HUMBOLDT PEAK
14,064 ft.
July 7, 1997
By Tim Briese
(Note: For another trip report on a more recent climb I have done of Humboldt Peak, see the More Climbs page.)
I headed south to Westcliffe with my nine year old daughter Emily on a warm Sunday afternoon, with the goal of climbing Humboldt Peak the next morning. The long Fourth of July holiday weekend was just concluding, and we aimed to avoid the holiday weekend crowd in South Colony Basin by doing the climb on Monday. I had hiked up into this enchanting basin the year before to have a look, and I was eager to return now to climb my first 14er in the Sangre de Cristo Range.
It took us about an hour to drive the rugged five miles up the extremely rough four wheel drive road to the trailhead, where we arrived early in the evening. We found a splendid spot to camp near a couple of huge logs lying in the heavy timber nearby. We were treated to a nice view of the pointed summit of the Crestone Needle above the trees to the northwest.
We arose at dawn the next morning and struck off up the trail under a clear sky with our lab Sadie. After hiking about a mile we reached beautiful Lower South Colony Lake, which lies in an elegant bowl at timberline, with the Crestone Needle towering above. South Colony Basin is one of Colorado’s magnificent places, with two beautiful lakes in a high alpine valley ringed by rugged peaks. We continued past the east side of the lake and soon came to the upper lake, where we saw a couple of backpacker’s tents on grassy shelves above the opposite shore.
At the upper end of the basin we headed steeply uphill on a trail that ascended Humboldt’s broad western shoulder. Emily, adventurous spirit that she is, wanted to bushwhack straight up the grassy slope instead of following the trail, which we did for a while. I felt a little guilty about our environmental insensibility in hiking off-trail across the fragile tundra, but I must admit that my environmental conscience was not yet quite fully developed at the time. We spotted a bighorn sheep a couple of hundred yards away that stood and gazed curiously at us. We reached Humboldt’s west ridge just above the saddle below to the west and began to scramble over boulders up the ridge. A grand view of the Crestone Needle and Crestone Peak was beginning to appear across the valley to the west.
We relentlessly climbed upward, and eventually reached what appeared to be the summit, but were disappointed to discover that it was only a false summit, with the real one a quarter of a mile further to the east. Such is the nature of mountain climbing! We reached the true summit around 10 a.m., and sat and gazed at the magnificent scenery around us for a while. My eyes were drawn as if by a magnet to the jagged summits of Crestone Peak and the Needle off to the west, as I wistfully contemplated the possibility of climbing them someday, with both excitement and terror running through my mind. I did not know if I would ever climb those rugged 14ers or not.
The sky was still mostly clear but some white clouds were beginning to puff up to the northwest. We left the summit about 10:30 and began hiking back down the ridge to the slope below, and met about a half dozen other climbers who were on their way up. As we hiked past the beautiful lakes down in the basin, I studied the route up to Broken Hand Pass high above to the west, which I would take in the future if I ever climbed the Crestone Needle. The couloir below the pass was still filled with snow, and looked extremely steep and intimidating from this vantage point far below. I shuddered at the thought of climbing up there, but realized I might return to this magnificent place someday to do so.
Sadie ran off into the bushes and presently returned from the vicinity of a backpacker’s camp licking her chops, and we wondered in dismay if she had helped herself to some camper’s precious food. We got back down to our camp early in the afternoon and packed up and headed down the rough old road toward home.
It was a fun adventure to climb Humboldt Peak. Humboldt is somewhat of an anomaly, since it is an easy peak to climb in the midst of rugged and difficult ones. Its relative accessibility, though, makes it a superb vantage point from which to enjoy the surrounding grandeur.
