This past weekend brothers Tom & Casey Kaptur once again joined Crested Butte Mountain Guides for a guided trip to the Sangre De Cristo Mountains for climbs of the difficult Crestone Peaks. The Kaptur’s have been regular guests of ours on their quest to complete all of the Colorado Fourteeners.
This year’s trip into the Crestones had a somewhat auspicious start, with a low level storm with lots of moisture blanketing the range on our approach day, so we opted for the dry comforts of town in the small ranching village of Westcliffe, CO, instead of camping and starting our trip off in the midst of a storm.
A 2am start from town had us bouncing up the 4wd South Colony Lakes Rd in the dark and leaving from the upper trailhead at 4am for an attempt at the Crestones Traverse. We were able to make good time under clear but windy conditions and reached 12,900′ Broken Hand Pass at sunrise, where we enjoyed a beautiful ridge walk above the clouds below and under the early morning sun.
Once in the East Couloir on the Needle we roped up and made a climb straight up the gully to it’s terminus on the ridge, enjoying mostly 3rd and 4th class Crestone conglomerate knob climbing to the summit ridge, where a short scramble along the exposed ridge took us to an early morning 8:30 am summit.
Rapidly building clouds, deceasing visiblity, and high winds made the call for us that conditions for the traverse to CrestonePeak were not optimal so we opted to descend from the Needle with one difficult and successful summit under our belts and return to South Colony Lakes where we could set up camp and attempt Crestone Peak the following day.
Once down at South Colony Lakes the weather seemed to be breaking, so Tom opted to try and tack on a climb of Humboldt Peak (14,064′) via it’s easy 2nd class route by himself, while Casey rested and secured a good campsite amongst the approaching weekend crowd, and I ran down to the truck at the trailhead to get our remaining overnight gear. As luck would have it, the weather took and incredible turn for the worst, and a half-hour after our sunny blue skies an incredibly fast moving storm was overhead and in no time was pelting sideways rain and hail while I hurried back with tents, and Tom was forced to retreat from 13,000′ on Humboldt.
The rest of the afternoon was spent in our repective tents, soaked from being caught out there but warm, and waiting for that typical Colorado evening clearing so we could dry ourselves and gear off before tomorrow’s pre-dawn freezing cold start for Crestone Peak. We barely eeked out 45 min of evening sun, before shadow and night hit, and went to bed damp but motivated for the next day.
Day 3 had us up early before the sun again, and walking out of camp at the lakes by 4am to be ahead of the weekendcrowd on popular Crestone Peak. The morning dawned clear and cold, and we made good time up over Broken Hand Pass again, anddown around to Cottonwood Lake and the base of Crestone Peak’s Southerly Red CouloirRoute. At the 12,600′ mark where we entered the gully proper, Casey had opted to turn around and save Crestone Peak for another day feeling sluggish andtired from the length and difficulty of the previous day’s climb.
So as Casey chose to turn back, Tom & I opted to continue our climb, and headed into the clouds and frigid October like temperatures, making our way up the long 3rd and 4th class gully. We reached the summit by 8:15 am we were greeted with a surreal mix of clouds, sunshine, and lots of winds, with an incredible view above the clouds to the east of the range, and clear blue skies to the west. We snapped some photos ate some food and were headed back down quickly….a good decision since we passed 28 people still on the way up!
Arriving back in camp by 1pm, to find Casey in good spirits and the weather completely stabilized and clear, Tom opted to once again try for the easy and thus far elusive Humboldt peak, so off he went again, this time I went with him as guardian against the weather (yeah right) and for moral support and company. By 3:30 pm we had reached the summit of Humboldt under clear skies, and racked up almost 6200′ of vertical !!! A slow descent on tired legs and achy knees brought us back to camp and on to Casey waiting on us at the trailhead with the last of a few swigs of Crown Royal in honor of our big days and success on the Crestone Peaks.
Congrats again boys, looking forward to the next adventure.
—Your Guide, Jayson Simons-Jones (CBMG Owner / Guide)
