I’ve been wanting to visit the Sangre de Cristo’s, especially the Crestones, for some time. I hadn’t yet climbed any of those 14ers though I had been through the area a few times and marveled at their beauty. I also read recently that they are thinking about closing or adding a fee to the South Colony Lakes road this year. The South Colony Lakes Trailhead is a point of departure for heading up to climb Crestone, Crestone Needle, Mount Humboldt, and even possibly Kit Carson and or Challenger Point. The Ranger station reported that there was “still a lot of snow up there’ and that snow would block the way after “just a mile or so”. I had also read a trip report from someone who climbed Humboldt the weekend before who said they had been able to drive to ’1 mile short of the rainbow trail’. So, had more snow accumulated over the last week. I kinda doubted it.

My friend Jay was down for the trip, so we drove down on Tuesday and went as far as we could go toward South Colony Lake. Right were the snow blocked the road we saw signage for the Rainbow trail and some parking so we set the jeep there. After loading up some siege packs with a few days worth of gear for just about any kind of route we headed out on what we thought was the rainbow trail right as it started dumping snow. We heard some of the oddest sounds coming from the surrounding Aspen trees, the wind on old trees was making sounds like voices, and or music. It was truly surreal.

After about 45 minutes Jay looked at his GPS and announced we were in fact going the wrong way. Somehow we missed the sign in the snow and dark that pointed out that this was the Middle Colony Lakes Trail. We could not tell if we would even be able to hook it up Humboldt from there so we decided to head back and get on the right trail. On the way back Jay got nailed by a tree limb in the snow and dark that knocked him down and left a mark on his forehead that looked like he got hit with an ice-pick. Not only that but when he went down he landed on his ribs by his lower back. He shrugged all this off and we kept going. We took a break back in the jeep and laughed at our inauspicious start. So after our 2.5 mile warm-up we got on the right trail and headed up toward the South Colony Lakes.

The snow let up a little which made the going a little easier. We made camp a mile or so short of the lower lake in the woods on the snow, made some hot food and called it for the night. As often the case we got up about 5am without an alarm. Which peak to bag and what route? We decided for a longer but lighter (no ropes & pro, crampons, or ice axe) route up Humboldt via its west ridge with the idea that if we wanted to add a Crestone climb after we still had that option.

The route went up past the Lakes where we paused to pay our respects to where David Worthington aka TalusMonkey lost his life in 2009 after a valiant search and rescue attempt following his glissade accident coming down Humboldt.

Moi in front of the Needle with some weather moving in

As some weather started to dramatically move in, we decided against going directly up the couloir and instead angled for the saddle between Humbolt and the Needle to take the west ridge to the top of Humboldt. The views across to the Crestones and the San Luis Valley beyond on the way up are beyond description. As we approached the saddle we noticed another climber moving among the snow, rock and ice.

It was a Mountain Goat who was also making its way, from the other direction, over the saddle. After it passed we saw some of its tracks coming up from the other steeper side.

On the west ridge the wind was howling and weather was coming in pretty fast. We pushed hard for the summit while awestruck with the views. Looking past the sunlit summit back East the plains below were still in full sun but a dark band of bad weather was bending down, lower than we were. We had to yell at each other just to be heard. We hung out on top long enough to take it all in and snap a few more photos. There is a rock wind screen shelter on the summit which affords some protection from the wind.

We knew it was a much more direct route back to camp down the south facing snow slopes, but we knew the Eastern side of those terminated in some cliff bands. Respecting that danger we angled back West as we decended the South slopes until we got on some 30 – 40 degree snow fields that reached all the way down to the South Colony Lakes. We glissaded carefully and avoided launching ourselves off or into some of the smaller rock bands we still encountered on our way down. Had to creep across under a smallish cornice, there were signs of older avvys but the snow was super solid and stable at that time.

Looking back up the glissade route down, amazing we covered a couple miles of slope in about 15 minutes. In no time we were back at camp. We decided to hang at camp leaving open an option to go up the Crestone if we wanted super early the next morning knowing we had to be back to Boulder the next afternoon. As it worked out we didn’t feel we had enough time to bag Crestone and hike all the way out in time, but we were still rewarded with more awesome views as we made our way home the next morning. Overall an awesome visit, I can’t wait to go back.

Castle and Conundrum combination, September 18-19 2009.
We left Boulder Friday after work with a plan to camp at the Perl Pass Trailhead that night and wake early to go bag Castle and Conundrum Peaks. Joe and I both had our gear ready so we were able to get to where we hoped to camp by around 11pm. We took the Castle Creek Trail to the fork at Perl Pass (FR 102) and pulled the jeep off the road right there. There were some places to pitch our gear and in no time we were out. We wanted to get an early jump on it so we got up around 4:30 and hit the trail by 5. We actually got passed by a few more hard-core 4wd vehicles in the predawn, but as we got to the end of the FR 102 road past the ruin of the old Montezuma mine we saw those folks still getting ready to head out. From there we could see there was snow and the crampons we brought would come in handy if we were going straight up the snowfield to the saddle between Castle and Conundrum.

To gain access to that slope to the saddle we had to work our way upslope to get around the bergschrund at the bottom. While working our way around it was obvious that there was a good deal of rockfall with fresh tracks in the recent snow from this-would-kill-you sized boulders. Good idea to have a lid on the head here and keep an ear tuned. We saw a pretty nasty rockfall on the other side of the cirque that crossed the other sw ridge route, fortunately there was no one there at the time.

