Jodi looking back at Crestone Needle (14,197 ft.) at sunrise

GPS and elevation profile of our route up Crestone Needle

Google Earth profile

When I climbed Crestone Needle last summer, I knew it wasn’t going to be the last time I’d climb it. Of all of Colorado’s 14ers that I’ve hike/climbed thus far, it is my favorite scramble. There’s something about the distinctive rocky, multi-colored knobs that are a part of the conglomerate rock that makes up much of the Crestone Group so much fun! Before I had a number of Class 3 and Class 4 climbs under my belt, I was very intimidated by the Needle. Now that I consider myself a bit more experienced, I figured that it would be nice to see how much my scrambling skills and confidence had improved.

The first time I met Jodi was back in April at the 14ers.com Spring Gathering. A few weeks later, we made plans with another member, Sandy, and hiked up Humboldt Peak as a snow ascent. Since then, Jodi and I have kept in touch and met-up a couple of times for drinks and/or meals. Once, she drove up to Colorado Springs for a meeting and I took her downtown to a Mexican restaurant. A week later, after my failed attempt at climbing Kit Carson Peak’s north ridge (I was spooked off by the weather), I stopped through Cañon City and had lunch with her. Needless to say, Jodi’s one of the coolest women that I know. When I decided early in the week that I wanted to climb Crestone Needle again, I looked to her as a climbing partner. I knew she was capable; she had climbed Crestone Peak earlier in the summer. My choice of peaks provided me an opportunity to enjoy her company once again.

I picked Jodi up at her house at 2:30 AM and we drove through Westcliffe to the South Colony Lakes trailhead. We were on the trail at 4:00. I had originally wanted to start out a little earlier, but came to a painful realization that the sun is rising later in the morning as we approach Autumn. I didn’t want to have us climbing up Broken Hand Pass in the dark, so told Jodi we should probably leave a little later. The South Colony Lakes trailhead used to be a couple of miles further up the road, but the Forest Service closed that trailhead and moved it to its new location due to damage being done to the road by vehicles. When I summited Humboldt Peak for the first time, I started my hike from that old trailhead and it made the trip a lot shorter. Adding another five miles to the round-trip total was going to be interesting.

With our headlamps blaring, Jodi and I crossed a very new log bridge, signed-in at the register, and began making our way up the dark road. Hiking on it wasn’t difficult; it was just long and tedious. We enjoyed our conversation which helped pass the time. It seemed like it took us a little over an hour to reach the old trailhead at our leisurely pace. We crossed another bridge over a creek and found our way to a familiar gate. Above us, we could see the outline of Crestone Needle and Broken Hand Peak. The road continued past the gate, but eventually turned into more of a trail. I remembered from my last trip to this area that the campsites near the South Colony Lakes was not too far away. We entered the tree canopy and gained a little bit of elevation before encountering campsites. Coming to a wooden sign that read “Crestone Needle Standard Route”, we turned left and began our ascent of Broken Hand Pass.

From the trail turn-off, we began to gain elevation pretty quickly. As the eastern horizon was lightening, I saw lower South Colony Lake below us to the right. When we were high enough on the trail, we stopped to watch the sun rise over the Wet Mountains to the east. Our view of sunrise was unobstructed and beautiful. Having experienced sunrise in this area a few years ago, I knew that the Needle was soon going to be bathed in a rich, red hue. We marveled at the changing color of light as the sun rose for a few minutes before continuing on. I had never been up Broken Hand Pass from this side; when Matt and I climbed the Crestones last year, we did it from the other side via the Cottonwood Creek trailhead (with permission from the Manitou Foundation). I heard that it contained a lot of loose soil and rocks and was generally not enjoyable to climb (it has a few short Class 3 sections). I wasn’t looking forward to it — and neither was Jodi.

a few weeks prior to our climb, a couple from Texas died while trying to climb the Ellingwood Arête on Crestone Needle. They were caught in a torrential downpour and were washed right off the side of the mountain. It was another sad tragedy in what has been a deadly summer in the mountaineering community. The same storm damaged the trail up Broken Hand Pass, washing out a portion of it. As we started getting higher and approaching sketchy rock, we stopped to don our helmets. I gave Jodi my compact camera and asked her to take some photos for me. The trail damage from the rainstorm that killed the two climbers was deep and very obvious; it looked like a couple of huge boulders slid right down the mountain. Jodi and I gingerly crossed the damaged portion of the trail before scrambling up some pretty solid rock. On top of the pass, I counted at least five people that I could see. I had no idea of how many people were truly up there. Above the short scramble, we found the trail again and found our way up to the top of Broken Hand Pass.

