Day 4 - Humboldt, Kit Carson, Challenger, and the Crestones.
This was one of the days that I was most nervous about going into this trip. Linking up Humboldt, Kit Carson, Challenger, Crestone Peak, and the Crestone Needle. It was going to be a lot of time up high and a few exposed 5th class moves.
I got started at about 3:30am (after making camp at midnight). I made it to Humboldt in time to watch the sunrise.
I had service up there so I checked the weather and got this scary weather notice:
That was front of mind all day whenever the wind kicked up for a second or I saw a storm cloud in the distance.
The ridge walk over to Kit Carson was good fun. It was a lot of loose rocks but nothing super scary. There’s an engaging 3rd class scramble. I saw a lot of mountain goats up there. I’d never seen so many baby ones before. What a life, just living up there.
The view from Challenger is one of the coolest views I’ve seen in CO. From there I could see all of the peaks I’d climb during the day.
The climb up the NW buttress of Crestone Peak to start the Crestone traverse has a 5.2 sequence that I’d read about and had been trying to not dwell on all day. You can read the description here.
Being up high for over 10 hours by the time I got to that crux had cracked me a little mentally. As I started the sequence my leg started to really hammer and I had to remind myself that panicking would be the end of me and seeing as I have plans I’m looking forward to after this trip I couldn’t let that happen. The climbing wasn’t hard, I just took my time and made sure I loved every hold before shifting my weight onto it.
The walk back to camp was a long slog over loose rocks that eventually just got annoying. I got back to my bike, filtered some water and just camped along the trail.
Related peaks: crestone_peak, crestone_needle, kit_carson_peak, challenger_point, humboldt_peak