The Crestones and Humboldt from the East

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.

Suddenly snow

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.

Respects for Talus Monkey

Moi in front of the Needle with some weather moving in

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.

Looking back East over Humboldt summit

Summit shot with Crestones behind to the West

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.

If you are not diligent, your application may end up like this

I just finished re-reading this excellent article by Lukas Mathis on how, why, and how to prevent feature creep from appearing over time in applications. All software and web applications are prone to this disease, don’t let it happen to you!

“Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life”
Oscar Wilde

Come on snow!

Joe on Conundrum summit with Castle Peak behind

Route up snowfield in orange,arrow points to Conundrum summit

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!

Geneva lake trailhead at Lead King Basin

High Camp at Lake Siberia

On top of Mt. Snowmass

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.

The Curse of the Lead King Basin - Rubber munching varmits

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.

Since there is a 4wd road up Baldwin gulch we took the short drive up to it to get a sense of what kind of condition it was in and take a guess at how long it would take us to get to where we wanted to hike from. With Anna being nine years old and my wife not having done any 14ers yet it seemed wise to try to drive up close and leave just the last mile and a half to climb up. So we guessed at 2 hours for the drive and 3 hours for the hike. The weather looked great for us to give it a shot and we decided to head out at a reasonable early time of 7am.

Getting there:
We drove west toward St. Elmo on Chaffee County Road 162 and another 10 miles on the dirt road to reach the signed Baldwin Gulch Jeep Road (also listed as the 277 Road).

You can park here, there are plenty of pull-offs along the road. This is the lower trailhead and its a long way from here. Short, high-clearance 4WD vehicles can drive up the 277 road, our stock 04 Jeep Liberty did fine. Above the river crossing (10,850′), there are dispersed camping spots along the side of the road as it leads to multiple switchbacks up to the saddle. We parked at the saddle and made our way up the ridge line to the top.

I took a chisel-peen hammer to prospect for Aquamarines and I think we actually did find some Garnets. It was a great trek for Chris and Anna to get on top of their first 14er with the added bonus of Gem-Hunting near the summit. If you want to see some of the nicest aquamarines found on Antero, stop at the “Rock Doc” back on US285. We picked up a few carats of Aquamarine there and they have nice examples of the things folks prospect for on Antero.

The San Luis State Park just down the road from the Great San Dunes has free hot showers for campers, electrical hookups at each site (no need), and nearby trails around the San Luis Lakes which is an incredible birding/wildlife watching location. We also had stunning views of the Crestones esp. with the sunset light on those peaks.

The Great Sand Dunes are Huge. You have to be there to experience the immensity. Then there is also the reason for their existence, which is of course, the wind. The geography is perfect to supply a constant blowing wind which over millions of years has left the piles of sand behind we all enjoy clambering over. If you stay near here for a few days, you will start to find fine sand in just about everything.

The campsites themselves had no cover from the wind other than oddly shaped lean-to’s that sheltered each picnic table. I was of course aware of what havoc the wind might play on our tent, which is a monster car-camp Hobitat 6. That puppy was staked down with the extra fly tie downs and all. Even so, when a nearby thunderstorm brought winds with accompanying fierce gusts I was stunned to see the tent get blown into a weird ellipse shape before snapping and getting blown flat! Yes, FLAT. There was no fighting against the storm so I pulled the pole ends out of the grommets to end the tent’s misery and let it lay flat without more warping or breaking or bending the poles anymore. It was of course too late for one of the poles and the others had some wicked bends. After the storm passed it was clear that we were going to need to repair the tent pole with the provided pole repair sleeve and add some more tie downs. The problem with the Hobitat 6 and its tie downs are that the tent is quite tall and the design does not hold up to high winds. I added more tie downs attached up high on the poles, 2 extra ones in each corner, and that did the trick. It would take hurricane force winds to tear that puppy up and thankfully we didn’t encounter those! Next time if wind is a factor at all I will add the high-ties to this monster tent.