​by T. Duren Jones
​

Mistakes Happen

We assumed that the Crestones would not be as difficult to climb as the books stated. 

“Good judgment comes from bad experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.” (Author unknown) 

My son Cary and I hadn’t planned to summit three 14ers that day. The agenda was to top just the two Crestones, but Humboldt Peak (elevation 14,064 ft.) was on the way, in the neighborhood, so to speak, and we really did not want to drive up the ridiculously rough 4x4 road another time to the South Colony Lake Trailhead.

The morning was cloud-free and gorgeous, and the day stayed that way. To get to the base of the Crestones, we decided to hike past the South Colony Lakes and then take the trail that ascends to Humboldt Saddle. This was a mistake, as we added about a mile of round-trip hiking, exerted extra effort and ate up precious time. We assumed that the quick side trip would not impact our overall plans much. We assumed that the Crestones would not be as difficult to climb as the books stated. We forgot Wethern’s Law: “Assumption is the mother of all screw-ups.”

This steep gully greeted us with loose rock and dirt. Our ascent was slow and difficult, real hand-and-foot stuff. 

Crestone Peak, seen from Kit Carson Peak

A gust of wind lifted our route directions off a rock and in a micro-second mailed it over the summit’s cliff edge. 

It was 7:30 by now, and in the dimming light we stopped to reconsider. We would have to come back another day to bag Crestone Needle. We had to get off the mountain before dark.​

Having conquered our Humboldt detour, we worked our way across Bear’s Playground, looking around warily and wondering if this area was aptly named. Then we traversed a ledge system above cliff bands to the North Couloir that leads to the top of Crestone Peak (14,295 ft.). This steep gully greeted us with loose rock and dirt. Our ascent was slow and difficult, real hand-and-foot stuff (I try not to use the word dangerous when reporting our climbs back to my wife), but we finally summited our second peak around 4:30 p.m.

The goal in climbing any 14er is to be up and off the top by noon, to avoid afternoon thunderstorms. We were a bit off schedule, to say the least (especially with one more peak to go), but the good weather held. Due to our less-than-optimal start time, the creep in our SUV up the 4x4 trail, our side trip to Humboldt, and the challenge of the North Couloir on Crestone Peak, we were just now sitting down on top of Crestone Peak to have our lunch-dinner break.  

Mistake Number 2, or 3 or 4 (I’m going to stop counting) was setting down the map we were studying while we snacked. A gust of wind lifted our route directions off a rock and in a micro-second mailed it over the summit’s cliff edge. Cary and I watched helplessly as it fluttered and spun hundreds of feet, then out of sight. We sat stunned; neither of us spoke.

The Crestone Peak to Crestone Needle (14,203 ft.) traverse—one of the four classic traverses in Colorado mountaineering—is a challenging and complicated route, requiring experience and a good map. We looked over the edge again, into the void. Fortunately, I had a back-up map, but it was not as detailed. Our route finding would be tested to the max.

We determined that the connecting traverse was a couple hundred feet below the jagged ridge crest, and it looked very formidable from a distance. The two peaks are separated by a straight-line distance of about half a mile, but the terrain was an intricate mess to navigate. Going was slow as we were very deliberate about not making errors. There were very few cairns to allow us to “connect the dots,” and the ledges were narrow with sharp drop-offs. After a couple of hours, route finding became even more demanding and real climbing began again.

We were now close to the base of the towers called the Three Gendarmes, and we could see the small Needle summit. We knew that one of the many gully or couloir choices was our route to the top. But we didn’t know which one, and our simple map didn’t show us the right way up. I was pretty exhausted by now—we both were—but Cary, being the younger, more reckless, tested a couple of routes, hitting only cliffy dead ends. 

I felt I had to make the call. We had really wanted to summit all three peaks and were so close—within a few hundred feet. But it was 7:30 by now, and in the dimming light we stopped to reconsider. We would have to come back another day to bag Crestone Needle. We had to get off the mountain before dark.

There was no way we were going back the way we’d come, especially since it meant descending the steep North Couloir at night. We studied our map and decided to go down to the valley below us, to Cottonwood Creek, and then climb up and over Broken Hand Pass. From there, we’d drop down back to South Colony Lakes and pick up the trail to the car. It was an ambitious plan. 

As the light faded, we carefully inched our way down gullies, making our own trail past large rock outcroppings to the valley below. In the transition to a moonless night, the towering formations around us took on an eerie presence. We were using our flashlights well before we reached the Cottonwood Creek basin.

We stopped several times to catch our breath and eat and drink something for fuel and hydration. Most of our supplies were gone by now. We were spent. 

I’ve come out of the forest several times in the dark, after a long hike or climb. But I’d never come down off the top of a mountain in ink-black conditions. This was crazy. And slow. And physically and mentally grueling. At 1:30 a.m., we decided to call it quits. I had a general idea where we were, based on the landmarks we’d passed and our directional progress. This placed us, I believed, at a spot where there were cliffs below us and to our right. I had read about a hiker who died falling over these cliffs, in a similar situation to ours. I didn’t want to take any chances getting too close to what I couldn’t see coming, so we stopped. We couldn’t have taken another step anyway. We would spend the remainder of the night on the mountain and start down again at dawn.

If, as it is said, “mistakes are sometimes the best memories,” then we made great memories that day! And, if it is true that “it’s amazing how much more you can learn by making mistakes than you can by making perfect decisions,” then we learned a lot from this outing. Since you are reading this report, you may assume that we made it. But, as it’s also said, there is much more to the story. This piece is an excerpt from my book, Tales from the Trails. If you would like to read about more of my wilderness adventures, please consider purchasing the book, available from Amazon. 

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