Crestone Needle

Route: Crestones Traverse
Posted On: 7/11/2025, By: asmith9118
Info: Camped at South Colony Lakes the night before—plenty of camping spots, incredible alpine basin. Ascended Broken Hand Pass (trail fades at times; crux near notch requires minor scrambling). Descended to Cottonwood Lake, then up Red Gully—long, sustained, mostly Class 2+, but I used hands often for balance. Rock was solid, and exposure was minimal until near the top. Easy, short Class 4 scramble up to Crestone Peak. Entrance to traverse is about midway through Red Gully, easily identifiable by cairn and obvious "W" shaped rock formation to hikers right (descending). Navigation on the ridge was fairly easy with preparation beforehand. There is a mildly visible use path in some sections, and there are cairns. The Black Gendarme (5.2) felt secure—short bulge, good holds, over quickly. The knife edge is short but requires composure. From there, the terrain ramps up to mostly Class 4 with exposure increasing steadily toward the Needle’s headwall. The headwall is intimidating. I decided on a direct midline ascent, transitioning to a leftward crack leading to a ledge a little more than midway up that I called the decision point. This was the crux of the wall. The decision is - do you follow the rock formation up the left side (cliff type of exposure, fewer secure footholds), do you go to the right (maybe more vertical climbing type of exposure feeling - seemed more technical), and possibly even directly up (similar to going right). There is a way to go left halfway, using the rock formation as handholds, and then transition to going over the rock bulge, and then traversing right to another ledge. From there, you have to climb a few more feet until it's Class 4 that you can stand on. Descent down the South Face was taxing—long stretches of Class 4 downclimbing with tricky route-finding. GPX helped but still ended up off-route once. Glad to link up with a few others for a short section. After completion and reflection: pre-study helps tremendously, and route-finding is key (especially on the unfamiliar descent off the Needle). Be mentally and physically ready after the summit. The headwall demands respect, but it rewards you with incredible movement and solitude. My overall grade for my particular route on the headwall is: Sustained Class 4+/5- climbing with a single short crux rated at about 5.2 (technical), 5.4 (psychological exposure). 

Route: Crestones Traverse
Posted On: 7/8/2025, By: gdonohue3
Info: Did the Crestones Traverse on 7/5. Had perfect conditions and it’s definitely in full summer mode. Few ice spots but overall very avoidable. After reading so many other reviews and perspectives I felt slightly different than some of the ones I saw and want to point out things I didn’t see mentioned of as much. First, the beginning of the traverse is pretty straightforward and following the cairns is pretty clear. Finding the entry was a big question for most people we ran into but, if you look for the cairn around 13,700ft you’ll get it. Now the more technical parts of the traverse. The 5.2 bulge is way more challenging than I felt like it was played off to be. The hand holds aren’t great and it’s not clear on how to get through it effectively. Felt like I was spreading myself too thin to get through it. Took a couple tries to find something that worked and I wouldn’t recommend what I did haha. I’m not the tallest human (5’7”) but, even my climbing partner struggled and felt similarly. The knife edge is not that crazy or spooky and don’t bother reading the 14ers description because it makes it more confusing than just your common sense to exit it. The crux wall was the thing I was most intimidated by leading up to it and it ended up being way better than expected. We went way left and up the “easier but more exposed” route. Honestly, it’s all very exposed so I don’t agree with that description of which is worse. But way left was enjoyable and so beautiful. The holds are great and felt solid. Of course don’t sell out on any hold but, felt good going up this. After feeling like the worst was over, down climbing Needle was rough. The cairns are few and far between. If you feel like you’re going the wrong way, you’re probably not. It’s a lot of guessing and making sure we weren’t missing the exit. But, it goes on forever and is steep and slow down climbing the gully. Reading the description in reverse is not ideal. We heavily relied on the gpx map file to know if we were on track or not. Looking up the route, cairns are clear but if you didn’t go up Needle it’s hard to see them on the way down. Overall, I think the traverse was well worth it! After heavily studying this route I wanted to call out points that I felt were missed or not talked about enough. Hope this helps future climbers! 

