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Well this hike started out with a big disappointment. I had a gig on Friday night, so i didn't get home till nearly 3am - and crash picked me up around 4am. I was hoping to be able to drive all the way to the trailhead, we had been here before to hike Humbolt and Kit Carson, and we hadn't made it up that far yet. After the 2.5 hour drive from Lakewood we discovered this sign saying that the road work would continue for another week and the road was closed. No one was working on the road, and we could have driven up just fine except the gate was locked. So this added another 12 miles to our hike (6 each way). We got started early though and were making good time although I was pretty tired. To the right is a pic of Crash in front of Crestone Needle near the campsites at South Colony Lakes. Below are some sheep that we saw on our way to the Lakes. Luckily, we remembered the 'shortcut' that Crash and Rob accidentally found on the way down from Humbolt and we bushwacked a little to find it on the way up. It cuts off nearly 2 miles of the trail - which means it is steeper - so that saved us a little.
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Once we got up the steep incline to broken hand pass, the clouds started moving in a bit and we kept refering to the barometer (on our GPS). It said the pressure was continuing to rise, so we continued to climb up the class three rocks on the south side of the mountain. There is a point marked by some colored straps that you need to move west across one gully and then into another one. Once there, its pretty much straight up. We didnt have manny problems, but we were slow and we summitted just before 2pm which is a dangerous time of the day for lightning. We took some pics and kept getting shocked from the static electricity when passing the camera. Then Steves ice axe started to 'hum', and we decided to get off the mountain as quick as possible.
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Just after we got off the difficult pitch, it started to grapple (tiny balls of snow - like dippin' dots) on us. The narrow slippery gully leading down from broken hand pass was pretty treacherous after the precipitation. Above is a shot of me at one of the notches on the way up. Next to that is a part where we had to traverse a 'wall'. Below I am on the way up with the wall that we must climb behind me, and to the right I am going down the gully from Broken Hand pass. Once we got below the Lake and were below treeline, the tough stuff was over, but we still had 7+ miles to hike. It rained on us some and it was nearly dark by the time we got back to the truck - but it was worth it.
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