Sangre de Cristo Mountains > Challenger Point > Climber's LogChallenger Point Climber's Log
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| cruzit | Route Climbed: North Face of Challenger Date Climbed: July 24, 2004  | |
| Woo Hoo!!! 1,000' of class 3+ scrambling. Thanks to my sweetie, Alan, who forged ahead and provided great beta. Thanks to Ellen for checking in on the radio to see if I had been clobbered by the all the falling rocks. And special thanks to Aaron for climbing down and meeting me 50' below the ridge and giving me much needed incentive to finish (hey...no way was I down climbing that route). This one was for you Grandpa. | |
| Posted Jul 26, 2004 1:14 pm | ||
| Alan Ellis | Route Climbed: North Face of Challenger Date Climbed: July 24, 2004 | |
| Did a great class 3+ route up the north face of Challenger, then on to the foggy summit of Kit Carson. The weather looked iffy, but I'm glad I finished it. Many thanks to Andy for waiting for me on the summit and for Aaron and Ellen for giving me beta on the radio. Congrats to Jackie for doing the north face and summiting Challenger, and to Barry and Andy for doing the north ridge. What a great trip! | |
| Posted Jul 26, 2004 12:09 am | ||
| xskier77 | Route Climbed: West Ridge via Challenger Point Date Climbed: May 29, 2004 | |
| Kit Carson avenue was loaded with snow and made for a freakish route. We were able to kick steps and use our ice axes to get across the first section of the avenue with all the exposure loaming below. I accidently exited the avenue too soon and this resulted in at least a 4th class climb to the summit. We then decended the North Ridge route and made it back to camp just after dark. | |
| Posted Jun 1, 2004 1:36 am | ||
| DaveC | Route Climbed: e ridge Date Climbed: july 00 | |
| did Kit and Kat but not Challenger (yet!). Long hard day, with Kat in the way. But fun cilmbiing in the notch. | |
| Posted May 20, 2004 9:57 pm | ||
| goat14er | Route Climbed: North Ridge Date Climbed: September 2001 | |
| By all means, sometime in your life go to Willow Lake - it was a great campsite! My friends and I actually climbed Kit Carson's airy Class 4 North Ridge, and that was just a blast! No ropes required, but a ton of exposure...go for it! I then went back over Challenger Point and back down to Willow Lake after a great day. | |
| Posted May 12, 2004 3:08 pm | ||
| Larry V | Route Climbed: West Ridge via Challenger Point Date Climbed: June 1996 | |
| From Willow Lake we were in a hurry to summit Challenger and move on. We wound up in a bad position just below the summit. Kit Carson turned out to be easier than our route on Challenger. | |
| Posted Apr 16, 2004 11:28 pm | ||
| RyanS | Route Climbed: West Ridge via Challenger Point Date Climbed: July 16, 2002 | |
| This was Erin's and my first trip to the Crestone area 14ers. We had an interesting encounter with a bighorn at the base of Challenger, and we faced a dramatic downpour as we neared the trailhead during our return. A trip report is available here. | |
| Posted Apr 12, 2004 11:47 am | ||
| jstanley | Route Climbed: from Willow Lake (see route comment in additions-corrections) Date Climbed: 23 June 2002 | |
| I climbed Challenger Pk with my son Peter, then 15, from Willow Lake and we continued on to climb Kit Carson. Challenger Pk was Peter's first 14,000 ft peak. I had first climbed Kit Carson back on 9 August 1971. | |
| Posted Apr 7, 2004 5:37 pm | ||
| hhsilleck | Route Climbed: West Ridge Date Climbed: August 2002 | |
| Made it on 3rd try - had weather problems twice before. The face of Challenger is steep - watch for rockfall ... a mountain goat sent some boulders flying towards us. | |
| Posted Jan 10, 2004 7:06 pm | ||
| jdjordan45 | Route Climbed: West Ridge via Challenger Point Date Climbed: July 2003 | |
| The night before we summited, my brother and I helped out a guy who had taken a fall on the snowfield on the east side of Challenger. The next morning we had a great hike and beat the rush of people. | |
| Posted Dec 5, 2003 9:53 pm | ||
| Andesite | Route Climbed: Willow creek | |
| This is one of the prettiest hikes up a 14er willow lake is amazing. and the ramp that takes you from challenger ridge to a walkable route up Kit Carson Peak is unnatural. all in all a great hike/scramble. | ||
| Posted Dec 1, 2003 10:23 pm | ||
| The Lower Marmot | Route Climbed: Willow Lake Date Climbed: August 8, 2003 | |
| Wonderful lesson in the unpredictable weather of the Sangres. On the hike in to the lake, we heard the flyover for Kat Carson/Columbia Peak. We spent the rest of the day acclimatizing and exploring in the area of the lake, and the next day we walked to the base of Challenger to get a feel for the terrain and the route, before returning to the camp for lunch. That afternoon we were buried in 3 inches of pea to dime sized hail that flooded our poor Eureka tent, as well as sending a brand new waterfall that was at least as tall as the Willow Lake waterfall down the west face of Challenger. Soaking wet, we let the mountain win round one. Expect a summit next summer... | |
| Posted Oct 9, 2003 6:17 pm | ||
| Grant | Route Climbed: Willow Lake Date Climbed: Sept. 1, 2003 | |
