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Climbing Crestone Needle and Crestone Peak | Ellingwood Ledges, Sangre de Cristo Range, CO United States | 08/06/08, by TeleMonster

Colorado's Sangre de Cristo range is home to the Crestone group.  Among other mountains, this group includes Crestone Peak and Crestone Needle.  One of Colorado’s four routes to make it into Steck and Roper’s “50 Classic Climbs in North America” is located on a very aesthetic ridge leading to the summit of Crestone Needle.  The original name given to this route by Ellingwood himself is Ellingwood Ledges, but it is often referred to these days as the Ellingwood Arête.

The rock quality in the Crestones has a reputation for being some of the highest quality alpine rock in Colorado.  Geologically, the rock is a conglomerate of the same formation as the rock found in Eldorado Canyon and the Flatirons near Boulder, CO.  I had been feeling the tractor beam pull of this route for some time and decided it was finally time to do something about it.



After hiking in and camping near the base of the climb on Thursday night, my partner and I awoke the next morning in time to begin climbing at first light.  We opted for a direct start which added about three pitches of 5th class climbing at the base of the route.  The standard route involves a less direct class 3-4 scramble to the climber’s left of the direct start.  There are multiple potential lines for a direct start up the initial apron including a prominent chimney and dihedral.  We opted for the dihedral right of the obvious chimney.


We simul-climbed for the equivalent of about three pitches before topping out on the lower buttress and beginning the namesake ‘ledges’ portion of the route.  The lower part of the route involved mostly easy climbing with a few moderate sections no more difficult than 5.7.  We unroped for the 4th class ledges section and cautiously worked our way to the next and final stretch of climbing.


There were 4 other climbing parties on the route, one of which was ahead of us.  We had a few rock missiles whiz past us as loose rocks were abundant on the 4th class stretch.



In general, the routefinding was pretty strait forward and protection was sparse, except for when you needed it.  We encountered several old pitons, a couple of bolts, and a few stuck nuts – most of which were not to be trusted.  My partner and I swapped leads on the four upper pitches, which landed us on the summit of Crestone Needle.  The rock quality and aesthetic quality of the route met all my expectations, making it worthy of its reputation in my mind.


Our original plan was to traverse from the summit of Crestone Needle to Crestone Peak.  Since the weather was looking like it would hold long enough for us to accomplish this, we began the traverse.  Most parties rappel off the summit of the Needle and then begin traversing.  Keith and I opted for an adventurous downclimb and subsequent traverse to get back to the standard traverse route.


Getting off the Needle was the hardest part of the traverse from Needle to Peak.  Once we got down to the standard traverse route, we were able to relax and enjoy the 3rd class scrambling that dominated the rest of the route to the summit of Crestone Peak.

Continuing our loop and Tour de Crestones, we climbed down the opposite side of the Peak from which we approached.  The descent wasn't too technical compared to what we had already done, and we hurried to beat the incoming weather.


Although we didn't make it back to the tent before the hail, rain, thunder and lightning began, we did make it off the mountain and down to a safe location before the squall attacked.  This was one of the finest days in the Colorado mountains I've had yet.


The next day we slept in before a nice hike up Humboldt Peak, the third and final 14er of our trip.  There wasn't much climbing to speak of on this hike, but the rewards were in the form of views of the Crestones and abundant wildlife.


Not only did we see the standard alpine wildlife, but due to the time of year, we were fortunate enough to see the babies of most of the standard critters: ptarmigan and baby ptarmigan, marmots and baby marmots, pikas and baby pikas, sheep and lambs, chipmonks, and a porcupine.


We returned to camp before noon and proceeded to lie down for a nap in the meadow next to our tent.  After throwing several rocks at me to get me wake up, my partner finally succeeded and informed me that there was a sheep behind me.  I turned around and there was a ewe, about 20 feet away, looking inquisitive.  Shortly thereafter, three lambs and two more ewes showed up to join in the fun. We watched them and took several pictures over the next hour or two.  They left the vicinity of our camp once they had eaten all the pee grass.