TR- Crestone Needle — High Mountains Drifter

Crestone Needle- 14,196’

12.82 miles / 5,825’ gain / 19.5 hours

21st highest in Colorado \ 455’ of prominence \ C4

The Cottonwood Lake approach to the Crestone’s is brutal. In summer, when things are dry and sunlight is plentiful, the trail can feel weirdly long and demanding, like a precursor to Ruby Lake in the San Juans. In winter, it’s openly hostile and like I said, brutal.

The Devil be dammed, our goal was Crestone Needle. We (Prakash, Colin and I) had attempted it back on the solstice with an 8:00 am start. Getting to the lower 2WD parking lot later than I wanted, Colin and Prakash started off without me. However, the bane of time being what it is, unforgiving, they made it within 400’ of the summit before wisely turning around for not wanting to tempt fate by a twilight descent of the icy crux. As for myself, I limped to the upper 4x4 trailhead before throwing in the towel. Sometimes, God laughs as we plan.

I’ve trekked up Cottonwood once in summer and now, three times in winter. In fact, one of my better nights winter camping was when I guided a guy from Georgia up to Crestone Needle. We didn’t make it, but I carved out a great spot on a narrow ledge at the slabs. He collapsed inside the tent for the rest of the day and I sipped coffee dangling my feet over the edge watching the sunset weave colors of red, lavender and purple into her hair.

The ample Spanish Moss along this approach makes me think of old-growth forests of the PNW. Although, I’ve weirdly never seen animals among the sheltering pine boughs here, birds merely by accident and half the time, I fully expect to be inundated by green, phosphorescent mites like in that old X-Files episode. But aside from these ‘perceived etymological consequences,’ the trail does reward in aces for those seeking solitude & wildness in lesser-traveled parts.

Point 12,852’

Prakash and I hit the trail at the Ungodly hour of 3:30 am having only Luna for company. We used her luminous embrace to show the way as we trekked up the dark valley. Prakash’s red headlamp only added to the ‘Grimmesque’ feeling that eyes were upon us. Prakash and I have been good friends for well north of 10 years and like a good tawny port, our friendship has matured into something comfortable and reliable. It doesn’t need regular maintenance.

The trail was well-worn and easy to follow with a good boot-pack and a patchwork of snow and bare ground. Absolutely no flotation was needed. The leaves and pine needles provided enough traction on the islands of crunchy ice to maintain speed. Walking in these dry and icy conditions sounded like walking on spilled Cheerios. I’m a Cinnamon Toast Crunch fan myself, but I’ll take whatever metaphor comes to mind.

The air was warm enough to instill that ‘damp, vegetative Earth’ smell that forests can impart. And sadly, at 4:00 am, that shouldn’t have been the case, especially in January.

We gradually ascended the left slope following a fresh track through the snow that looked no more than 24 hours old. So, there were others up here. Eventually, the serpentine path took us to their tent. We donned snowshoes at this point and kept going. It’s doubtful we’d see them, but it is a small basin up there. My guess is that they were gunning for Crestone Peak. But while we were traversing the upper valley, we never saw any tracks splitting off from ours, no tracks shooting up the Red Gully and no movement on the summit or ridge. So, who knows.

Dawn finally awakened from her slumber and proceeded to chase away the phantoms of night. I could see the tracks we were following head straight into a willow patch that bordered a flowing stream. ‘Why in God’s name would someone willingly do that? Don’t they know willows eat people?’ Don’t answer that I told myself; it’s rhetorical.

Prakash and I landed on the frozen edge of a running stream and decided to take separate ways up a partially frozen waterfall, the center flowing quite healthily. Testament to the warm temperatures the State has been experiencing. We hit the upper valley and stayed to the far right, preferring to side-hill the tundra and scree vs. fight the Barbarian willows. Plus, the snow wasn’t too bad.

“Crestolita” 13,264’

I was surprised at how fat and white the Red Gully was considering the same aspects on Crestone Needle were either anemic or outright bare. While wishing for conditions like this might lead one to falsely believe in a speedy ascent, in actuality, the Devil is always in the details. And that’s exactly what we found, imps and devils.

