Crestone Needle

He'd climbed Challenger Point, then continued onto the summit of Kit Carson Peak.

Those were only the first two mountains in a three-day backpacking trip that was supposed to carry him across this range, into another basin, and eventually to the summits of Crestone Peak and Crestone Needle.

So when I first read this story, the thing that I wanted to know is how he got here.

The outward-bound couloir isn't a normal summer hiking trail.

So we're not going to call him inexperienced because we don't know that, but we're also not going to turn him into a teenage mountaineering expert.

What we do have is his itinerary, and that tells us something about the scale of what he was attempting.

He was planning a three-day backpacking trip involving four 14ers, Challenger Point and Kit Carson Peak, Crestone Peak, and Crestone Needle.

And he was only 15.

the 50 most awesome climbs.

So everything from the Hummingbird Ridge to Crestone Needle.

Bugaboos.

Yeah, Bugaboos.