After Lindsey, I hit the gas/convenience store south of Westcliffe and restocked on Gatorade and assorted junk foods. When you're solo you can eat whatever you want and for me it's usually pretty unbalanced, nutritionally at least. To the South Colony Lakes 2wd trailhead I went and set up carcamp. I was asleep by nine.

In the dark I pushed up the road on the ATV, making it pretty far until snow finally stopped me. I would ski down Humboldts' long Southwest gully to near there so it was actually the prefect place to stop.

I skinned past a tent of sleepy climbers camped in the summer parking area and was at the lower lake in about forty-five minutes. Having been here in March to ski the Needle I was pretty familiar with the route through the trees.

Above the lake the typical Sangre winds picked up, and big clouds were coming— not the T-storm type, just the mean, windy, low visibility kind. I followed snow between sections of dry trail to the saddle on Humboldts' west ridge(summer route)and then followed more snow and scree to the summit. Thankfully the winds were from behind because they were strong and against the skis on my back they pushed me all over.

At the top, in the marginal shelter of the windbreak I looked for evidence of others but found nothing. The register was buried and the winds quickly erase any footprints. It was earlier this week that a couple summited, spent the night(planned) up top and had an accident on the descent where one died. His name was David Worthington and although I never met him, something tells me we've crossed paths on some mountain somewhere before, unknowingly.

I put my skis on and headed down. I thought about how much I get out of these trips to the mountains, in a spiritual sense. I thought about the often used cliche said when a climber dies, 'at least he died doing what he loved'. I've met people, not into mountains or climbing, who don't understand why we take the risks involved, who say that whole cliche is a 'copout' excuse.

I disagree.

On to more uplifting stuff— my return to Needle Creek.