Looking back down Broken Hand Pass. Lower South Colony Lake is visible (photo courtesy of Jodi)

The wind was blowing pretty strongly at the top of the pass. Jodi decided to put on her fleece before we continued on. From there, the trail was familiar to me having climbed the Needle last summer. We needed to traverse to the northwest toward the base of the East Gully and then ascend it. To keep the climb at Class 3, we then needed to traverse over to the West Gully and climb to the summit from there.

Crestone Needle seen from the approach to the East Gully

Jodi and Humboldt Peak on our way to the base of the East Gully

A photo of me on the approach to the East Gully

Looking up Crestone Needle’s East Gully

Jodi and I made short work of the traverse from Broken Hand Pass to the base of the East Gully. There were a couple of short Class 3 scrambles along the way, but nothing major. When we reached the base of the East Gully, we stopped for a short rest before beginning our ascent of the Needle. Once rested, I took the lead and started climbing the knobby conglomerate rock. Not to be outdone, Jodi ascended quickly behind me and looked like a pro! I thoroughly enjoyed that portion of the climb. The tricky part was going to be finding the crossover point to the West Gully. If I had been with Jerry or Brian, I probably would have wanted to ascend the entire East Gully, but past the crossover area it forms a Class 4 dihedral which I didn’t think Jodi would be comfortable climbing, so I wanted to keep our climb at Class 3.

Jodi and I reached the crossover point and traversed into the West Gully. Upon entering it, I spotted something peculiar. Someone had placed a white trash bag under a rock. I thought this sort of odd, but we paid scant attention to it and moved on. The climb up the West Gully was a little bit steeper than what we had encountered on the east side, but all of the rock was solid and fun to scramble up. All along the way, we heard voices — loud voices — but couldn’t figure out how many people were ahead of us. Jodi heard someone exclaim, “God, this sucks!” at one point when we were in the East Gully. Apparently, someone not too experienced among them.

A few shots looking up the West Gully during our ascent

When we were getting pretty close to the top of the West Gully, a few climbers began their descent. We were immediately informed that there were about twenty Texans on the summit. Great. Not only were we going to have to share the summit with all of those people, but the group was mostly inexperienced. I told Jodi that we were going to be spending at least an hour on the summit after they left it to allow them enough time to get down. When we reached the top of the gully, I found another white trash bag under a rock. Really? This one annoyed me because if I attempted to take a summit panorama while the Texans were on top, it would be a part of it. Grrr. Behind us was another couple who were about to summit as well. I gave them a heads-up about what we were about to encounter. Jodi and I walked over to the summit past the Texans and went to the far west side of it to find a place to rest. Fortunately, the Texans were about to start their descent. We only ended up sharing the summit with them for five minutes or so. Thank goodness. They were being pretty loud.

Once the crowd was dispatched, Jodi and I settled down with the other two climbers and enjoyed the summit to ourselves. I looked over at Crestone Peak; Jerry was supposed to be attempting the Peak-to-Needle traverse, but I didn’t know how long it was going to take him to complete it. He invited me to join him, but I didn’t think that Jodi was going to be up to attempting something that technical. When I mentioned Jerry’s intent to Jodi, she commented that she would like to meet him sometime. To my surprise, one of the two people we were sharing the summit asked, “Oh, do you know Jerry?” When I told him that Jerry has been my climbing partner for most of the summer, he asked, “Are you Terry Mathews? You did that northwest ridge route on Little Bear, didn’t you?” It was a bit of a shock to me that someone knew who I was. Apparently, the climbers (a man and his wife) had met Jerry at the campground near lower South Colony Lake.

