Crestone Peak - North Buttress
September 2, 2009
Excited to finally wrap up the "4 great traverses", I contacted Ryan whom I had hiked the Little Bear - Blanca traverse a few days earlier. He quickly agreed and Glen from 14ers.com also expressed an interest to join in. We arrived late at the lower TH and began booking up the road. I had hiked this road 3 times now (in its entirety) and my attitude about trudging up it in the dark was not great. As we set up camp around midnight, we discussed the route we would take the next day. After a short negotiation, the plan was set. We would ascend the Peak via the North Buttress, traverse to the Needle and descend the Needle's standard route. The benefits were clear, we would have the most challenging scrambling early on while we were still fresh, being able to up-climb the crux on the traverse made us feel good about not bringing a rope, and descending the Needle allowed us to skip the slog back over Brokenhand Pass. We left early and got thoroughly lost in the willows trying to follow the valley up. Oops! Breaking free from the krumholtz was a fabulous way-point and we cruised to the Bear's Playground. The North Buttress was everything it promised and proved steep and challenging. The top of NE Crestone was easy to access but the true summit was blocked by the NW Couloir. This creates an intimidating gash that had to be delicately crossed. The traverse/downclimb to the top of the NW Couloir was short and fierce. This is not for beginning scramblers. A rope would be esentially useless and a fall would be fatal.
Excited to finally wrap up the "4 great traverses", I contacted Ryan whom I had hiked the Little Bear - Blanca traverse a few days earlier. He quickly agreed and Glen from 14ers.com also expressed an interest to join in. We arrived late at the lower TH and began booking up the road. I had hiked this road 3 times now (in its entirety) and my attitude about trudging up it in the dark was not great. As we set up camp around midnight, we discussed the route we would take the next day. After a short negotiation, the plan was set. We would ascend the Peak via the North Buttress, traverse to the Needle and descend the Needle's standard route. The benefits were clear, we would have the most challenging scrambling early on while we were still fresh, being able to up-climb the crux on the traverse made us feel good about not bringing a rope, and descending the Needle allowed us to skip the slog back over Brokenhand Pass. We left early and got thoroughly lost in the willows trying to follow the valley up. Oops! Breaking free from the krumholtz was a fabulous way-point and we cruised to the Bear's Playground. The North Buttress was everything it promised and proved steep and challenging. The top of NE Crestone was easy to access but the true summit was blocked by the NW Couloir. This creates an intimidating gash that had to be delicately crossed. The traverse/downclimb to the top of the NW Couloir was short and fierce. This is not for beginning scramblers. A rope would be esentially useless and a fall would be fatal.
Peak to Needle Traverse
The traverse was fairly straight-forward. We were surprised at how much time is actually spent below the ridge and almost all of the scrambling is easy except the final pitch. Finding the start was vague at best and several starts were marked.
Descent
The down-climb off the Needle went fast and we were very happy to not have to gain any more elevation. We had originally planned on adding Brokenhand Peak to our day but the idea of beer won. Back at camp, we packed quickly and made good time to the car. Then I had a tremendous bit of good luck. As we were driving back, I received a phone call from a guy saying he found my camera. "What? I have my camera." As I rummaged through my bag I soon discovered it was gone. I had apparently left my camera on top of the car and driven off. He had picked it up, found the photo I took of the summit register with my name and city, looked me up in white pages, and called me before I even noticed it was gone. Awesome!!!