How to get there:
From the small town of Westcliffe, go 7 km south on Hwy. 69. Take the road
called Colfax Lane right, then follow it straight south until it ends in a T,
go right there towards the Crestones.
Just before this road gets rougher there is
a road that heads south (left), ignore this and proceed straight ahead. There
is parking here for ordinary cars.
The jeep road that continues up the hill
is quite rough, but I had no severe problems driving my Jeep all the way to
the road closure (3371 m), about 8 km, however the driving time is easily 1.5 hours.
The road crosses the creek about half way, on average the second part is quite
a bit rougher than the first, so some vehicles/drivers may find it reasonable
to park there.
The trail from the end of the jeep road to (lower) South Colony Lake (3554 m)
is about 2.3 km. This trail starts out along the left side of the river, and
stays to the left in the largely flat first section of the valley. Thereafter,
the trail climbs a very distinct hill to get up to the lake while curving right.
In early June there was quite a lot of snow making it difficult to follow the
trail. The hill has many fallen trees, but one can generally hike up pretty
much anywhere as long as one stays well left of the creek. Route description:
From our Base Camp at the Lower South Colony Lake, the route proceeds
on a trail heading for Broken Hand Pass. It initially heads in the direction
of Broken Hand Peak, then angles right and (in early June) quickly hits
a large snowfield. Traverse this and head for the somewhat steeper snow
that climbs the pass between Broken Hand Peak and Crestone Needle.
Crampons and ice axe should be carried and used.
There are two distinct rocks in the middle of this slope, see also
the picture below. This pass is at 3932 m. From here one descends on
easier terrain along a trail to Cottonwood Lake and further down the
valley until it is possible to contour right into a flat area below
Crestone Peak. From here one should see a very distinct couloir that
runs down the middle of the mountain all the way from its horizon. We
climbed up on the right hand side, across the first rock band onto
an easier slope with grass. The next rock section looked less attractive
and we therefore contoured into the couloir at this point. It may be better
to climb the rocks further (as Gerry Roach recommends), but then
likely considerably further to the right. The first part of the couloir
is quite gentle and easy, next one is faced with a steeper section
where the small creek has created a waterfall. We easily climbed up
the left side of the creek. It turned out on the return hike, that a
much drier and, in fact, easier route can be found by climbing further
left, starting about 20 m before this waterfall and following a natural
path/crack among the rocks. Above this point we had continuous snow
in the couloir, which we cramponed all the way to the notch where this
route meets the route from the north.
From this snowridge one has the highest west summit to the left while
the east summit is right. The scramble to the west summit is quite
easy from this point. I also climbed the east summit, somewhat
contrary to the guidebook I found the scramble to the east summit
to be even quicker and easier than that to the main summit. The east summit is
supposed to be 10 m lower than the west summit, while the north-east
summit is supposed to be 6 m lower than the east summit. Comments:
I did this climb with my son Pål Jørgen, age 12.
The East and West summits looks more equal in height than what is
listed, in particular, when compared with the north-east summit which
looks significantly lower.
We started from Base Camp already at 0530, reached the base of
Crestone Peak at 0815 and the summit at 1115. One hour on the peak
including the scramble to the east peak and two hours descending the
couloir, back at the base at 1415.
A somewhat hurried hike back in order
to cross the Broken Hand Pass ahead of a local thunder storm (including
a fast glissade down) brought us back to Base Camp at 1600. Ten and a half
hours, a very nice day, we were the only party climbing the peak this
day.
The approach to Broken Hand Pass.
Pål Jørgen is putting on crampons, the somewhat steeper snow
up to the pass can be seen to the left of the triangular rock that is
straight ahead from the boy.
On the top of Crestone Peak,
the view is north, Kit Caerson Mountain with Challenger Point and
Kit (and Cat) Carson Peak can be seen.
The East summit of Crestone Peak,
this summit seemed equally high, but is supposed to be 10 m lower than
the main (west) summit. The climb from the very leftmost part of
the snow to the East summit was quite easy.