The couple also informed Jodi and me that there were about fifty-five Texans altogether that were camped down there. They drove up and hiked to the campground on Thursday, then hiked up Humboldt Peak on Saturday. They were apparently on some kind of endurance trip or something. A bunch of them vomited on the way up Humboldt; there was a little bit of vomit on the summit of the Needle with us as well. It was not the most intelligent thing that I’ve ever seen done. The woman also said that they were up all night yelling across the campground to each other and that she caught a lot of them cutting down live trees to use as firewood. It’s people like this who end up giving people from their state a bad reputation up here. They just don’t have any respect for other campers or leaving the environment in the same condition it was in when they arrived.

Panorama taken from the summit of Crestone Needle

While we all sat and refueled for about fifteen minutes, I saw someone scrambling up the west side of the summit. It was Jerry! He was with another climber, Mark, whom he had met on the way up the Peak. We all greeted Jerry and I introduced him to Jodi. When I told him who he just missed, Jerry confirmed that they, indeed, kept him up into the night as well. Our summit mates left after about twenty minutes or so and bade us a fond farewell. The rest of us must’ve talked for an additional twenty minutes or so before deciding that we had allowed the Texans enough time to get far ahead of us. Before departing, though, I wanted a couple summit shots.

Jodi on the summit of Crestone Needle

Here I am holding my copy of Albert Ellingwood: Scholar of Summits by Jeff Arnold. Earlier this year, Jeff contacted me and asked permission to use one of my photos of Ellingwood Point in his book. My photo is on page 22 of his book!

Mark, Jerry, Jodi, and I began our descent of the Needle down the West Gully. We didn’t descend down quite far enough and traversed over into the East Gully too soon. Rather than crossing back over to the West Gully again, we decided to down climb the Class 4 rock. I didn’t know how much Class 4 experience Jodi had, but she handled it quite admirably. She asked me to stay close to her so I could spot her foot placements, which I gladly did. There was a fun dihedral that we had to stem our legs across to climb down. It was a blast! Jodi looked like she was having a lot of fun. I certainly did! I caught quite a few photos of her down climbing.

We eventually got back down to the Class 3 portion of the East Gully. Instead of down climbing back to the trail, we decided to traverse over to the east a little further and climbed down. It was an unfamiliar route to me, but we had all of the same kind of knobs and rocks to descend on, so it ended up being a lot of fun. Right at the end, there was a bit of a gap to leap over. I stood on the edge of the rock and leaped over the gap onto the rock below me. Jodi was uncomfortable doing the same and managed to climb down and jumping over the gap from a lower angle. Upon doing so, she hopped once and threw her hands up in the air. “I give that dismount an 8,” I said.

“Yeah, there was a bit of a hop right there at the end, wasn’t there?” she replied. We laughed and continued to descend to Broken Hand Pass.

The wind was still whipping at Broken Hand Pass. When we started descending down toward lower South Colony Lake, they dissipated a bit. Jerry and Mark went ahead of us. At one point, Jerry climbed atop a small spire and I took a photo of him with Humboldt Peak in the background. Once we were all past the Class 3 climbing the trail deteriorated, so we had to take it a little slower to avoid slipping or sending a rock slide down below us. Finally, we got onto more-stable rock and I stopped to take off my helmet. While I did, I looked down and saw some sort of fossilized plant. It was pretty cool, so I took a photo of it. Jodi joined me soon afterward and I pointed it out to her. It was a day of discovery!

Jerry and Mark had pulled way ahead of Jodi and me. By the time we reached Jerry’s campsite, Mark had already left for the trailhead. Jerry asked if we were going to wait for him or head back. We weren’t in a hurry, so we helped Jerry pack up a little and together we headed back to the trailhead. Jerry just completed seven 14ers after being on vacation for seven days, so he was tired and ready to get back home. The hike back to the trailhead was long, hot, and arduous. We passed several backpackers on the way down and warned them of the fifty-five Texans at the lake, but Jerry thought they were going to be on their way out that day, too. We arrived back at the trailhead and Jerry gave another hiker a ride down to the lower trailhead while Jodi and I unwound for a few minutes. Before long, we were back on the road, ourselves. We met Jerry at the lower trailhead and decided to head into Westcliffe together for a bite to eat.