Route: Crestones Traverse
Posted On: 6/29/2025, By: dmorris3
Info: Did the Traverse on 6/28. It’s is pretty much summer conditions minus snow before Broken Hand Pass and snow around the 5.2 bulge on the traverse. Both of these spots didn’t present any issues—the snow felt good in the heat. This was my third 14er of the year and I am still getting acclimated to the altitude. Be ready for a long, but fun day. I’ve attached some photos. So if Crestone Peak, Needle, or Traverse is on your list of peaks to do this summer, it’s completely ready. 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 6/26/2025, By: clando
Info: Day 2/2 in the Sangres. Knocked out the Crestones and subpeaks. 4/4 for the traverses. I attached pictures of conditions. So they’re not pretty but should give some useful beta. Overall, very little snow. Almost total summer conditions on all parts. BHP has snow below the crux in some traversable or avoidable fields. The crux has a little bit of ice on one side, but doesn’t affect it much. No snow above the crux. Crestone’s red gully is almost snow free. All water and snow was avoidable. If doing the traverse, you’ll likely have to cross a few snow filled gullies to reach the route on the way back done. There is a bit of snow in the Crestone/EC notch, but avoidable. If anyone is planning on doing NEC, the gully down to the EC/NEC notch is full of frozen snow and ice. Not doable with spikes. I would prob want crampons and an axe or two. I ended up doing a diagonal down climb to reach the notch, not a great idea. Very few holds. The scramble up NEC from the notch is clear and solid. My only realistic option back up was the 4/5 climb up EC east face from the notch. I’d advise waiting for it to melt or preparing for a real interpretive scramble to get to that notch. The traverse from peak to needle is in good shape overall. No spikes or axe needed, unless you wanted it. Besides the aforementioned snow in the red gully to start the traverse, there wasn’t any snow until just below the 5.2 crux bulge. It’s frozen pretty well with steps kicked into it. I walked right up it, no issues. There is also more snow and some little bits of clear ice above the crux and below the knife edge. Plenty of rock to grab onto, but worth mentioning. That is the last snow I saw. Crestone Needle is essentially bone dry. Cairns are well placed, didn’t even need the 14ers guide for it. Ran into lots of great people out in the area, had a blast. 

Route: Ellingwood Arete/Ledges
Posted On: 6/23/2025, By: Dbearie
Info: Route is completely dry. No spikes needed. Get it. 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 6/16/2025, By: HokieTom
Info: Crestone Needle has a lot of snow in both gullies. I will post photos shortly. 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 6/16/2025, By: tylerdaniels
Info: Took the standard route up on Saturday. Snow was mostly stable until just before the class 4 crux, where it got pretty icy. The guys in front of us took a rock rib down from this section (on climbers right, descender’s left), will post a photo of that. Above that section, snow was avoidable. Broken hand pass was very icy/sketchy in that last steep section, I only had axe + spikes but I really don’t think it would’ve been safe with crampons either, that was definitely the worst part of the day up and down. 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 5/19/2025, By: mmontello1
Info: Summer conditions to the lakes. Then, all snow from bottom of Broken Hand to summit via East Gully. 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 1/23/2025, By: bigfoot1
Info: Yep you guessed it, another attempt, but this time from South Colony! Originally planned to do Marble but decided last minute to send it to Needle. Road is medium packed, sinking down 1-3" in soft snow. Bare booted up and snowshoed down to trench out/smooth the skin tracks so there is a soft packed snowshoe trench now. I underestimated amount of snow again heading up to BHR (this time I checked sat images from cal topo though so I at least tried) and some of the wind drifts were pretty sketchy. In some sections, there are 4-6" thick hard packed wind slabs on top of loose faceted snow and I was hearing some hollow whumps. There are about 3 meh level slab crossings and then the last bit up to BHP is all slab (I rate ehhhhhhh level slab) at ~12.5k ft. I didn't want to stick around to see that one let go, and I had lost my sunglasses, so I turned around to find them. I put on snowshoes at around 11k and dropped them just past South Colony Lake around 11.8k ft and switched to crampons once the slab crossings started. While this approach is easier than Cottonwood, I think the slabs on this side are much sketchier than the ones on the west and I think Cottonwood is the overall easier option to grab the Crestones. The east valley is mostly shaded so it is really really cold. Time to BHR is probably about the same for me from either Cottonwood or South Colony though, so pick your poison. Ended up clocking 14.5 miles and didn't even make it to BHR. On my way up, no obvious tracks to Humboldt. Wind must have blown over the tracks from yesterday already. On way out, someone had dragged a sled heading to humbolt but I don't think the sled people summited either lol. 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 1/15/2025, By: daway8
Info: Finally reached the summit despite some navigational blunders that put me into different bits of spicy class 5 terrain on the way up and down, and also onto to some crazy steep snow by accident. Thankfully all the snow stayed stable. Once again new snow partly covered my previous tracks - anywhere from half an inch to 6 inches to a few spots where the storm stalled and dumped a foot or more. Also, a snowstorm that I didn't see in any forecasts hit as I was starting up the East Gully. If you drop far enough you can find continuous snow - just barely in spots - from the start of the gully to the summit ridge, but huge variation in quality. Some spots bulletproof where crampons were greatly appreciated, other spots where I'd sink knee deep or more and pray nothing started sliding. There was also snow covered rock next to the gully and I eventually decided that made for better upward progress in places. On the way down I glissaded a good chunk near the top, triggering lots of mini slides, but nothing ran more than about 10 feet. Later switched to a rapid reverse front pointing on steep sections I wasn't confident glissading. Due to my accidental detours and the time and energy spent extracting myself, including an unintended class 5 downclimb in the dark, this climb totally wiped me out, and left me practically dragging my body back to the trailhead a little over 24hrs after I started, but that means I'll shortly upload photos of a rare winter sunset on the summit. 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 1/9/2025, By: daway8
Info: Bailed just after 13k. Started solo in bitter cold with enough fresh snow to cover all previous footprints. Trail was still easy to follow except a couple spots where the new snow made me briefly lose the trail. Also some areas with boulders and fallen trees that filled in just enough to hide trap doors. This all contributed to making me much slower than when I did this same approach for Crestone Peak. Bigfoot overtook me at Cottonwood Lake and led the charge up to BHP. We did it in snowshoes but in retrospect microspikes may have actually worked better. Surprised to find more snow above the pass than what I encountered below. Found one spot with a wind slab several inches thick suspended over soft fluff. Some areas I sank to my knees or more. Tried to go high on the rocks but that just added a lot of scrambling before needing to risk steep snow slopes anyways. Had burned enough time and energy by this point that I didn't want to risk having to deal with possible class 5 bypasses on the descent in the dark. Next time will give myself more time and go with crampons straight from the pass. Adding some photos. 

