Alpineering on the Spring Creek Needle
Karen and Miles have been climbing with CBMG owner, Jayson, for almost ten years but due to a recently dislocated thumb JSJ couldn’t go out with them last week. They have climbed practically every route at Taylor Canyon and Karen has even climbed in the Black. I was left with the daunting question of where to take them climbing…
I elected to venture up Spring Creek and climb a prominent 5 pitch tower known locally as the Spring Creek Needle or as I like to call it The Aiguille de Spring Creek. Spring Creek is a lesser traveled climbing destination in Gunnison County and is heavily guarded by bushwacky approaches, exciting route finding and an alpine feel right off the road.
The adventure began with a tenuous traverse over the Spring Creek on a large dead tree and continued with an off-piste hike to the base of the climb.
Once we got to the route, the climbing was fabulous adventure climbing on beautiful granite. We opted for a route called Indestructible II 5.8. The route has a bit of everything on it from crack climbing to steep juggy face climbing and some exhilerating scrambling.
Here is photo of Karen on the arete that links the 3 and 4 pitches. Talk about exposure!
I took this photo of Miles and Karen at the top of the last pitch of 5th class climbing, a beautiful 5.7 splitter hand crack up a clean slab. From here we short-roped up to the very airy summit of the needle. Thanks for a great day out there exploring some of the lesser traveled routes in area!
-Johnny
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