The first ascent of another possible "highest unclimbed peak in Colorado".

Our main objective was Curecanti Needle on Friday, but since we were driving down from Louisville on Thursday, we had some extra time which we decided to use making an armed reconnaissance of the mysterious ranked summit 9300, a peak in the Little Soap Park quad, about 9 miles north of US 50 at the west end of Blue Mesa reservoir. All we knew about the peak was that there were no known ascents and that it was capped by a summit tower which appeared to be at least 100' feet high and would be composed of the garbage basalt conglomerate that makes unnerving outings of so many otherwise appealing Colorado summits. Our plan was to drive to the Commissary campground about 1 mile west of and 1400' below the peak and start the approach by around two which would give us about five hours to investigate the climbing possibilities. We brought a moderate sized rack, a single 8.5 mm 62 meter rope but no bolts or pins, enough for moderate free climbing but not for an aid siege as we would only have time for the former.

Between one thing and another we were about an hour behind schedule when we encountered a locked Forest Service gate two miles south of our intended parking spot. Starting much further away than we'd planned jeopardized our already tight timeline but as this point, everything started breaking our way. We walked north up the road for about a mile and a half, then saw that the easiest looking terrain in the entire area angled from the road directly to the peak and even appeared to have an unexpected trail through much of it. The only catch would be crossing the creek but here too we caught a break as an almost tailor made log jam got us across with dry feet. As the summit pinnacle came into better view, our hopes waned then waxed, as from a distance it appeared vertical and featureless but as we got closer, weaknesses started to appear and it began to seem shorter than we'd thought. The diminished height turned out to be an illusion caused by a false summit 50' to the west which obscured the bottom third of the summit spire, but otherwise, the west face offered some promising chimney lines. The first full view of the tower, from the false summit, revealed more good luck as the tower sides dropped away to the north and south, making the west side by far the shortest and eliminating the need for a time-consuming circumnavigation/inspection of the other three sides of the tower. (The approach ended up taking about 3.5 miles, 1600' vertical and almost two hours.)

Our route started at the saddle between the false summit and the main summit pinnacle. The first 15' was class four scrambling on very poor rock. It then traversed around a pillar at class two and into a 20' long, 5.0ish chimney on slightly better rock with a couple of decent pieces in the thin hands range. Above the chimney was 30-40' of easy slabbing with little to no pro on somewhat solid rock. At this point there were good #3 and #5 Camalot placements. Above this spot, the apparent crux loomed, as the rock steepened, deteriorated and appeared to often little to no protection. The climbing turned out to be technically easy, ~5.4, but with a 20' run out on very questionable gear and every hold having to be triple checked, it felt harder. (Afterward, we discussed how the American rating system really didn't do this climb justice and that something like the British E system would be more suitable.) We'd been using our single 60 meter rope as a double; consequently, despite having moved the belay up 20', we ran out of rope and had to belay just short of the summit ridge. We couldn't tell which of two points, one north and one south of the belay, was higher so we visited both; from the belay, the north summit was third class and south about 5.2. From the summits, we were still unable to determine which was higher but left a register on the north summit. We'd made good enough time that we were able to linger on top for a couple of minutes and enjoy the splitter weather, crystalline skies and views of the nearby ruggedness of Soap Park and the distant snowcaps of the La Garitas and Lake City peaks.

To rappel, we wrapped two strands of 5mm cord around a big pillar next to the belay. From here a full 30 meter rap made it to the ledge at the start of the chimney where it was possible to downclimb easy class 3 to the south. This ended in a steep, very loose "class two" gulley about 30' below the start of the climb.

The climb took about two hours saddle to saddle. We thought it was about 5.4 R/X and 130' but climbed harder because of the suspect rock.
Placements I remember: #2 Friend, #2 Camalot, ???, #3 Camalot, #5 Camalot, .5 TriCam, #4 Camalot, draped sling, #1 Camalot, #5 Rock, #1 Camalot, #6 Camalot.

We made it back to the car comfortably before dark and found a decent camping spot by the creek, near a corral south of Soap Creek Campground, around 38.5444,-107.3143.

This climb was very satisfying, even more so the next morning when, after having driven to Pioneer Lookout Point, the trailhead for the Curecanti approach, we discovered that the needle was closed until July 15th for raptors. We didn't do the peak we had expected to but did the one we had not; so it goes.


All photos by Dougald MacDonald except where noted.