Columbia Point

Route: Columbia and Obstruction from the East
Posted On: 11/8/2025, By: Joey_parm
Info: Ice patches on the approach but avoidable with care. Same goes for most of the ridge with regards to snow / frozen snow, but I would still recommend microspikes for the few parts that are unavoidable. Also, I fused 5+ inches of rock onto the summit high point. So, it is now ranked again and still on the centennials list. You're welcome. 

Route: Columbia and Obstruction from Spanish Creek TH
Posted On: 9/22/2025, By: Outbounder
Info: The route is entirely snow free. The trail is narrow, and if you hike this after a significant rainfall, you'll get soaked on the approach into the basin (as I did). There are many stones marking the route (look for singular rocks, as they're not always cairns). The basin is absolutely stunning with great views of the crestones. This is a great alternative for anyone with a low clearance car who doesn't look forward to hiking south colony road. As Liz said in the comments on her update, the water crossings are low and manageable without getting wet. 

Route: Columbia and Obstruction from Spanish Creek TH
Posted On: 8/23/2025, By: LizWeiss
Info: Couldn't find much information on this route from the Spanish Creek TH except for what is in the Gerry Roach book, and he wasn't far off. We parked in the lot of the Crestone Mountain Zen Center (don't forget to sign the permit - https://www.dharmasangha.org/visit-and-stay/wilderness-access-permit) and hiked up from there. The trail is in "okay" shape, meaning that it's overgrown with downed trees and hard to follow at times, but there are a sufficient number of cairns to follow if you get turned around. Cairns last until the basin below the bears playground, but by then it is easy enough to see your way up to the playground and then connect with the standard route from South Colony Lakes TH. We recorded it at 14 miles RT with ~6500 feet of gain. Honestly, if you can't get up to the upper 4wd parking at South Colony TH, I'd recommend this route! 

Route: Columbia and Obstruction from the East
Posted On: 8/5/2025, By: sehessler92
Info: Started at 4am from the 2WD trailhead. The peak is in great shape right now. The ridge from Humboldt Saddle to Bear’s Playground had a few moments of route-finding confusion, but there were some cairns to help guide the way. You can definitely spice up the ridge if you want. There are spots that feel like Class 3, maybe even low Class 4 depending on your line.

At the start of the ridge, I stuck more to the left-hand side, then about halfway across, the route shifted to the right-hand side. For Obstruction, I stayed as close to the ridge as possible until the climb up Kitty Kat. On Kitty Kat, I mostly followed along the right side, where there seemed to be a faint trail.

Heading over to Columbia Point, I stayed left of the ridge and followed a line that skirts around until a good spot opens up to head up(be careful not to ascend too early, or you might cliff out). There’s also a faint trail leading up to Columbia Point that made things a bit easier. 

Route: Columbia and Obstruction from the East
Posted On: 6/25/2025, By: clando
Info: Awesome day in the Sangres. Did Humboldt and the ridge over to Challenger point with all the peaks along the way. There’s snow in a couple places, but it is all avoidable. I didn’t touch snow the whole day, so spikes/axe went along for the ride.

The road up to the South Colony Lakes 4wd TH was rough. I read that it has gotten worse over time. Plenty of trucks and somehow a Chevy trailblazer, I’m impressed. The only wet part the entire day was walking the closed road section, small puddles and streams, but avoidable/hoppable. 

Route: Columbia and Obstruction from the East
Posted On: 6/16/2025, By: tylerdaniels
Info: Encountered no snow yesterday except for small (10 ft?) section between kitty kat and Columbia. 

Route: Columbia and Obstruction from the East
Posted On: 6/9/2025, By: skidude3892
Info: Still some snow leftover in a few spots, including a large patch of snow in the bowl heading up to Kitty Kat Carson, but it’s mostly avoidable 

Route: From Kit Carson
Posted On: 9/1/2024, By: wintersage
Info: This is the same route detailed in SnowAliens Trip Report for this peak. I started from my campsite at Willow Lake and took the north ridge of Kit Carson to its summit, then I descended into the well cairned gully that connects with the Avenue and down to the saddle that connects KC with Columbia Point. We saw a boulder with some rocks stacked on it a little lower down in the loose gully and decided to investigate it. I dont know if it was a cairn, but it marked the easiest entrance to Columbias west face. Climbing up a small class 4 move to the climbers left put us in a nice chimney or technically a narrow gully that took us practically all the way to the summit. The summit register was soaked and I didnt have extra paper to replace it. After topping out, we went over to Kitty Kat Carson which seemed to take longer than it looked from the summit of Columbia. Sticking to the narrow gully, the downclimb was not bad either until the very end at the entrance. Using the nice holds to the skiers right is easiest, while the left lacks features and is more exposed. From there, its easy to backtrack to the Avenue to reach Challenger and descend its chossy slope back to the Willow Creek campsite. 