Our early start paid dividends being we were clearly the first ones up the snow slope and also to the saddle that morning.
The alpeneglow was amazing, the views incomparable as we left from the saddle south up the ridge to the top of Castle. Nice blocky scramble up a ridge with really good exposure back down to the lake. On top we noticed a few groups below making their way up both the SW and snow slope routes. After a short break on the summit we head back down to the saddle and picked up the trail up towards Conundrum. The scrambling and route finding was a little more demanding on this section with some very brief class 3. The rock is real rotten and to prevent creating rockfall we stayed on the snow and ice as much as possible taking the highest line. A false summit really looks like the top but the reason there is no registry there is because you have to continue along the ridge, down-climb a little piece and then back up to gain the true summit.

Looking down on our way back it appeared that some of the chutes could make nice couloir climbs if the conditions were right but would be deadly dangerous if conditions were not ideal. We made it back down to the saddle having bagged both peaks before running into another soul. It was KEY to be on the snow early while it was harder from the night-freeze, two folks we met on the way down were post-holing their way up the same snow slope we crampon’d up. Going down we glissaded our way and made short work of the descent, careful not to go flying out of control into the bergschrund crevasse.
We were back in Boulder before dark already looking forward to the next time…

An awesome trip!

August 15-16th, 2009.
We headed out on Saturday about mid day from Boulder and made good time to Marble. Don’t forget to get Gas in Glenwood Springs where you have some choices, if you get all the way to Redstone there is one place but you pay a premium.
From Marble we headed up to the high side of town and continued East on the dirt road for Lead King Basin. You have to look carefully for the Left Turn to get on the 315 road to the Geneva Lake Trailhead, (which accesses the west side of Snowmass). There are a couple of low water crossings and the road has some dangerous exposure, you really need a good 4wd vehicle. We saw two disabled vehicles enroute, an outback with a flat and a bronco that was broken down. The Touareg ate it up just fine. More on “eating it up” later. We parked at the obvious parking access for the Geneva Lake Trailhead, gathered our gear up, and headed in hiking towards the waterfall below the lake.

The trail stays to the left side of the creek and up over the shoulder before passing Geneva lake on the right. At every fork in the trail we basically took the left option to stay up on the slope and make our way on to Little Gem Lake. After arriving at little gem lake it was already dark so we decided we could go ahead and push on to Lake Siberia which looked to have some flat areas beside it on the topos. Stunning vistas all the way up, a very scenic route in.

We didn’t need much room for bivy camp and settled in for the night. The morning had good weather and sun, we were just below the summit on the west side and we ready to make our way up. Jason pointed out something truly strange, which was foreboding of things to come. He had left his Garmin GPS outside of his bivvy sack and something in the night had actualy chewed off the little rubber buttons on its front. Not the rubber on the sides or the top, just the softer rubber used on the buttons, we could see the teeth marks. We laughed it off since it still worked just fine. Looking up the west side we could see 2 dark troughs that marked two routes up the west side. When wet I’d heard to go to the left of these two and head up that way toward a fin shaped rock.

We had some fun scrambling, a traverse across iced loose scree, Fridge and Car sized Boulder maneuvering. We made a key observation which was that the more stable rock had lots of lichen on it, from years of stability. The loose rock was all uniform light grey colored and could be nasty in places.
We got separated just after moving past the fin rock and going up the ridge. I chose to stay on the blocky ridge top, which did have exposure on the other side, but was 100% solid and fine. My friend Jay traversed across the west face which at this place gets pretty vertical. After both arriving on the summit we decided not to hang out too long since there was a massive thunderhead to the west even though it looked like it might miss us to the North. We could see our tents at Lake Siberia 2000′ below our feet from the summit.

We both decided the best way back down was across the extreme western ridge staying on the big blocks. It involved more actual climbing but was way more solid.
Fantastic views and exposure on the other side and surely a more direct route to Lake Siberia. We both wished we had come up this route which is not one mentioned in the Roach guide. Back in camp we made another pot of coffee, took a short rest and then hoofed it all the way back to where the Touareg was parked. We thought all the danger was behind us but little did we know we were about to experience the Curse of the Lead King Basin. After packing everything up in the Touareg we got in, started her up and then both uttered “WTF?”.

The car was in drive but the transmission was like in 4th gear. That meant it would not go up the 4wd rough dirt road back. The car was reporting that we needed to “Bring it to the workshop” which was not a good suggestion being we were many miles for paved roads. We did everything we could to figure out what was wrong, checking fuses, turning everything off, different combinations of control settings, nothing worked except reverse gear and highway gear. We both had to be at work the next day but it was looking like we were going to have to hike out, maybe camping again on the way, then maybe getting in cellphone range the next day to call off any rescue…. not good. We decided that the best option was to attempt to drive out in reverse.
The road is gnarly and dangerous with a good 4wd going forward, in reverse it was completely insane. But we made it to Marble without rolling down the exposures to our deaths and from Marble we were able to go forward keeping in in 4th gear and get all the way down to Glenwood springs. We did more taking-apart, got a meal down, but all our tinkering and diagnosis was to no avail. We were at least able to call home and tell our wives what was up and not to freak out on the lateness and we were essentially all right. Incredibly we were able to make it back on I70 all the way home though we really didn’t know if we would make it over Vail Pass. In the end the root cause was revealed at the dealership days later…. some small creature, Pica’s most likely, had crawled under the Touareg and Eaten through the transmission harness completely disabling the transmission controls leaving only 4th gear and reverse working.

You can see in the picture the munching that took place over the 36 hours the vehicle was left parked around 10000′. So there you have it, that is the curse of the Lead King Basin… if you leave your vehicle there you better have some way of protecting the underside of your vehicle or be prepared to do some electrical work.