From: ajs@hpfcla.HP.COM (Alan Silverstein)
Date: Fri, 19 Sep 86 15:48:53 MDT
Subject: Re: Trip reports: the last six Fourteeners
Newsgroups: hpnc.general

Saturday, August 30: Kit Carson Mountain (14165')

If you're not reading all these reports, I don't blame you. If you are, you're probably noticing a building amount of tediousness, similar to what I experienced in the climbing this summer, and now in the retelling. Every climb is unique, but there are only so many words you can use to describe the magnificence, only so many sights you can see before becoming a little jaded, and only so many nights you can go short on sleep before it catches up with you.

To finish climbing this year I had to become a fanatic. I burned all my FTO, my personal holiday, and ended up owing a bunch of days, which I'm making up. After the two weeks in the San Juans and two weekends off, I went climbing the next four weekends, so was gone from town about half of that period. I found myself on the Friday before Labor Day heading for the Sangre de Cristos, after the successful but non-enjoyable experiences of the last weekend, wondering if I'd live through another one. But there were only four peaks remaining!

Chuck Reese and I departed HP in my Jeep Wagoneer at 1510. At least the trip down to the 4WD road SW of Westcliffe went smoothly. Here we picked up Paul Beiser and Carolyn Mozely at 2020, 5:10 and 220 miles from home. They had elected not to backpack up the South Colony Lakes road because of the cold, wet winds and nasty clouds.

I was used to driving the Jeep on rough roads, but not carrying four people plus gear. In the dark the bumps and pits looked terrible, and they felt even worse. The road is awful, surprisingly so compared to when I hiked it two years ago. We bottomed out when I didn't expect it, so I stopped to check underneath.

Sure enough, the gas tank was hanging down four inches on one side. It apparently popped out of an L-latch, but fixing it was easier than I feared. With an improvised lever (a pole found by the road), we popped it back up, and continued somewhat more carefully. I managed to hang up the front differential on a rock later, but backing off the jack fixed that. Finally, at 2230 we reached the end of the road at 11400', a mere 6.0 miles, but 2:10, from the start of 4WD.

After assembling our packs, a 25-minute, 200' gain of a hike by headlamps brought us to a very nice camping spot on a knoll east of lower South Colony Lake. On busy weekends like this one, the area turns into a mini-city, with people camped all over a huge area, in between small trees and large willows.

Saturday morning at 0620 the pre-sunrise glow on the pyramid of Crestone Needle, half a mile away, was spectacular, awesome, crimson, memorable, but all too brief, vanishing within three minutes. The four of us started up the trail rather late, at 0810. We didn't realize that the main trail was uphill from us, so ended up whacking through wet willows until we found it the hard way. (There's a branch to it just across the first creek crossing, after a slight drop.)

We traversed steep but surprisingly solid rock up NW onto the ridge well west of Humboldt Peak, and reached the Bears Playground (13120') at 1000. The Playground is a large expanse of fairly flat tundra, dropping over a corner east into the South Colony basin, NE over the Humboldt - Kit Carson ridge into North Colony, and gently down west to the San Luis Valley. This morning there was a lovely carpet of marshmallow clouds to the west, below us.

We crossed NW, up and left around a hump on the ridge, to the 13420' saddle on the way to Kit Carson. It's a steep but straightforward traverse. The climb from here to the 13960'+ east sub-peak is easier than it looks, on trails on either grassy ledges or good, conglomerate rock. (Much of the rock in this area is a gray conglomerate with many large, rounded stones embedded in it. The appearance is of very old, weathered concrete, but surprisingly tough -- seldom does a handhold move in the least. It's fun rock.)

After passing the false summit at 1115, we dropped down and around the left side of the second sub-peak, then a LONG ways down a very steep gully, perhaps 500'. There wasn't too much hailstone snow around, just enough to put us on edge on the ledges. We reached the main gully between the false and main summits, then climbed rather easily -- though tired -- up a cairned route directly (more or less) to the top, at 1230 (4:20 for 3150'). As usual for this area, many clouds were growing around us, and the summit was sometimes in them, but we had generally good weather for a long enough time to enjoy a marvelous view.

Turning clockwise, we could see: Great Sand Dunes National Monument south (a tan patch); the broad, flat San Luis valley; the NW subpeak of Kit Carson, to be named Challenger Point; the many summits of the north half of the Sangre de Cristo range; Humboldt Peak to the east; and most impressive of all, Crestone Needle and Peak above sheer cliffs to the SE. Naturally, the Fourteeners near Blanca, 30 miles away, never came out of the clouds.

I had hopes of crossing to Challenger Point, but gave up that idea. I measured the north slope down to the saddle at 60 degrees near the top. Later I heard that the best way is to skirt the main peak on the west, well below it, not come off the summit.

We departed at 1320, returned to the main gully, then slowly and doggedly climbed the side gully back to the sub-peak at 1420. After reaching the east saddle again, a nasty lighting and hailstorm started, so we took shelter in a shallow gully past the saddle. We watched bolts hitting just across the way, all over the Crestones, and conserved our heat in the cold rain. Finally, after a second cell drifted across from the NW, we continued back to the Playground. On reaching it, the skies were clear and blue, and the sun warm, as the storms departed to the east. Lounging on the edge, peering down to the South Colony Lakes, was delicious.

We found a steep scree couloir down from the flats to the boulder-strewn bottom of the South Colony basin, passing below the awesome cliffs NE of Crestone Peak and Needle. The route took us past the upper lake and a small pond, both lovely. We were back at camp, in no hurry, at 1810, making it a ten hour day, with lots of time for a leisurely dinner and an early turn-in.