Route: Cottonwood Creek
Posted On: 1/8/2025, By: bigfoot1
Info: Attempt. My excuse this time for not summiting is that I don't like finishing in the dark and altitude sickness. Lower trench is less nice, has about 1-2" of new fluff. Caught up with David, who re-broke out most of the trench this time. I put snowshoes on after the rocky bit at treeline. Stable wind slabs up to broken hand pass. I was already over an hour behind schedule so I sat there and enjoyed the view for a bit and then abandoned David who continued on to the summit. This is my third time going up this trail and the few nasty bits keep holding me up a lot longer than expected. I will probably not attempt this again until I am sure I can summit (something) by noon. 4.5hrs to Broken Hand Pass, total 7 hours. 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 1/6/2025, By: Skimo95
Info: Tough day on the needle yesterday. Boot pack is in with a dusting to tree line. After tree line to BHP and beyond previous tracks have been filled in. I carried snowshoes to the base of BHP and dropped them. Wore micro spikes up the pass before switching to crampons. A few inches of sugar and sometimes wind loaded snow made things interesting and very time consuming. At times going up central gully I would kick steps to my waist and wallow out of it with my axe on rock. Tried to nail the best route on descent but it was still slow going with plenty of class 4+ to be had. I hardly remembered the route from 5 years ago. I wouldnt recommend following my booter unless youre ready to get into some low 5. Storm came in on ascent, and I made it back to tree line by dark. Hell of a day for me personally. 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 1/4/2025, By: Wildernessjane
Info: We did our part to keep the Cottonwood Creek trench in place :). Summited the Needle and did the more challenging portion of the traverse. We underestimated how long it would take, especially with carrying snowshoes, and were running out of daylight so we bailed down a gully and did not do the Peak. There is a very new looking anchor for the rappel off the Needle and we left a little bit of webbing for a hand line off the 5.2 section. It was windier than expected so I did not take any good beta pictures. I used crampons and an ice axe but my friend used microspikes most of the day, lol. You are on and off snow and rock a lot. Microspikes were also really nice to have on the approach trail as there is a ton of ice. We did use snowshoes on and off on the way in from about 11,200 to Broken Hand Pass but not at all on the way out. Also, we did see someone over on the summit of Crestone Peak. 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 12/29/2024, By: daway8
Info: Basically an addendum to my last CR, but adding a new entry for visibility: after uploading and analyzing my recent tracks I crunched the numbers for how much untrenched effort currently remains to get to the top of Broken Hand Pass from either side of the mountains - these are rough numbers from sketches on the map. Figured I'd pass this along in case anyone gets to it before me. That way you can poach my part of the trench and I can poach your part, lol. Cottonwood side: TH 8,438ft; trenched to about 12,200ft; remaining to be trenched to top of BHP = ~0.75mi, ~750ft gain. SCL side: TH 8,777ft; trenched to about 11,550ft; remaining to be trenched to top of BHP = ~1.25mi, ~1,400ft gain.