For the second time that morning, Prakash and I donned snowshoes. The Cottonwood Lake Basin entailed either unsupportive hoar or concrete. Good way to twist an ankle or perfect your ‘F-Bomb’ game if one is booting it. We had talked earlier about possibly bringing AT skis (I’m just now getting into BC skiing). But the current snowpack would have made that more work than it was worth. To quote Bill Middlebrook, “It was a pontoon kind of day.”

The air in Cottonwood Basin was absolutely crystal clear. The lighting for that time of morning was excellent for pictures. Even if we didn’t summit, I was perfectly content with spending time with an old friend and getting some great scenic shots that most folks don’t get to experience first-hand. Cottonwood Lake was solid ice, like the 9th circle in Dante’s Hell (Cocytus). I half expected to see Judas, Cain, Antenor and Ptolemy sticking up from the ice like frozen buoys.

My panache for dealing with the crap that goes into these winter trips has been dwindling for the last few years. In truth, I just don’t enjoy it much anymore. All the early mornings, dodging wildlife with high-beams, bad coffee, hours spent in the cold, feeling like a chewed-up dog toy on the sleepy drive home, multiple trips of turning around without a prize etc. have all been conspiring against me. I keep telling myself that of course, I DO enjoy it. But over the last few years, I think my success rate paints a rather stoic if not bleak picture. I’ve come to the conclusion that anymore, I’m in love with the IDEA of doing winter peaks rather than the physical act of doing them. What does it say when one is more excited to smash beers afterwards than to suffer for 15 hours in 15° temperatures? I’ve had my fair share of winter trips: San Luis, Capitol, Culebra (almost died on this one) and Holy Cross being the most notable. So, I know I’m not a ‘tourist.’ But still, it’s hard to walk away from the person you’ve become when you don’t know what’s over the next hill. I can’t say for sure if this will be my absolute last winter peak, but to quote the indomitable Tom Waits,

“You can drive out nature with a pitchfork, but it always comes roaring back again.”

Prakash and I reached Broken Hand Pass and futilely looked for a place to get out of the wind to have a snack. The traverse over the flat and cobbly ridge to the base of the couloir sped by effortlessly. If it wasn’t for the 168 mph winds, the weather wasn’t actually bad! The only thing of note, was the tundra was covered in frozen ‘Styrofoam’ peanuts. Walking through them was like sifting through glass fragments. I’d actually never seen anything like it. The things snow can do never fails to amaze me.

Ascent

I followed Prakash up into the couloir weaving back & forth from frozen snow to 3rd class rock. So far, while not the worst of conditions, the snow didn’t exactly instill confidence. I found myself a nice ledge and watched Prakash crab-walk up the rock like a colorful crustacean. I decided at this point to done my points and climb the snow (it’s honestly where I’m most comfortable). Plus, it doesn’t take long for that “muscle-memory” to come back. I tightened my Grivels, gave them a pep-talk and got to work…game time.

The lower third of the couloir held semi-supportive snow. Conditions ranged from firm névé, to punchy crust, I found a couple pockets of icy hoar and water ice closer to the constriction. Basically, throw a bowl of spaghetti at the wall and whatever sticks, there you go. There was absolutely no lateral consistency. Not going to lie, there was one moment I thought it was going to slide and questioned why I was there.

Broken Hand Peak- 13,575’

Prakash had finally joined me out in the couloir and we reached the crux of the day, the constriction. This was perhaps a 120’ of narrow ice. Both walls of the couloir were easily stemmed. I was glad I’ve been doing a fair amount of technical canyoneering out in Utah the past couple months so that the motions were familiar. The choke was more of a stem and mantle rock climb since the ribbon of ice in the center was either brittle or diamond-hard. Kind of hard to trust your feet with those terms. I was REALLY regretting not having my ice tools. They would have been invaluable on this climb. In my opinion, conditions were advanced and borderline dangerous. The choke was maybe 45°-48°. Since the crossover to the west gully broke off a couple years ago, I can see the overall rating of the Needle warranting a class-4 now, under dry conditions.

