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1: Wednesday, 8/21/02 We started out Wednesday a.m. with intentions of doing the Needle to Peak traverse. It had rained the day before, and throughout the night often, but not hard. We left around 5:30 a.m. We made excellent time to Broken Hand pass, and then came the offer to Jeff, Jesse and Brad - find a very obvious, man-made route marker, and they could share in a bottle of wine. Fear overtook them on the traverse, for they did not find the arrow pointing to the beginning of the couloir climb. All did very well in the couloir, but the familiar high pea-soup clouds rolled in. On the summit of the Needle, the soup was thick. Jeff and Jesse aired it out to find the rappel slings, but we backed out of the traverse due to limited visibility. Brad and Jesse eating on the Broken Hand Pass / Crestone Needle traverse. Brad appears to be holding up marmot shit:
Various Needle couloir climb pictures:
Summit pictures, aka Brad does Philly disguised as Sly:
On the descent, we just had to check out the airy couloir shooting straight down to the upper S. Colony lake. Jeff and Steve descend the scree down to rappel slings, only to find an overhang that wasn't all that appealing - not to mention we couldn't really tell what was below that. Brad and Jesse contemplate what a difficult descent Jeff and Steve must have had. Pointing, Brad could be heard saying "he was even an idiot back in 3rd grade".
Fresh off of the disappointment of not being able to air
it out on the traverse, we determined we would kick Kit Carson and
Challenger in the butt on Thursday a.m. Day 2: Thursday, 9/22/02 Jeff, for the 2nd day in a row, woke Steve up 15
minutes early. Nobody's fool, Steve barked at Jeff loudly "stop waking
me up 15 minutes early". Advantage, Helle. Grumbling, Steve refused to
leave 2 minutes earlier than the schedule 5:30. Game, Helle. Steve, as is usual, was full of confidence in trying
to figure out which way he had navigated the upper lake to get to the
climb up to the Bear's playground. As is also usual, he chose wrong. We
slogged up the scree to the playground, only to find Jeff staring at
dark blue skies over by Kit Carson. We decided to run the ridge over to
Humboldt and do it instead. Ten minutes later, Brad was in awe as he
experienced his first 14er snowstorm. The ridge was very fun, and we
summitted Humboldt in great time. Despite not being a tough climb, Humboldt proves to
provide some of the most awesome Crestone views: What a man I am for climbing that beast!
Arnold says "I should be toting guns" We were going to try this traverse? Color coordination at 14,000 ft. Day 3: Friday, 9/23/02 Was it this a.m. that Steve barked at Jeff for waking
him up too early? I think that was every morning. An early start, with a
faster pace combined with a better route to the Playground proved what
we needed. The weather held good, and Steve was impressed and pleased
with the studly pace (like anybody gave a damn). Viewing the first sub-peak of Kit Carson, i.e. the
first peak that you have to go up and down that is nearly 14,000 ft.,
Jeff optimistically declared that he saw the route going easily around
the side of the mountain. Steve declared that he was pretty certain that
we had to summit the darned thing. Summit we did, and a couple of more
sub peaks had to be put under our belt. Descending off of Kat Carson, Steve (a.k.a. Wrongway
Feldman) declared that he was on route and called for the troops.
Shortly after they arrived, Steve realized that he had chosen a
different route than intended. Wisely (as is usually the case), Steve
was mum on his mistake in order to maintain the incredibly high morale.
As it turned out, the wrong route turned out to be easier and quicker,
and Steve and Brad went on to summit Kit Carson while Jeff and Jesse did
Challenger, then Kit Carson. Jeff rounding a corner on Kat Carson
A look to the south reveals the sand dunes View of Kit Carson Ave. & summit from Kat
The Peak (right two summits) and Needle (left) Can't wait until next year!
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