
| A low snow year in the Sangre de Cristos made this climb possible early in the season. We backpacked up Cottonwood Creek and camped for 2 nights at 11,200 ft. Climbed the Red Gully on Crestone Peak, traversed to Crestone Needle, and then climbed Broken Hand before returning to camp. It was a chilly, cloudy, windy, exhausting day but well worth it of course. Its hard to beat scrambling in the Crestone area. For Broken Hand, we followed Roach's route in his 14er book. Don't get too anxious and try to get to the summit from too close to Broken Hand Pass - we did and backed off some 5th class rock. |