Kit Carson

While waiting for tomorrow's 13 mile Crestone run, I climbed Kit Carson (14,165 ft), taking the standard route from the Willow Creek trailhead in Crestone over 14,081 ft. Challenger Point. The climb to Challenger, which took 4 hours from 8880 ft, climbs a steep ridge and then traverses a 60 deg. conglomerate wall on ledges 3-12 inches wide (class 2+). From there it took 40 minutes to descend east and circle around to the east side of Kit Carson on a shelf and climb the class 3 rock to the summit. The weather was so nice that I stayed on the summit for an hour and descended with some slower climbers, taking 11 hours total, and had dinner with them back at camp. We took a detour off of Kit Carson, accidentally descending an extra 500 ft. of class 3 slabs and having to climb back up.