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The Elusive West Face of Crestone Peak as View from the Ziggurat
June 15-16, 2023
Around May of 2022 I caught wind of a new alpine ascent up Crestone Peak's West Face via an article in the Alamosa Citizen. SLV locals Logan Hjelmstad, Curt Howell, and Madeleine Ahlborn had made a successful first ascent up Crestone Peak's massive West Face on 5/15/22. To most of everyone's knowledge, this face more than likely had never been climbed before due to it's remote nature and lack of trail to access to the basin. I had been scouting this side of the peak from the Crestone Ziggurat for the better part of the last year and am stunned a party had actually pulled it off! This climbing party is incredibly strong, visionary, and truly courageous for taking on such an insane first ascent! Not to mention the amount of hard work Logan put into documenting the GPX tracks, establishing somewhat of a trail, and posting info about the climb on 14ers.com; they truly laid the groundwork some future adventurous alpine climbing on this beautiful Crestone Conglomerate... and that's where we come in!
Ever since I mentioned the climb (Fish in a Barrel) to climbing partner William, he was immediately interested. We both love adventurous climbing and we were hungry at the idea of a second ascent. Since we had already climbed some of best technical lines in the Sangres, this opportunity for something new and fresh was very exciting. Originally our plan for the month of June was the Southwest Ridge of Challenger point, but somehow I had talked William into this much greater, truly memorable climb. Oh if only we had known what we were getting ourselves into...
We left the Cottonwood Creek trailhead around 3:15PM Thursday evening with a plan to bivy at the basin below the West Face around dusk. 2.5 miles into the trail, the approach veers north and bushwhacks along the North Fork of Cottonwood Creek for a grueling 2 miles uphill before reaching the basin near tree line. We hadn't exactly gone into this one super light: hauling all of our bivy gear, rock shoes, ice boots, axes, and crampons, twin ropes and a double rack. This was a first for both of us: since there was so much snow around the basin and separating the two headwalls, we needed to approach and descend in ice gear to remain safe, but climb in rock shoes (as neither of us are super strong leaders in ice boots). This meant climbing with big packs and more weight than we are used to. We arrived at camp, about a mile from the first headwall, around 6:45PM. We filtered water, chatted, ate some dinner, and looked up in awe at the massive test piece we were about to endure. Silently, we studied our line on that mesmerizing behemoth of a cliff until the sun went down.
The West Face at Sunset
We awoke at dawn at 5:30AM. Rain overnight had left the two of us feeling a little uneasy about getting on the climb, but we decided since we were already here, to give it a try. We were fully prepared in every way to bail if the conditions were impassable. After a breakfast and poops, we embarked with our climbing packs and crampons up the snow apron another 500 vertical feet to the base of the headwall. The start of "Fish in a Barrel" seemed quite obvious, beginning near a huge right facing flake that leads to a wider crack. We inspected the face: there was a good bit of water running down the face, but in most spots the rock was dry. Our line looked relatively snow and ice free: green light! We found a small dry crevice where we could transition from crampons to rock shoes and I embarked upon the first lead of the journey.
Great work, and major props for attempting in the middle of this unprecedentedly high snow June, probably climbed more like in May. Do you think this would go dry in late summer/fall with scrambling replacing the snow/ice? That's how I normally like to do Alpine climbing, unless there is terrain only passible with snow, to reduce the weight of gear carried, and also reduce issues of slippery holds, limited gear accessible (though there may not be much anyway), etc. If so, I would be interested in attempting this when dry, and on a day with a perfect weather window. Are you all planning for a rematch?
slawrence2011: It's hard to say, but I would guess it would climb totally dry late into the season. No guarantees though; the apron or deep northern gulleys could still be icy. No solid plans in place for a rematch this season yet (I'm brewing a couple more Sangre FA idea on Challenger and Kit currently), but I'll probably do it again next year, just probably a different line, perhaps something more direct. Thanks for your comment.
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