We cleared the choke and entered an open-faced slope. The couloir continued to the ridge but Prakash angled climbers left towards the summit, basically taking more of a directissima. I continued upwards for perhaps another 15 feet or so until my left foot/leg plunged into the snow up to my crotch. I involuntarily and slowly pivoted around to where I was now prone on the ice and facing down slope looking back at the choke. It all happened in slow motion, at least it felt that way. Thank GOD I had my axe firmly planted. For a couple seconds I stared down the couloir and literally the first thought that came to me was, “Well, this is a new one. Fuck.” I tried punching the icy crust with my free hand to get another point of contact in, but couldn’t get through. So, I gingerly slid my right leg over while turning my body around. I was able to get my right, front points into the ice thus righting myself back to orientation. I looked down the couloir through my legs and thought, “That could have been pretty bad.”

Prakash enjoying a few moments of solitude on the summit

I looked up and saw Prakash watching me, yelling something. But the winds spirited away his words. Once I was stabilized and good, he continued climbing. I actually smiled a bit at that point. Because with a proficient partner, that’s exactly what I would have done. So, I started climbing again angling towards his tracks.

He ascended a small cliff band, I’m guessing 5’-6’. But the problem with following, was that my footfalls were sinking even deeper. I physically couldn’t place my crampons on anything tangible. I stabilized myself, actually took my gloves off and rock climbed out of the hole I had inadvertently dug. Once I was on more stable ground, I looked down. That fucking slope had to be in the neighborhood of 55°-60°. And the snow was bad. I’ve climbed low 60°s snow near Zumies Buttress and an even steeper crux in the Notch Couloir on Longs Peak in the past, but that was in spring, NOT early season. I reached the ridge crest and could see Prakash easily making his way to the summit. I looked back down and smiled again. Without risk, there are no rewards I thought. Well, Prakash can eat shit if he thinks we’re descending this, and chuckled a little bit to myself. It’s good to have good friends, you know?

I joined Prakash on the summit and tore into a pack of tuna. The last time I was on this summit was with: Ryan Kushner, Susan Joy Paul, Bill Middlebrook, Jerry Moulde and Terry Mathews’ brother to spread Terry’s ashes. Even my first ascent up the Needle saw me summiting during a thunderstorm. I have a summit selfie where my hair is standing on end, literally electrified. By far, one of the scariest moments I’ve had on any 14er in 30 years. This was my third time. So, I have no love lost with this mountain. I was thinking about descending that choke. And after five minutes, I stood up and thought, ‘let’s get off this Devil safely.’

Descent

We started down the normal ridge towards the exit of the couloir we abandoned. However, due to the questionable snow in the couloir, we opted to descend a narrow stream of snow to the far left laid out against the rock. Under dry conditions, this probably would have been class-3. At the terminus of this rivulet of white, we scouted the rock for a bypass around the constriction. Every possibility we investigated, ended in a 5th class headwall. Well, there was no way around it. We were going to have to downclimb the crux.

Prakash started out facing in. The snow, now well shaded posed no noticeable difference vs. the earlier sun hit. We made it 15’ or so and he veered out climbers left back onto the knobby rock. I actually turned around, faced out and started downclimbing the rock. All the facets were positively-angled, like, literally everything. This was going pretty damn smooth! I only reached down to plant my crampons when the rock was too smooth for a secure grip. I cleared the crux in what had to be 15 minutes. Eventually, Prakash clambered down into the constriction and joined me. Soon, we were front pointing down the water ice section back into the fat of the apron.

We traversed out of the couloir following familiar tracks and once back at the squeaky (Styrofoam) tundra, we gave each other a high five and let loose a couple of Rebel Yells.

“Prakash! Why do I let you talk me into this shit?!” and laughed. This turned out to be a much harder climb than I anticipated. Definitely what I’d call a, ‘full-value’ day.

We traversed easily back to the pass and down to our snowshoes. I sent out a couple texts to my wife letting her know all was good. The descent from Cottonwood Lake back to the trailhead was, I’m at pains to say, a borderline epic. We both had weak headlamps, it was pitch black and we had to find out tracks through the damn willows (they eat people, you know!) and then downclimb through the waterfall. The Cottonwood Creek approach may only be ~5-6 miles, but holy hell, it felt like 15. I feel like we snuck this one in. Don’t let dry conditions fool you into thinking an ascent is going to be easy. Because like with all things, the Devil is in the details

Myself putting on crampons for the descent

Myself in the typical gaper "Here's my axe" pose

Prakash descending past the waterfall in the dark