Crestone Needle and Peak: 14ers (Ellingwood Arete)

Crestone Needle and Crestone Peak

I had finally convinced Ben to climb the Ellingwood Arête up the Crestone Needle, and so we went the first Sunady in August.  We left the Springs early and drove down to the South Colony trailhead on Friday.  We 4×4-ed to the new lower 4-wheel drive trailhead and were on the hike up by 6pm, slogging along the old 4×4 path. We made camp above the Lower South Colony Lake in a grassy patch and settled in for a nights rest before an AM start.

Stirring late at 5am, we could see the headlamps of other party going up broken hand pass to the standard summit route.   We also saw a couple headlamps going up the ledge route to Ellingwood.  Soon we were on the trail towards the direct summit following a couple Elk hunters.

At the base of the climb my new video camera died (there went that plan).  Ben took off up the 1^st pitch, and soon was scrambling up easy climbing.   I came up afterward leading the 2^nd pitches and pull the lower headwall. With a 70m rope, we were out the dihedral and quickly I made anchors on  broken-dirty-chossy block. Then it was all unroped scrambling from here as we headed to the Red tower.

From the tower, we scrambled even higher until we decided to protect a small 5^th class move and then again to do a “just for fun” 5.9 roof.  Then there was even more scrambling to the base of the “money pitches”.  We got to the start just as other groups from earlier in the morning were finishing.  Ben took the standard route to the right as the other group had monopolized the center direct crack.  Here, the pitch was adorned with buttonheads and old pins. While belaying, rocks knocked down from the other group were whipping down and exploding all around us.

At the base of the crux pitch, we had to wait for previous group to finish.  The belayer told us stories of being at the lake and climbing while on acid. Once we got the chance to climb the pitch, we moved quickly up.   Half way up we saw a honey hole of booty gear.  Three hexes were just hanging out deep in the crack.   At the final anchor right below the summit, was a pretty flower patches, odd in such a harsh environment.   Blue flowers hypnotized me as I belayed Ben up.

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At the summit, we saw other who had ascended the standard route, and others that came from the traverse. Here we decided to do the great traverse backwards.  We rapped down the start of the reverse traverse. The guys rope we used got stuck, and I ended up climbing, and then down climbing the rap route anyways.  Traversing along the ridges, we were behind a group of what I could guess was Venezuelans.

At the Black Gendarme, I saw a white flash of some running the traverse towards us.  Instantly we guessed and knew it was our friend Eric.  Later, we would heard him say a similar thing, that he saw 2 guys in neon orange and yellow, and knew it was us. We met him behind the Black Gendarme and chatted for a while.  From there we pushed with lots more scrambling to Crestone Peak. We finally reached the standard gulley, and it was god awful compared to the climbing that we had already done.   Loose rocks were everywhere, and the slog up higher, kept going and going and going. Almost to the top, I started to notice my body was acting weirdly.

Finally, we summited on Crestone Peak and the views were astounding (Kit Carson, the Sand Dunes, Blanca Peak, Mt Lindsey), everything was visible.  However, at this time my body had taken a bad turn.  I was ok with the altitude sickness and having shallow breaths, but something new had occurred.   I won’t go into any more detail of the next 6 hours, but Ben helped keep me motivated to push back to the camp and help share the load (ie: performed the role of Sam in Lord of the Rings).

Finally, we circled back around broken-hand pass, and into camp completely drained.  Quickly, we packed up and slogged the additional 3 miles back to the car. Summary: Great outing, a neat traverse, terrible hike back, Ben is a powerful sturdy mule, and unexpected deep mental journey for myself.