Route: Columbia and Obstruction from the East
Posted On: 8/5/2024, By: jbealer
Info: nothing new to add on conditions, the ridge over to obstruction does take some time to work around, we miss judged how long that would take, make sure you have some day light.
Main reason for post is to ask someone to please bring up paper for the registry, people have just shoved all the other papers in there and its a mess, please bring down old papers and turn into the CMC. i did not have a clean bag to put them into, so left them in the container, there will be no room for new papers unless the others are carried out.
thanks! 

Route: Columbia and Obstruction from the East
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.

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: Columbia and Obstruction from the East
Posted On: 6/15/2024, By: backcountrybrodes
Info: Perfect June day to snag this centennial with coopergould! Small dusting of snow fell last night but snow was minimal and melted extremely fast. From the top of Obstruction there is a snowfield going up Kitty Kat Carson that makes it look like you need crampons... but fear not - it is completely passable just to the right of it going up on 100% dry rock, which we were relieved to discover. Also a small helping of snow on the very last notch before the true Columbia summit that is passable with care and maybe a little sun melt.

Very nice bluebird day with some inversion clouds even hanging around. 180 degrees of Crestone views was the highlight of the route for sure. Humboldt is 99.9% dry save for some snow fields near the lakes that are easily crossable without spikes. 

Route: Columbia and Obstruction from the East
Posted On: 10/18/2023, By: jeffh7
Info: Hiked on 10/16 and was completely dry. 

Route: Columbia and Obstruction from the East
Posted On: 8/21/2023, By: kyrawhitworth
Info: Road to the 4WD TH was rougher than I remember from years past but most 4WD vehicles should be able to make it. Route along the first ridge from the Humboldt saddle was a bit more complex than it seemed with us traversing on one side or another based on the looks vs staying high. Views from bear's playground were amazing. We stayed on grassier slopes up to the ridge then headed over to Obstruction. Route from Obstruction to Kitty Kat looks intimidating but we were surprised to find a decent trail to follow that was class 2. It's a short jaunt from Kitty Kat to Columbia Pt. We retraced our route back down to S colony with the exception of staying lower to the north on the final section down to the Humboldt saddle. 

Route: Columbia and Obstruction from the East
Posted On: 7/16/2023, By: neilkozak
Info: Full summer conditions.
If you follow Roach's 13er book too exclusively (like I apparently do), remember it has the old 4WD TH - so about 5 mi and 1700' gain shorter. Stats on this site's route description are accurate from the new 4WD TH (13.5 mi, 4,900'). That was a fun realization halfway through.
As others have said, the ridge from Humboldt saddle to the Crestone saddle (aka Bear's Playground) is pretty tedious and time consuming... something to keep in mind for planning. Really fun day though. 

Route: Columbia and Obstruction from the East
Posted On: 7/3/2023, By: IHikeLikeAGirl
Info: Summer conditions, with one potential caveat.

4 or 5 flattish snow fields on the Humboldt trail up to the lakes. Not a big issue. Several downed trees, but most can be stepped over, 1 can go under, and others had social trails to go around.

Caveat: I wasn't clear where the true summit of Columbia was. There were 2 bumps separated by a small dip. The dip had moderately steep snow with ice underneath it, that was unavoidable. Only 3-8 steps, depending on stride and where one chooses the cross. The runout was bad and I was solo so, I got out my ice axe. Many would probably just trot across, but life has taught me that I am no mountain goat and to use my gear if I have it.

No summit register that I saw, but I also didn't look very hard.

Oh...and some dumb_ss left some poles leaning up against a rock, at the start of the scambly section...because he/she was too lazy to put them on his/her pack. The marmots had a field day....