Westcliffe had some sort of celebration going on. We asked about the big tent on the west side of town, but after talking to a couple of locals, we found out that they would charge us $15 to get in. I asked if there was a place to get pizza at and was told of a geodesic dome in Silver Cliff that served good pizza. Jodi, Jerry, and I went there and ordered a few personal-sized pizzas, enjoyed some drinks, and good conversation. After dinner, we bade Jerry a fond farewell and I took Jodi home to Cañon City before heading home, myself. I hope I get to climb with her again in the near future!

GPS stats taken from our climb up Crestone Needle

Google Earth .KML file of my route (right-click and “save target as” to save the file). NOTE: For some reason, if you’re using Internet Explorer, when you “save target as”, it changes the file extension to .XML. This is incorrect. To be able to view this in Google Earth, change the file extension to .KML before saving the file. It downloads correctly in Firefox.

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Culebra Peak (14,047 ft.) and Red Mountain (13,908 ft.), one of Colorado’s Centennial Peaks

GPS and elevation profile of my route up Culebra Peak and Red Mountain

Google Earth profile

“Culebra” is a Spanish word meaning harmless or venom-less snake. Culebra Peak was the only 14,000-foot peak I had left to summit in the Sangre de Cristo Range for a reason — it’s on private land. The landowners — Cielo Vista Ranch — while gracious-enough to allow groups of twenty-five hikers at-a-time access to the peak, reap a pretty penny. To hike to the summit of Culebra Peak will cost you $100.00. The optional trip over to Red Mountain — a Centennial Peak — costs and extra $50.00. Needless to say, many of my peers in the mountaineering community reject Culebra as being a part of their completed 14er list and often refer to it as the “ABC” list (All But Culebra). While $150 is not a drop in the bucket for me by no stretch of the imagination, I still wanted to summit Culebra and Red Mountain. After spending virtually the entire previous month’s time tackling the upper-echelon peaks of the Elk Mountains (Maroon Bells traverse, Pyramid Peak, and Capitol Peak), I just wanted to enjoy an easy hike. The southernmost 14,000-foot peak in Colorado seemed like a good option — if I could get in.

My timing couldn’t have been better. I waited until Thursday (8/12) to contact the Cielo Vista Ranch. When I did, I simply asked whether there was room on Saturday for a solo hiker. Surprisingly, the ranch just had a few cancellations earlier that day, so I went ahead and reserved a spot. The ranch emailed me a liability waiver to fill out and bring with me and a few other documents like a map of the area and some guidelines to follow. I was expected to be at the ranch’s gate by 6:00 AM and would be let in. It seemed simple enough, though starting a hike after 6:00 was not my usual style.

After work on Friday, I went home and directly to bed. My plan was to wake up at 1:00, leave at 2:00, and arrive early enough to get in as quickly as possible. It went almost as planned. I didn’t actually get on the interstate until about 2:15. To top it off, by the time I was ten miles into the trip, I realized that I forgot my camera! I turned around and sped back to my home as fast as I could, grabbed my camera, and was back on the interstate again at 2:38. I lost some valuable time and needed to make-up for it. I didn’t actually know how long it was going to take me to reach the small town of San Luis, CO — the closest town to Cielo Vista Ranch — but I knew I didn’t want to be late. I drove about five miles-per-hour faster than I normally would have and made good time. Once in Walsenburg, I headed west on US Hwy 160 over La Veta Pass and into the town of Ft. Garland. From there, I headed south on State Hwy 159 into San Luis and followed directions to the ranch from there. I arrived at the gate at 5:00 and decided to try and catch a few more winks. There were some hikers who had car camped, others who had set up tents just inside the gate (which they allow).

