Crestone Needle is a high

mountain A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited summit area, and is usually higher t ...

summit A summit is a point on a surface that is higher in elevation than all points immediately adjacent to it. The topographic terms acme, apex, peak (mountain peak), and zenith are synonymous. The term (mountain top) is generally used only for ...

of the Crestones in the Sangre de Cristo Range of the

Rocky Mountains The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in great-circle distance, straight-line distance from the northernmost part of Western Can ...

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. The

fourteener In the mountaineering parlance of the Western United States, a fourteener (also spelled 14er) is a mountain peak with an elevation of at least . The 96 fourteeners in the United States are all west of the Mississippi River. Colorado Co ...

is located east-southeast ( bearing 108°) of the Town of Crestone in Saguache County,

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. The Crestones are a cluster of high summits in the Sangre de Cristo Range, comprising Crestone Peak, Crestone Needle, Kit Carson Peak, Challenger Point, Humboldt Peak, and Columbia Point. They are usually accessed from common trailheads.

Climbing

While not as high as Crestone Peak, and connected to it by a high, jagged ridge, Crestone Needle is regarded as a worthy climb in its own right. The easiest route is the South Face (or South Couloir), usually accessed via Broken Hand Pass from South Colony Lakes. This is a slightly exposed scramble with a few tricky moves, and is one of the more difficult standard routes among the Colorado fourteeners. However the classic route on the mountain is the Ellingwood Arete, also known as the Ellingwood Ledges Route. This is a steep ridge on the northeast side of the peak, leading directly up from the Upper South Colony Lake basin to the summit. It is a mildly technical rock climb (5.7 on the Yosemite Decimal Scale). It is particularly popular because of its inclusion in the well-known book '' Fifty Classic Climbs of North America'' by Steve Roper and Allen Steck. The peak consists mainly of

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

and conglomerate. Knobby handholds are frequent near the summit. Snow fields linger around the peak throughout the summer. Almost all fatalities on the peak occur on either the Class 4 traverse from Crestone Peak or the technical Ellingwood Ledges Route.

References

External links

* * * {{Colorado Mountains of Custer County, Colorado Mountains of Saguache County, Colorado Fourteeners of Colorado Four-thousanders of the United States Sangre de Cristo Mountains

Climbing

See also

References

External links