A Winter Reunion on Crestone Needle

With the winter climbing season quickly coming to an end I was hoping to pickup one more snowflake❄️. Crestone Needle in the Sangre de Cristos was looking like the best option. It had a green avalanche forecast and was the last winter 14er I needed to summit in the Sangres. Ben needed this as well so we decided to team up.

Ben and I settled on a day to climb and made plans. This would be a reunion of sorts for us. We had been long time winter climbing partners until sadly, an injury sidelined me for several seasons. We had partnered up for quite a few peaks over the years and always seemed to sync up well. I was looking forward to getting back out there with him and we arranged to meet at the trailhead the night before.

I arrived in Crestone around 10:30 the night before and parked behind Ben's van. This was "deja vu" from our last successful winter summit together when we did Crestone Peak back in 2022. We had parked in these exact same spots. I took this as a good sign we'd find success on this trip too.

Ben was already asleep in his vehicle and I quickly settled in for an uncomfortable nights sleep in my truck. This trailhead is very desolate and is a peaceful place to spend the night. Another vehicle did by chance arrive about 2:30 in the moring toting snowboards on it's roof. I couldn't imagine though anything good enough to board on either Crestone Peak or The Needle. We both awoke before 4 and were hiking up the Cottonwood Creek Trail by 4:45. We never did see the occupants of the other vehicle or what they ended up doing for the day.

Day of Climb: Tuesday, March 17th, 2026.

Peak: Crestone Needle.

Trailhead: Cottonwood Creek.

Mileage and Elevation Gain: Approximately 14.5 miles and 6,000 feet of gain.

We started out the gate with a quick pace to take advantage of firm snow from the overnight freeze. Another "winter killer" high pressure was moving in and this was likely the last good freeze for awhile. We were just hoping the freeze was good enough, especially on the lower approach. It had been a balmy 32° at the trailhead when we went to sleep so we were a little skeptical. Temps on the higher mountain were supposed to get much colder so that was less of a concern.

There was little to no snow early on for the first few miles, but we were prepared with snowshoes on our backs. We knew they'd be needed at some point. Eventually, with daylight, we did hit more consistent snow coverage. Nothing too deep though, and luckily, it was just firm enough not to require snowshoes and there were some recent tracks to follow as well. That was especially helpful since this trail is infamously difficult to track with so many downed trees.

We lucked out again at the slab section. Both were mostly free of snow and ice. These can be very tricky when this is not the case. Overall, we made good time to the upper basin. There were plenty of downed trees to climb over or shimmy under, as expected, which slowed us down quite a bit, but for the most part the trail went well. This approach trail is definitely more involved than most though. I couldn't imagine lugging camping gear up it like some do.

In the upper basin we started postholing more and more and finally slipped on our snowshoes as the lake neared. This made travel much easier and we zipped across a frozen Cottonwood Lake to the base of Broken Hand Pass. A steep snow slope took us up to the pass at 12,850 feet. Our snowshoes with built in crampons and heel lifts made this passage fairly easy.

Some fantastic views greeted both of us at the pass, especially those of nearby 14er Humboldt Peak. Looking down at all the snow on the opposite side of the pass made me glad we chose the Cottonwood approach over the South Coloy Lakes approach. Reaching the pass from that side is notoriously difficult with snow and that looked to be the case on this day. We were happy to make the pass, but knew we still had some distance to cover before reaching the South Face of Crestone Needle and our passage to the summit.

At the pass, we stashed our snowshoes knowing they had done their job well and would not be needed until our descent. Trekking poles were left behind as well. I had never been up this route having only descended it after completing the traverse, so I wasn't exactly sure what to expect. We pushed on and were excited to be nearing the final segment of the climb.

The remainder of the trail to the Needles south face surprisingly had very little snow except a couple minor snow crossings. I guess that wasn't a total shock since it's south facing. In short order, we reached the face and were staring up the class 4 East Gully. This is gonna be exciting, I thought to myself, and we started up the steep gully with a little apprehension.

The lower gully section was all fun, class 3 scrambling and any snow was mostly avoidable. There were many options to take, and we each took our own path having slightly different climbing preferences. Eventually, as we neared the crux, we encountered a steep snowfield leading towards the dihedral.

Ben, who loves couloir climbing, donned his crampons and immediately started kick stepping his way towards the crux with ice axe in hand. Meanwhile, I don't have much couloir experience and chose to continue climbing the solid rock where I'm most comfortable. After not long though, I ran into an icy area just below the class 4 section. I then decided to put crampons on, and I joined my partner in the much more forgiving snow. We had agreed to take advantage of the snow and climb the dihedral instead of the icy bypass.

The dihedral is a steep, V-shaped groove cut into the gully and it was filled with snow. Thanks to the warmer than usual temperature, the snow in the dihedral was already getting a bit slushy. This was sooner than we had hoped. Luckily, it was just firm enough, and we battled our way through the soft snow to safely pass through the dihedrals steep, narrow confines.

We then exited the snow above the snow covered chokestone and entered the upper gully which immediately widened considerably. We were now back to class 3 scrambling from there to the top of the gully. Our crampons probably could've been removed but the extra traction was nice as there was still snow here and there. We both exhaled a huge sigh of relief upon reaching the upper ridge. The hard bits were done and only a short, easy scramble to the summit remained.

The upper Ridge was short and we quickly made the summit!!! We were both beyond thrilled to get a snowflake❄️ on Crestone Needle and to finish out the winter Sangres (Ben officially completed this a few days later on Lindsey). The views of the surrounding peaks were spectacular. The Sangres never disappoint in this regard. These views often take a backseat to those of the San Juans, but I feel they are often comparable in their own way.

The summit was windy, so we took our lunch break down the ridge a bit. It was short lived though, because we knew the climb was only half done and the warm weather was quickly softening up the snow. We were anticipating a tricky descent of the gully and plenty of slushy snow down in the basin. With that in mind, we started down the upper ridge and followed it as far as it went bypassing several enticing gullys. We were well aware of the dangers in not descending the correct gully. There was a large cairn at the far end of the ridge marking the entrance to the East Gully and we dropped in. We made quick work downclimbing the class 3 rock in the upper 1/3 of the gully and cautiously approached the dihedral.

The snow in the dihedral had softened considerably and it took much more care going down. Often we were wallowing and would slide through our kicksteps that we had placed on the ascent earlier in the day. Our ice axes were handy to self-belay when necessary. Below that, to the bottom of the gully, we moved quickly and after not long we were gathering our stashed snowshoes at the pass. We carried them to the lake before slipping them back on. The rest of the descent had some of the sloppiest snow that I have ever experienced and we were in and out of our snowshoes 4 or 5 times as we finished our long descent back to the trailhead. I was so glad I recently invested in new MSR's with only one strap to deal with.

We arrived at our vehicles just before darkness and thus concluded another "full value" winter climb. What a day! This climb without a doubt ranks in the top 5 winter summits for me. This was an especially satisfying day for me on another note as well. I now feel that I'm finally fully back from my injury. It was a long road. A couple years ago I never dreamed I'd be doing something like this again. It was fantastic to reconnect with Ben as well, and I'm already looking forward to the next winter climbing season.