At 5:50, one of the ranch hands arrived to let us in. I walked up to him with a check and my waiver in hand, but he told me that he would get those items from me at the ranch office. I jumped back into my truck and proceeded through the gate. He checked off my name as I drove through and I continued on to the ranch office which was about two miles further in. The entire group of hikers parked near the office and once the ranch hand collected our money and waivers, took us back outside for a few words of encouragement, and sent us on our way. I was the first to drive up the road. Since I wanted to record 3,000 feet of elevation gain, I wanted to start at an area they refer to as “Four Way”. Most of the hikers that day parked in the same area, but a few vehicles continued on to the trailhead at the end of the road, about another mile in. I quickly donned my backpack and headed off.

I made short work of the easy hike up the road. By the time I reached the end of it, there were just a few people ahead of me, but not by far. From the road (though not to the end of it where vehicles park), a faint trail moved off toward the southeast (I noticed a small, round blue reflector near the start of the trail). One of the things that the ranch touts is that Culebra is one of the most pristine 14ers in the state. This is basically true. By limiting the amount of foot traffic that the peak sees, it doesn’t have the large and obvious trails that most 14ers do. Unlike peaks such as Pikes, Bierstadt, and Grays and Torreys (just to name a few), it doesn’t see dozens upon dozens of hikers on a daily basis in the summer months. Culebra is an easy Class 2 hike and would undoubtedly be the most frequented of the Sangres if it weren’t privately-owned. It’s relatively easy to get to (other than being far away) and requires little skill to hike.

The rest of the day’s Culebra hikers below me.

The Blanca massif to the north viewed from just below the talus on the Culebra Peak trail

Panorama looking to the west from the Culebra Peak trail

Among the literature that was emailed to me was a map of the peak with three routes highlighted: The ridge route, the “talus” route, and the “Roach” route (a route that Gerry Roach, author of Colorado’s Fourteeners, mapped in his book). The guidelines stated that one should try to take a different route up and back down to cut-down on trail erosion. By the time I was high into the basin above 12,000 feet, I spotted a line to the south in the talus that I decided to take. I had moved far ahead of the group by then, so there was no harm in taking a slightly off-kilter route. I don’t believe it was the true “talus” route; I think I overshot the start of it at the top of a small gully with a creek flowing through it. The edge of the creek was rimmed with ice and I saw frost on the grass. It would put me up on the ridge and into the sunshine quicker, though.

After spending some time talus-hopping, I neared the ridge and was greeted by warm sunshine. As I got closer to the ridge, I noticed a large cairn ahead of me. I thought this a bit ironic because one of the guidelines mentioned in the literature sent to me stated that hikers should knock down any small cairns that they come across in order to preserve the pristine nature of the route. I guess some large cairns were in order, though, to prevent people from becoming lost. I suppose that could happen if low clouds moved in an obscured the view, but there was no chance of that happening that day as the forecast was near-perfect. Once at the top of the ridge, I got my first glimpse at Culebra’s summit. It lay beyond a false summit which appeared to be higher than the true summit due to forced perspective. The trail turned right and went in a westerly direction. I stopped for a few minutes for rest and for a photo or two

The point that appears to be the summit in this photo is actually a false summit. Culebra Peak is to the left of it.

I started walking to the west and saw that I was going to be losing some elevation before heading up to the false summit. Great, I thought to myself. The hike hadn’t been very difficult, so this minor obstacle wasn’t going to make much of a difference. Ahead of me, I saw something mighty peculiar — a huge cairn. I had no idea how tall it was, but my interest was piqued. When I approached it at last, I realized that it was probably one of the largest cairns I had ever encountered. It stood atop an already large boulder; building it must have taken quite some time and tall people to construct. Square-shaped, it reminded me of a huge, life-sized Jenga (though I wasn’t about to start pulling rocks out from the bottom to re-stack on the top :O)! I carefully stood on top of the boulder next to it to get an approximation of how tall it was. Standing next to it, I saw that it was clearly taller than I was — about half-a-head or more. I estimated it to be about six feet tall! Yep, it definitely one of largest cairns I had ever seen. I hopped off of the boulder and took a photo of it. Again, the irony of the literature sent to me came to mind. I doubted that anyone was going to be knocking this cairn over! I laughed and moved on.