| Excellent backpack trip, although I felt sluggish on the second day, to the most spectacular lake that I've been to this date. Colonelpyat(Jim) is an excellent hiker/climber and anyone who hike's with him will soon come to realize the many years of experience behind him. The only downer on the weekend was that I dropped my camera and it tumbled down the mountain for about two-hundred feet. It came to rest in what looked like an old melted out crevasse (inside joke). Needless to say the camera is finished, it was a very somber moment, but like my wife says at least it wasn't me tumbling down the mountain. A little TIP for those who attempt this mountain in the future, screw the guidebook, and head for the prominent notch just to the right of Challenger Point's summit (class 2+, loose scree). you will be able to see it from the back side of the lake and holds snow throughout the year. By doing this you will dodge the extreme exposure from the standard route. I will add an image to this page and call out this notch. | |
| Posted Sep 24, 2003 8:17 pm | ||
| defurr | Route Climbed: West Ridge Date Climbed: August 31, 2003 | |
| Crowded, Labor Day weekend. We left from the lake about 6:30 a.m. and encountered at least three parties en route on the ridge who were turning back, due to the fog. Our native Alamosan had no particular concerns about this turning electrical, though, so we pressed onward. Challenger took about five hours; the ridge is indeed an intense ascent, but there are small steps seemingly dug into the side of the tundra. If you can find these, which requires occasionally traversing small boulder fields, the ascent is much more tolerable. KC Ave entails one route of ascent, turning sharp left and descending two times. At the bottom of the second descent, we spotted the two gullies mentioned in the EXCELLENT trip report by Aaron Johnson posted herein. (Certainly richer in detail than Roach's.) We made a slight shortcut, however, instead of ascending directly from the avenue. This proved helpful on the way up, but impossible to retrace on the way down, causing 3 out of the 4 members of our party to mistakenly descend below the Avenue on the way down. At the very bottom, we were facing Crestone. One of our party traversed tons of class 4/5 to get back to the avenue; we other two found a class 3 route. Where we came up was the second leg of the Ave, rather than the final 3rd from whence we had begun our ascent. Bottom line: pick a route that you KNOW you can retrace without any difficulty, even if it's longer. Coming back, we heard there was a class 2 couloir that offered a faster descent than the far ridge back down to the lake. Being too exhausted to ascend back to Challenger's ridge, however, we contented ourselves with traversing diagonally down the east face, which is slow class 3 requiring much focus. Also, you don't want to descend too quickly, because there is a roughly 200 ft cliff at the base of Challenger's southern face. I will post a full-blown photo essay/trip report at my own site soon: http://www.lonelyhighway.com/pictorial.htm | |
| Posted Sep 7, 2003 3:40 pm | ||
| Colonelpyat | Route Climbed: Willow Lake/Challenger Pt. Date Climbed: September 1, 2003 | |
| Ouch! My legs still hurt from a "this-is-where-we-had-to-walk-from-in-the-middle-of-a-desert" route via the San Luis Valley. Many miles and lots of elevation gain. Did it as an overnight trip under the expert guidance of jgsman who kept the physical abuse to a relative bare minimum with his route finding skills. A great trip through some spectacular country! Didn't see a single crevasse or a hang glider the entire time. :) | |
| Posted Sep 3, 2003 1:41 am | ||
| big_g | Route Climbed: East Ridge and traverse to Challenger Date Climbed: Aug 6, 2003 | |
| Kit is an impressive mountain. Got to love that rock! Made that surprising traverse over from Columbia. Looks like suicide but stays at class 3 somehow. Enjoyed myself immensely and did not get rained on until down by Willow Lake. Whoo hoo! | |
| Posted Aug 8, 2003 1:46 am | ||
| rmjwinters | Route Climbed: Colony Lakes via Bear's Playground Date Climbed: July 7 1999 | |
| Visibility zero for the entire traverse. Returned back and over to Humboldt | |
| Posted Oct 5, 2002 9:11 pm | ||
| jratk | Route Climbed: from upper south colony lake Date Climbed: july 26, 2002 | |
| Started at 2:50 in the morning, climbed Humbolt, traversed the ridge to Bear's playground, climbed the centennial 13er and then Kit Carson. Long day but excellent climb. One day will add the Crestones and do 5 peaks in one day. | |
| Posted Aug 15, 2002 8:59 pm | ||
| Kit Carson | Route Climbed: Outward Bound Coulier (Willow Lake) Date Climbed: April 2002 | |
| The Outward Bound Coulier is located just south of the main Kit Carson summit on the east side of the mountain. This wide coulier ascends between Kit & Kat Carson and when in good condition is a great climb, and probably one of the best snow climbs on Kit Carson Peak. We summited Kat Carson then went on to summit Kit Carson and finally concluded on Challenger Point. Then an icy but nice 2000 foot glaciade was in order off of the north slopes of Challenger Point. This was my second summit on both Kit Carson and Challenger Point. | ||
| Posted Jun 15, 2002 11:28 am | ||
| Matt Mahoney | Route Climbed: Willow Creek - Challenger Date Climbed: Aug. 11 2001 | |
| Beautiful weather. Stayed on the summit a couple of hours just enjoying it. Met some other climbers and we took a wrong turn into the Spanish Creek basin on the descent and had to climb back up, but it was fun. | |
| Posted May 17, 2002 4:22 pm | ||
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