It occurs to me that all of us here on 14ers.com have a real problem relating to those friends and relatives that have not shared the experiences that we have had in the mountains. We show pictures and they respond with 'wow' and 'amazing' but it's clear that the images and our words fall short of revealing what happens to mind, body, and spirit in the environs that we seek. The photographs that we take end up looking like the old tube television version of the IMAX movie that we just experienced. I haven't shared a trip report for a while so maybe this one will put the brush to canvas for the entire season of climbing that has just passed.
It's difficult to study pictures, trip reports, and information on the 14,000 foot peaks in Colorado without stopping to stare at Crestone Peak and the Crestone Needle. The views of these two from Humboldt Peak and Kit Carson Peak leave you speechless and wondering how it's possible to climb something so dangerous and beautiful.

When I considered how to approach them I was pleasantly surprised that they were on a very short list of peaks to climb for a good friend of mine. In speaking with Jordan a couple of years ago he told me that he had just 4 peaks to complete all of the 14ers in Colorado. The list was Little Bear, Wilson Peak, and The Crestones. I decided immediately that I wanted to do all 4 with him.
His first 14er was Mt. Elbert in 1973. He stepped up the pace considerably for his next one in '74 when he was guided to the summit of North Maroon by Lou Dawson. Lou Dawson as your guide for North Maroon? It's no surprise that I have described him in a previous trip report as "The most interesting man in the world".
Fast forward to 2012 and we have been allowed to summit Wilson Peak, and the Crestone Needle one month prior to last weekend. The forecast was good and the plan was set for our unique approach up through the Cottonwood creek drainage and an overnight camp. I asked if I could bring along another climbing partner, my son in law Chris. He agreed and we met up at the trailhead at noon on Saturday.
After a quick lunch, we headed up through the trees at 12:40 p.m. Volunteers have done a great job of clearing the deadfall from the trail for the first couple of miles and the trail is obvious. After that however, it gets interesting. You have to proceed through an incredible amount of deadfall trees and it's nerve racking to stay on course. The trail then goes up over what Gerry Roach describes as "boiler plate" rock.

It is essentially huge rocks laid flat. As we moved across them it occurred to me that if you're being tracked this is the perfect to lose your tracker by exiting in an unexpected place. If we were considered to be the trackers then it worked perfectly. One saving grace was that there were lots of cairns to guide the way although they seemed to be disguised at times. One very important tip: Stay left of the stream all the way up into the basin. Even when the stream has forked, stay left.

We took our time on purpose, to make sure and conserve energy for the next day and to enjoy the woods, the stream, the wildlife, and each other. By 6:40 p.m. we still had not arrived at the basin but darkness was approaching quickly so we set up camp in a flat grassy area a few hundred feet below.

The ground was nice and soft, and not a cloud in the sky.

One thing that I forgot about was how cold it gets on a starry cloudless night. We awoke at 5:00 a.m. to frost and a desire to get going to warm up.
We left camp with lightened packs and it took us another 35 minutes to arrive at the basin. The setting was fantastic.

Looking up at the multitude of peaks above us put a smile on my face. When I finally arrive at the place where the trekking poles get stuffed away in the bag, my heart starts to beat a little faster and anticipation begins to take over.
Jordan expressed on several occasions that he wasn't counting this one until we were back to the car. Chris and I were in agreement and paced ourselves accordingly. We started the climb up through the red gully and were careful to choose our own paths so as to not kick rocks down on each other. We were just barely into the gully when 3 other 14ers.com members caught up with us and led the way up through the rock. ChrisinAZ, Mountain_Ninja, and Coxie2210 were looking to summit Crestone, Northeast Crestone, East Crestone, and The Needle all in one day.
Ambitious to say the least and they did it too! Look for their trip report as well.

The push up through the gully seemed to take forever but we finally arrived at the top of it to look down through the snow filled Northwest Couloir. The snow came on 9/11 and will probably not be gone until next summer.

We turned to the left and headed up the left side of the ridge for the final push to the summit. The three guys ahead of us had already summited East Crestone and were on Crestone Peak waiting. For the last 100 yards, Jordan took the lead and I filmed him for his well deserved final summit.

The guys on the peak had high fives all around and a few whoops and hollers were in order.
After being there for a few minutes and relaxing for a bit, it started to sink in a little bit what Jordan had accomplished. Think about it: climbing the first one in 1973 and plugging away at a goal for 39 years until completing in 2012. That is perseverance!

It was about this time that ChrisinAZ and Mountain_Ninja left the summit for a trek over to Northeast Crestone. Coxie2210 stayed behind with us and we took a lot of pictures as we watched these 2 guys take about a half hour to get to it's base in the NE Couloir and then climb to it's summit in about 5 minutes.

The snow in the couloir was only about 3 inches deep so spikes would just slide off of the rock underneath. The only option was to down climb on the adjacent rock face. It was thrilling to watch a couple of skilled free climbers do their best. Good show guys!

Chris, Jordan, and I started our descent at 12:05 p.m. and carefully worked our way back down through the gully.

Chris and I considered doing the traverse to the Needle at the cutoff point about 300 feet down from the summit but we realized how very late that would put us back at the pickup.

It was in that very area that I had an incident that could have ruined the whole trip. I stepped onto a boulder about 18" in diameter and it slid out from under me. My other foot was above another boulder and I was able to catch myself but I couldn't believe how the first one took off down the mountain. It went airborne and shattered against rocks on the sides of the gully and just showered the area below with softball sized rocks. All 6 of us were yelling "rock" at the top of our lungs to warn those below but fortunately there was no one. The rest of the day was uneventful.

We packed up camp by 4:30 p.m. and slogged the rest of the way back down through the valley to arrive at our cars at 9:30 p.m. One heck of a long day, but I always seem to forget about that part when I'm planning the next one!
One final note: Jordan - it's been an honor to hike and climb with you. Congratulations on completing the 14ers!!