After the huge cairn, I descended a little bit along the ridge route before starting back up toward the false summit. The trail in this area was faint, but easy enough to follow. I only needed to walk the ridge until I reached the summit, after all. There was quite a bit of talus-hopping involved; I remembered seeing a post on 14ers.com where someone was asking about toting a baby in a carrier to the summit and a few people advised against it because of this section. Some of the talus was very tippy and one shift could put parent and child in danger of serious injury. It wasn’t much for me, though. I’ve done so much talus-hopping this summer that I actually feel like my balance is improving! A few summers ago, my “signature” move on any 14er was a slip and a wipe-out. I was quite clumsy. I think my weight loss has also helped, but I attribute most of my improved balance to an improvement in skill-level and just feeling more comfortable and at home in the mountains.

Gaining the false summit wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. Whenever you have to lose and re-gain elevation above 13,000 feet it’s a pain in the ass, but all a part of the experience. When I topped out on the false summit, I saw that the true summit was only a short distance away. Beyond that, I got my first view of my second destination — Red Mountain. There are a few summits in Colorado that bear the name “Red Mountain”. Personally, I think of Red Mountain Pass along Hwy 550 in the San Juan Range whenever I hear it. This one happens to be “Red Mountain A” and as mentioned before it is one of Colorado’s Centennial Peaks (one of the highest 100 summits in the state). From the false summit, I only hiked for another five minutes or so before I found myself on the summit of Culebra Peak at 9:00. It took me less than two-and-a-half hours to make it there. The wind was stiff and cold, but not unbearable. I sat behind a large windbreak, enjoyed half a sandwich, and re-hydrated before taking a few summit shots.

Various shots of the Blanca and Crestone Groups to the north

The Spanish Peaks to the northeast

Obligatory summit shot

360° panorama from the summit of Culebra Peak

I stayed on the summit by myself for about twenty minutes before I decided to pack-up and head to my second destination — Red Mountain. The saddle between Culebra and Red Mountain dropped about 500 feet, so I figured it was going to be slow-going. As soon as I stepped off the summit, I was immediately pelted by strong winds. If that wasn’t bad enough, by the time I had gotten almost half-way down the initial descent, I realized that I had forgotten my SPOT on the summit! I turned around and began back up to retrieve it. When I got there, a solo hiker was signing the summit register. He found my SPOT, figured I’d be back for it, and placed it on the windbreak. He asked if I was heading over to Red Mountain and I answered affirmatively. He then mentioned that he would probably see me over there. Now, when I was back at the ranch office, mine was the only name that I saw “Red Mountain” next to. I told him that I didn’t think the ranch would appreciate him breaking the rules and hiking over to it without paying the fee. His response was, “Well, Gerry Roach says that you should just summit it while you’re up here.” I was a little irritated by that. There I was — playing by the rules — and some ignoramus was going to summit for free while I chose to pay the extra fee? It did get me thinking, though, about how the ranch prevented people from summiting Red Mountain if they didn’t pay. I was seriously considering reporting him to the ranch if he attempted to do the traverse — and there was no way he was going to be able to catch-up to me.

Agitated, I left the summit for a second time and began to descend on loose talus. The wind was bitingly cold and pretty fierce. It made me wonder if I should have put my fleece jacket on. Following the ridge directly would have taken me up another high point before descending to the low point on the saddle, but I chose to skirt to the east of it and was granted a temporary reprieve from the wind. Another short descent to the low point on the saddle brought me to the base of Red Mountain. I looked up; I spotted a faint trail swichbacking sharply up to the summit. I started up thinking that I was going to tire quickly but much to my surprise, I made extremely good time. Back on Culebra, I noticed a group of hikers had summited. What I didn’t see, though, was anyone following me over. I summited Red Mountain at 10:00, found another windbreak, and immediately sat down behind it. The wind sucked a lot of heat out of my body, so I dug the fleece jacket out of my backpack and put it on before enjoying the other half of a sandwich and a Nalgene of Propel Fitness Water.

