Before falling asleep I’d been reading Steven Rinella’s American Buffalo so when a rumbling disturbed my sleep after 11pm I dreamed we were about to be crushed by stampeding bison. Waking up and remembering that bison don’t have headlamps I remembered the Custer Co Search and Rescue vehicles we’d seen drive up the road during dinner and I saw they were now returning. Hoping everyone was okay I returned to sleep.
Again we were away about 5:40am and hiking up to the Sangre de Cristo wilderness and the South Colony Lakes.
Instead of heading towards Broken Hand Pass, this time we walked beside the lower and upper South Colony Lakes on our way to Humboldt Peak. Since this was just a hike, all the extra weight in helmets, ice axes, harnesses and more stayed back at camp.
I’d wondered how the closing of the 4wd trailhead last fall and making everyone hike and extra 2+ miles would impact camping around the lakes. After counting 13 occupied campsites I had to believe there was little reduction in use.
From the upper lake, our trail towards Humboldt began to switchback and climb roughly a thousand feet. With the sun illuminating the east faces of Crestone Needle and Peak I mostly watched the reflected light from the lakes below.
Fat butterball marmots teared around the tundra as we reached the saddle.
We were thankful to have the shade provided by the mass of Humboldt itself to keep us cool on the entire hike to the summit. I was again glad of yesterday’s rationalizations not to do an afternoon climb of Humboldt.
The main attraction of this hike was definitely, as Gerry Roach said, “to either nervously preview or triumphantly review Crestone climbs”.
After yesterday, we were in the ranks of the latter, and with this being just a class 2 (walking) hike, I could pretty much shut off my brain.
I may have done that all too well, and started feeling a little loopy around 13,500 feet. The mass of marmots and marmot poop inspired a stream-of-consciousness story of marmots taking over the trails, enacting food tolls for hikers and enslaving the smaller pikas to act as mid-winter servants to keep their blankets securely tucked around marmot shoulders as they hibernated.
I was midway into plotting out a possible pika revolt when we crested the false west summit and could see the true summit, or could if we weren’t suddenly blinded by emerging into the sun.
After making the short final hike we had the summit to ourselves as we soaked up the sun’s warmth and took in the view of the Crestones.
We also watched a small plane fly up the South Colony drainage then buzz right past the east faces of the Crestones, shoot over the Humboldt-Crestone Peak pass and continue up the spine of the range. Wow, that must be an impressive flight.
The local marmot population was more impressed with what we were eating and came within inches of us begging before I shoo’d them off.
Last night’s delayed dessert (the Raspberry Crumble) was calling, so we started back down as Helen threatened to take away my camera.
“Well, when are we going to get any pictures of you?” she demanded. “When I’m sitting in Trinity Brewing Company with a stout in my hand.” I responded, continuing the descent.
While hiking back to the saddle we ran into a father and son wearing running garb and carrying water bottles, I verified they were the same pair I’d run into on July 4th on Mt Sherman just weeks ago. Then we spotted a group of 3 hiking up and I recognized Ryan’s hat. He’d made it back to Golden for the end of his lacrosse game and had returned here this morning for the Humboldt hike.
From the pass we continued rapidly down to the lakes and missed a right turn near the lower lake. Helen and I realized we were on a different path, but the map said this one should also return back to the old 4wd parking lot, so we followed it and didn’t see another soul all the way back to camp.
The Raspberry Crumble was quickly cooked and consumed while we broke camp and then made the 50 minute hike back to the trailhead.
A couple hours later I finally released the camera to Helen when I got the that stout in my hands.
