Sunday, September 3, 1989: Crestone Needle, 14197'

By Alan Silverstein

The Needle is one of the more impressive peaks in Colorado. I climbed it my second time the long way, from the west. It in- volved gaining nearly 6000' and camping out two nights. As it happened, it was the only peak we visited from that trailhead.

The previous Friday evening, Bruce Tepley and I discovered to our delight that there is a public hot shower in the laundromat in Crestone ($1), and that the grocery store is pretty well stocked. It was too late in the day to start up Cottonwood Creek, so we drove 1.2 miles east of town again, toward the Willow Lake trail- head, and camped on sandy flats. Saturday morning I set an alarm for 0500 and observed an unusually bright comet with binoculars, without leaving my sleeping bag. (No, I didn't meet any bears this time...)

Being in no hurry, we had a delicious hot breakfast in Crestone. Then we drove south to the Cottonwood Creek trailhead, 5.5 miles beyond the Baca Grande entrance gate on the south side of town. The road is paved for a while but gets increasingly bumpy, and crosses one ``unsafe bridge'' (that you could around if neces- sary). It passes a number of spiritual retreats.

At the townsite of Cottonwood, 8420', we had a hard time finding the trail. After some exploring (wearing full packs), we discovered it starts as a road just east of the large water tank up the hill, well left of the creek. For about 1/4 mile you could drive it; then it becomes a rather primitive, overgrown trail. It's always on the left side of the creek, but after a couple of miles it gets very hard to follow.

We discovered the penalty for losing the main trail is scrambling (still with full packs) up steep Sangre de Cristo type rock, and doing a lot of bushwhacking. There are many cairns off the best route. It was amazingly easy to lose the ``good'' (though unimproved) trail each time we found it. There are some places where it drops or winds through thick forest. Even on the way back, we lost it several times, despite serious attention to fol- lowing it.

We hoped to reach Cottonwood Lake, but I was tired and couldn't march fast enough. I'm slow with a backpack anyway. We hiked for a little over six hours, 1155-1805, before finally calling it quits after gaining 2900'. We parked for the night at a pleasant campsite on a flat under deep trees, about 11320', near a water- fall and the continuation of the trail up a very steep, rocky hillside. It was just past a nearly invisible fork in the trail - you need a map if you visit this area! It turned out to be the last possible place to camp under trees. Straight line distance from the trailhead to that point is 3.3 miles, so I guess the trail distance is about 5 miles.

Sunday morning I felt well rested and we left camp with daypacks at 0700. Before long we lost the trail again, at timberline on the way to a higher bowl. No problem; we climbed and traversed high on the rocky, grassy left side of the valley to just below Cottonwood Lake, 12310'. We took a break at the lake at 0810, surrounded by tundra and steep rock walls. The south sides of Crestone Peak and Needle loomed above us. Long, low morning sun- beams decorated the environs.

From the lake we found a mostly grassy route east and north to the Needle's ridge. There was no reason to go as far as the lowest saddle on the ridge (the crossing point to South Colony Lakes). We found the main trail and followed it left, back on the ridge to the base of the pinnacle at 0910. There the route drops about 50' to the left to enter the lower of two steep, bare-rock gullies. A cold wind crossed the ridge.

We proceeded up the gully with several other parties and made the treacherous crossing left, up, over, and down into the higher gully (the worst climbing on the route). I thoroughly enjoyed it even though it was quite steep and airy at points. When you are comfortable on exposed terrain, it's a great joy scrambling on solid, knobby conglomerate rock. For some reason, though, we were about the only hikers with the sense to wear helmets.

We arrived on the wondrously complex summit at 1025 (3:25 for 2880' from camp). The view is of course spectacular, especially straight down to South Colony Lakes. We had lovely, clear Fall weather, much better than three years ago when all I saw was fog! There were about 15 people on the Needle, continuously coming and going, some starting a rappel to traverse to the Peak. There is enough room to sleep on top, if you have the gumption to carry a full pack up there!

Bruce and I departed at 1130. Despite my having been there be- fore, we were led astray by cairns, too far left along the ridge above the face. I was complacent. After descending a while and realizing our error, fortunately we spotted people on the main route. We found a way to traverse over to it before the going got any more exposed. It wasn't real risky but it wasn't fun ei- ther. Moral: Pay very close attention to your return route once you enter the lower gully. It's easy to get lost.

We downclimbed slowly. At the base of the pinnacle we followed the lower gully down a couple hundred feet more until it ended in a V-cliff looking right down on Cottonwood Lake. We backtracked and about 100' higher we crossed over a ridge. We found the next gully east to be passable, though steeper and looser than our up-route further east. It provided us a direct route down to the lake again at 1355.

Once at the lake the route to Crestone Peak, up a red rock couloir, is clearly visible. It looks easier than it was from the other side. (If camped at South Colony Lakes, you might prefer to cross the saddle, drop nearly to Cottonwood Lake, and climb the Peak from that side.) But it was late and clouding up, and we'd had our fill. We decided to skip climbing another 2000'. We mosied down to camp, following the trail this time, though it nearly vanished at several steep spots. We arrived at 1525, 3:25 from the top, 8:25 on the round trip, just before the heavens parted in a thunderous deluge.

We packed up inside our tents. Later when the rain stopped, we hiked and downclimbed for nearly two soggy hours to a nice camp- site by the creek at roughly 9400'. Monday morning it only took us an hour more to finish the hike back to our vehicles. We parted in Crestone. I stopped at the Salida hot springs pool to convalesce from the week's exercise.