Broken Hand Peak

Route: West Slopes
Posted On: 6/16/2025, By: HokieTom
Info: The route has a lot of snow, so I went straight up the gully, turned left and traversed to the sub peak and peak. From my position and using GAIA, the sub peak was the peak. So I picked a line (felt like low class 5 with great rock) and climbed up an angled crack only to find that I picked the wrong formation (sorry for my loud shouting if anyone was in the area). Down climbed the back side (fun class 5 again) and climbed the actual summit (class 2 then 3). Great views from the summit! A marmot tried to ransack my backpack that I left at the saddle (clipped all the zippers to the backpack top holding strap). Although it did take off a lid from one of my bottles of water contained in the outside netting. A long day for me. Left the trailhead at 4AM, no problems with the trail until after the up climb of the waterfall area. Lost the trail and bush whacked through the willows. Coming down, lost and gained the trail multiple times, very steep in areas so I had to take it slow to prevent a slip. This trail is a beast. No mosquitos in the morning, tons when I got back in the evening at 6:30 🤬. 

Route: From cottonwood creek
Posted On: 5/21/2024, By: yaktoleft13
Info: Cottonwood creek is passable in trail runners till just below 11k. From there, intermittent snow on the trail until just below the lake, at which point it's fully snow covered. Snowshoes helped in that area. Broken hand peak is covered by a thin (6-12") blanket of snow. Wore snowshoes up but probably could have booted. Awkwardly steep with snowshoes. Peaked at the central couloir and adjacent rock rib on crestolita but the snow was very soupy and made the rock rib a difficult climb. Turned back at about 12.8. Would go as an easy snow climb about an hour earlier. 

Route: via Cottonwood Creek
Posted On: 7/2/2023, By: ScottLovesRMNP
Info: What negligible snow is left on this route is easily avoidable, but I was really shocked by the strenuous nature of the Cottonwood Creek trail overall. For a good portion of the climb to Cottonwood Lake, you are following cairns over very rough terrain: steep slabs, large boulders, and even some exposed corners and ledges. As has been mentioned before, the mosquitoes are terrible in the southern Sangres right now. I and others on the trail wore a mosquito net for the three miles closest to the trailhead and while car-camping I kept my car door open only for split seconds (still got bugs inside!). It's no joke. Unlike Broken Hand Peak whose route is dry, Crestolita has filled in snow running up and down every north-facing gully on the peak, including the standard route. As such, it is a technical climb at the moment and likely will stay that way for some time to come. I'll try to add a picture later. When I come back to do it, I'll be coming via South Colony Lakes. I'm "1 and done" for the Cottonwood Creek trail! 

Route: West Slopes
Posted On: 6/25/2023, By: pbradley14er
Info: The trailhead had clouds of mosquitoes, so bring a really good bug repellent. There are some snow patches. The first one, you will need to cross to stay on the trail. The other snow fields are easy to cross near Cottonwood Lake. Very little snow on Broken Hand, easy to avoid. Essentially summer conditions. 

Route: Broken Dogleg Couloir
Posted On: 6/19/2023, By: slawrence2011
Info: Started from the lower S Colony TH at 3:30, the snow started right at the base of the couloir, and was continuous to the summit. Great flat snow conditions. First section was well shaded and consolidated, next two doglegs, especially very top, were sun exposed, so way too soft. Missed the true summit by 5 feet in order to transition and ski down as fast as possible. Loose slides on top, but all small, probably just sluffing. 

Route: Southwest Slopes from \\
Posted On: 5/7/2023, By: supranihilest
Info: From the bottom of the north couloir on "Crestolita" the route up Broken Hand is straightforward, just go up the steep slopes basically anywhere. Near the summit there's some steep snow and exposure. Plenty of snow coverage all over the peak so you'll want at least microspikes, but you'll probably be in crampons anyway if coming over Broken Hand Pass. Down climb carefully back to the pass and down to the lakes. We took a drainage gully back to the creek and as we got lower had to put snowshoes on due to postholing. The snow on the road was miserable. Tons of postholing even in snowshoes, but snowshoes prevented worse postholing, and there's also plenty of snowless sections between snow patches, so many that it's not worth taking snowshoes off and on constantly and super annoying overall. Get a very early start for these ones, they're all day affairs. 

Route: West Slopes
Posted On: 6/17/2021, By: smrcka
Info: Plenty of snow en route to Broken hand Pass. I made it to 12,700 with micro spikes and a hiking pole. Steep snow above 12,700 require an ice axe. Steep snow minus ice axe = no summit for me 

Route: West Slopes
Posted On: 7/23/2020, By: LetsGoMets
Info: Summer conditions. 

Route: West Slopes
Posted On: 7/24/2020, By: JasonKline
Info: Summer conditions. 

Route: West Slopes
Posted On: 5/18/2020, By: RobLowe
Info: W/ Crestone Needle from Cottonwood Creek. Dry on the west slopes. If going from S. Colony, lots of snow coverage still. There was a booter up the east. If from Cottonwood Creek, no need for traction or ax for BHP. 

Route: West Ridge
Posted On: 8/13/2019, By: subalpine_style
Info: I climbed Broken Hand Peak from Broken Hand Pass on August 10, taking the West Ridge as direct as I could while keeping the climbing class 4+/5.easy. Some great, Crestones conglomerate climbing while gaining the first tower on the ridge from the south side. Then, some more sustained scrambling until reaching an exposed rib with a notch. Climbed up the left side of the rib (awesome exposure, some unexpected but featured slabs!) and then down to the notch where the options were limited. From the notch, I climbed down an angled rock gully leading to the grassy notch before the final ascent, with hardest moves being moving out around a bulge with some decent exposure behind. From there, it was a grind up the slopes (taking rock where possible) to the top. Incredible views all around from this peak. On the way back, I considered dropping to the south of the last tower to avoid having to climb back up the gully, but seeing the amount of elevation I would lose decided it was not worth it. This was a great decision: the gully was much more fun to climb up, even offering a few opportunities to move out to the right for some more exposure and better rock. I remained on the ridge proper for most of the descent, doing a ~80ft downclimb of solid class 4+ conglomerate to descend from the south side of the final tower before the pass. Really fun and quick route to the peak, but know if you're staying on the ridge that you'll encounter that one cruxy downclimb before the summit pitch! 

Route: West Slopes via Broken Hand Pass
Posted On: 7/19/2015, By: CUaaron25
Info: Climbed Broken Hand Peak yesterday via South Colony lakes and would echo previous conditions reports for broken hand pass. There is still a snow field to ascend to access the top of Broken Hand Pass. We had microspikes and ice axes but crampons would have been nice. Outstanding view of the needle and peak from Broken Hand Peak!! 

Route: NE Couloir
Posted On: 4/27/2015, By: samblack
Info: The two NE facing sections of the couloir were great, the middle SE facing section was a bit firm but fun. We were able to ski to the lake. Classic CO line. 

Route: SW slopes
Posted On: 7/1/2013, By: d_baker
Info: To supplement the other conditions reports of the Crestones with some photos... 1: Crux of the Broken Hand pass approach. The top of the snow (in shadows) is the crossover step onto rock with a quick move or two to surmount. 2: The Needle & Peak from the summit of Broken Hand Peak (BHP). 3: Humboldt's southern flanks and west ridge from the summit of BHP. 4: Milwaukee & Pico Aislado from the summit of BHP. The hike of BHP from the pass up the SW slopes was snow free and it's ready for flatlanders.