to avoid. There's plenty of loose rock, but also plenty of solid rock if you're mindful. We came across a guide with his two clients and ended up hiking up to the Peak with them. Super nice people! The climb up to the Peak from the top of the red gully was super quick.

The first half of the traverse is pretty straight forward and easy. I spent a good bit of time studying the route before our trip, but the traverse was pretty intuitive as well.

The crux 5.2 bulge was super fun to get over and the mini knife edge was over before it started. When we got up to the headwall, we stayed pretty far left and found plenty of good holds the whole time. It was also over very quickly.

We had intended to descend the east gully the whole way down the Needle, but even with our studying beforehand (reading trip reports, looking at photos, reading forum posts), we couldn't find it from the summit ridge. We ended up descending via the west gully after talking to a group ascending it. They told us about the orange marker for the crossover to the east gully, so we felt confident we would find it. The orange marker is on skier's left descending the west gully and it was very obvious.

I found the descent to the crossover required a few mindful steps, and the actual crossover move (over the dihedral) felt a little tricky. A guy from a group coming down behind us was able to just step over it though.

The rest of the hike down was pretty uneventful, but beautiful as usual. We lucked out with great weather all day and I would not recommend doing this route without a good weather forecast. 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 8/25/2022, By: jimmyolson01
Info: Impeccable condition on this gorgeous morning. Left the upper lake at 3:30am and caught the beginning of a stunning sunrise. I used the crossover approach and made the summit having not seen another person until I crossed Broken Hand Pass on the descent. There is annoying loose rock going up to Broken Hand Pass, but once you are on the Needle itself, your holds are strong and there is zero rockfall. The descent is much more challenging than the ascent, so make sure you can confidently retrace your steps. There is some notable exposure skirting around from the East to the West gully following the cross over the dihedral, but again, the rock is solid. A+ experience, my favorite climb yet undoubtedly 

Route: Ellingwood Arete/Ledges
Posted On: 8/8/2022, By: Been_Jammin
Info: Sweet route. Summer conditions. Good water source in about the middle of Broken Hand Pass. 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 8/1/2022, By: Belchfire
Info: Great day in the SahngreeZ playground. Love that interactive conglomerate rock, still test your holds!Incredibly fun, solid climb up east gully direct on Needle then ran down BH pass over to Crestone peak by Cottonwood lk. Solo in the clouds on the summit made the brain satisfied with this Monday. Then put big boy pants on and felt wild enough to run to East, then Northeast Crestone. What a sick scramble up NE. Watch your downclimb- one class 4-5 section not avoidable (as I found), rap anchor previously left slung on a rock on right of main dihedral crack to climb. Solo summits but handful of folks camping at lake and playing around up there.Clouds building before 11 but not threating until 2. Hailing and thundering (f*n wonderful but no shprise) came at about 330p, gnarly constant until around 6p? at higher elevations. That rock will be slick tomorrow. Left car at 340AM, back at 630P. 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 7/8/2022, By: cotezi
Info: Had the route all to ourselves yesterday. Posted some tips and pointers over on the Trip Reports section if interested (photos too). 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 7/5/2022, By: Maricopa Mountaineer
Info: Hiked from the 2WD trailhead to South Colony lakes. It added about 2.7 miles and 1100 ft of elevation gain compared to the 4WD trailhead for a total of 3050ft and 7 miles, overall though not as tough as it seems and it took 3 hours. I camped slightly above the bottom lake...BIG mistake! I highly recommend not camping above tree line in a thunderstorm, worst camping experience thus far.

Summiting Crestone Needle was Awesome though, the entire climb is in summer conditions and theres maybe one little square foot of snow you'll come across. I would be cautious about starting the climb following a rainy day because you're in gullies most of the time and there was a decent amount of water running down making the rock slippery and dangerous. Luckily though there are lots of ways to tackle the gullies so most of the wet sections are avoidable. I think the hardest part was crossing the dihedral so take your time with that and pay attention to the cairns because when you're coming down to the part where you previously crossed over into the west gully theres a little cairn that you turn LEFT at. DO NOT GO DOWN past that point. The summit was not windy at all and very dry.

Note: If you don't have much experience with Class 3+ climbs then this will be more challenging. I've climbed longs (class 3) and sunlight peak (class 4) and Crestone Needle felt way more technical than either of them oddly enough, so just something to be careful of. 

Route: Crestones Traverse
Posted On: 6/29/2022, By: sam_richardson7
Info: After the gendarme there's still some patches of snow but nothing worth bringing micro spikes for IMO. Crestone Peaks red gully still has some snow but again, nothing you'd need micro spikes for in my opinion. 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 6/13/2022, By: astranko
Info: Class 3 Route is free of difficult snow. Dihedral stepover has snow in the gully. All other snow is completely avoidable.

Broken hand has some snow, but less than 200ft. A party did it with just ice axes, no traction. 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 6/13/2022, By: swesleyc7
Info: Crestone Needle is good to go. When hiking to the lakes, I would advise via the Crestone Needle route on the road, past the "emergency vehicle-only gate" (South side of lakes) vs. the Humbolt route through the forest as it is obliterated with downed trees. There are several snow fields leading up to Broken Hand Pass, so micro-spikes are advised. The BHP gully itself is filled with snow, which made it complicated when determining the route up, however ascending the center seemed best to avoid slipping and using exposed rock. After BHP, Crestone Needle's summit ascent has summer conditions and devoid of snow. 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 3/6/2022, By: Grisel
Info: Trench is in all the way to cottonwood lake. From there, the wind was filling in the trench. Broken hand pass is holding very little snow. From on top of the pass, we ditched snowshoes and switched to crampons. Both East and west gulley are holding solid snow with sections of alpine ice. We bailed 300 ft below summit due to the last snow slope cracking. Started at 1:45a, back to car by 8pm 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 10/11/2021, By: Jeremylozano
Info: Route was dry until about 13,700 feet. Then route became very icy. When the sun was out, ice shards would fall down on top of us. We reached the summit ridge and it was completely iced over and some of the ice was melting. Found it too dangerous and turned back 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 10/8/2021, By: Piotr
Info: The route was bone dry except for BHP - it has just enough snow to make it annoying, but not enough to be worth putting spikes on. Super windy today (Friday), weather moved in around 3pm, so this report might be outdated by tomorrow. 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 9/27/2021, By: jfm3
Info: Climbed from the 2WD trailhead to the summit and back on 9/26. The road/trail/route is dry. There wasn't any ice or frost on the northern aspects. I stayed in the east gully and did not mess with the crossover. Above the dihedral, there is more loose rock than I expected. 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 9/21/2021, By: Troyister
Info: My favorite route to date of Colorado 14ers. ( I have not completed any 4th class routes or harder). Route finding was easy on the way up, be sure to look back on each gully and mark in your mind where to turn out of the gully and cross over. Lot of cairns to follow. If you do this it should be straight forward returning, which is where most people get in trouble. Had the whole peak to ourselves.