Culebra Peak viewed from the summit of Red Mountain

The Spanish Peaks seen from Red Mountain

Uhh, I don’t think this is normally an issue with summit registers O_o

Near-360° panorama from the summit of Red Mountain. I tried for the full 360°, but the wind was blowing pretty fiercely.

I only stayed on the summit of Red Mountain for about fifteen minutes before I started back. I wasn’t sure if the same group was still on top of Culebra or not, but there seemed to be a few different colors! By the time I reached the saddle, the wind was blowing at a sustained 50-60 MPH. Standing and walking became very difficult and, again, I welcomed the windbreak provided by the bump in the saddle. It was actually quite warm without the wind. To the west of me (in the direction the wind was blowing from) was a pretty deep valley. I suspected that it was this topographic feature that was contributing to the wind speed by funneling it up and over the saddle. It certainly wasn’t as strong at the top of Culebra before I left it the first time. After warming up, I continued on to the summit of Culebra again. This time, it was really slow-going. Re-gaining 500 feet of elevation again — no matter how simple it seemed the first time — was going to be a little tough. I talus-hopped up the steep slope and eventually made my way back to Culebra.

Before I plopped down behind the windbreak again, I noticed a solo hiker making his way back to the trailhead. I was going to need to rest for at least ten minutes before heading back. I ate some energy snacks as well as a Detour protein bar. Now that the sun was in a better position, I wanted to take a couple more panoramas.

Near-Panorama taken from my second summit of Culebra Peak

Near-Panorama taken from my second summit of Culebra Peak

I took this panorama looking southwest between the true summit and false summit of Culebra Peak

Various shots of the trail on my way back down to the trailhead

I passed the solo hiker on my way back up from the low point on the ridge. I asked him if he had driven up by himself (I was concerned that he might have to walk all the way down to the ranch office) and he told me that he did, so I continued on my way. I passed the large cairn and decided that I was going to walk back down the ridge route rather than descend the talus. Before I got too far down on the ridge, I decided to take one last panorama of Culebra.

Panorama looking at Culebra Peak from its northwest ridge route

The ridge route was pretty easy to follow down. There was a portion of it that looked like it could have been a road at sometime. It switchbacked down, but seemed to be going too far to the north. I took a turn, then headed straight down into the basin — back to near where I started hiking up the talus.

Panorama looking northwest from the Culebra Peak Trail

It didn’t take me long to locate the trail again as I approached treeline. I stopped in various spots and took photos of the route since my last ones were before sunrise.

Various shots of the trail on my way back down to the trailhead. If you look carefully in the photo on the far right, you can see the small, round blue reflector next to the road. I figured it was there to mark where the trail left the road.

When I arrived back at the road, the hikers who had driven up to the trailhead were still there. One of them offered to give me a ride back down to where I parked, but I politely declined. It was only another mile to walk and in order for me to get the 3,000-foot elevation gain, I had to return under my own power. Two vehicles passed me on the way down. The sun was shining brightly and the temperature rose as I got lower in elevation. I arrived back at my truck at 1:00, packed-up, and drove back down to the ranch office.

GPS stats taken from my hike up Culebra Peak.

The ranch hand explained to us that we needed to stop and sign out. The gate had a key box with a combination that was written down on the sign-out sheet. I drove down to the gate and located the key box. I had to pull the gate open myself, drive out, and lock it behind me before replacing the key. My hike was complete! I still had to endure a long drive home though. As I drove out, I stopped to take one last photo of Culebra and Red Mountain from just outside the ranch. Although the hike was easy and relatively enjoyable, it’s not likely that I’ll hike the two peaks again. Well, I suppose if someone paid the fee for me, it could happen.

Culebra Peak and Red Mountain seen from just outside Cielo Vista Ranch

Google Earth .KML file of my route (right-click and “save target as” to save the file). NOTE: For some reason, if you’re using Internet Explorer, when you “save target as”, it changes the file extension to .XML. This is incorrect. To be able to view this in Google Earth, change the file extension to .KML before saving the file. It downloads correctly in Firefox.

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