Being tied to Aspen through most of winter, my last trip to ski a 14er was in December when I went to Kit Carson with Chris Davenport. With the arrival of spring and the forecast looking good, and thanks to the modern day ski mountaineers research(online trip reports) showing favorable conditions in the Sangres, I thought it was time to go for the Crestone Needle.

Max Taam, Aspen Mountain patroller and local bike racing star(read: good trailbreaker)was interested so we loaded up the truck and with a snowmobile in tow, headed to the South Colony Lakes TH. Camping at the truck we were up early and apart from some downtime with an overheated sled, were at the summer 4wd parking in good time.

We skinned to the lower lake then found ourselves following a blown in boot track up to Broken Hand Pass. From there we traversed, much like the route in summer, to the base of the couloir. Wow, it looked fun— very steep, and very narrow. Facing SE we were still ahead of the suns' warming so we cramponed hard snow, thinking in a little while this would soften up good and make for fun skiing. It was cool to be here. There's nothing introductory about this mountain, with technical climbing routes on nearly all sides this is the only feasible ski line, and in its best condition can still be harrowing. When it corns up it would be sweet.

As luck on these trips often goes, the softening never happened. There was just enough cloud cover and light wind to keep the snow frozen. As I clicked into my skis I was longing for my Nordicas back home. The sideslipping and jump turns on 'slide-for-life' frozen snow in the narrow couloir required a bit more precision than my wimpy AT boots provided. It was gripping at first but in the end it's the challenges that arise that make the day memorable.

Upon exiting the couloir we found ourselves testing our rock climbing comfort levels making 5th class moves in ski boots with big packs, which is always good for some late day adrenaline. Eventually we were back at Broken Hand Pass dropping in to wintry, north facing snow, that took us all the way down to the lake, back to the sled, and ultimately home to Tims' rookie keg party that night. Fun day.

While checking out the summit register, I saw the Crested Butte crew had been here two days before and apparently got the great conditions we sought(read here)— as always, it's all in the day.

The next one would be Shavano.