Crestone Peak / North Pillar 

This too should be under a Sangre de Cristos or Crestones area, eh?

According to an old issue of "Climbing", Warren Banks and Brad Shilling, both of Pueblo, made the first ascent of this route around 1986.

One star does not do this route justice. Its a matter of opinion, of course, but this is one of the best of the Crestone conglomerate routes, with good position and considerable exposure. It's true there is some loose rock near the top, but that's alpine climbing.

Awesome route. I'm not certain we climbed the exact route as we had to do some route finding, so take this description liberally.

Locate an obvious crack in the middle of the east face of the North Pillar. The crack widens considerably higher up. It is easy to use a full rope length on most pitches.

P1 Start at the crack. Follow the crack to a ledge with a gully at climber's right. 5.7, 175 feet

P2 From the ledge, follow a finger crack (fixed stopper) about a full rope length. 5.7, 175 feet

P3 Climb a runout 5.7 'slab' traversing up and right to a ledge. Belay beneath an overhang. 5.7, 200 feet.

P4. From the ledge, climb through the left side of the overhang(block) using small gear (awkward placement, yellow Alien), turn right after pulling the roof, then follow a crack to a grassy ledge. 5.7/5.8-, 200 feet

P5 Locate a 2" crack down and left from the grassy ledge. Climb the crack to a ledge, follow the ledge to a gully and belay. 5.6, 175 feet

P6 Climb through the gully, locate a piton, turn left and belay on the face. 5.4, 175 feet

P7 4th class scramble to the top of the pillar. 100 feet

Be careful of constant rock fall and loose cobbles that occasionally break. The protection is good but awkward in some places.

Climbed this route on 9/19/04 and had a few comments to add. For the approach, follow the Colony Lakes trail and head left around the southern end of upper South Colony Lake. Continue northwest above the lake and through the drainage, finally heading up towards the base of the obvious north pillar near the head of the valley. The first pitch is the right of the two most obvious crack/flake features on the east face of the pillar, though the flake on the left looks climbable as well. Some things worth mentioning:

P1 - Surmounting the initial bulge off the ground seemed to be the crux sequence of the route, and the protection is a bit sketchy. About 60 feet off the ground I accidentally pulled off a flake about the size of a large TV. Be careful!

P2 - As a whole, this pitch had great rock quality and the finger crack/flake is awesome climbing. There is not much pro on the second half of the pitch and finding a place to belay is tricky. We belayed in the center of the face at a flake.

P3 - We climbed straight above the belay up a dihedral and then strayed left up easier slabs, finally traversing back right to a nice belay at a ledge. Going right from the belay seems to be an option as well.

P4 - The so-called crux pitch of the route, we found this to be in character with the rest of the route's difficulty. Protection was ample at the roof/bulge and nothing was very tricky. Following beta we headed up and right after the bulge, only to place ourselves in the middle of the face with poor rock and steep, runnout face climbing. I think the better way to do this pitch is after the bulge, continue up and left through the more obvious weakness to find the grassy ledge and the 2-inch crack.

After the first 15 feet or so of the 2-inch crack the difficulty lets up to lower 5th class which we simul climbed to the top of the pillar. Continue to the top of Crestone Peak via the north buttress if weather and time permits. Be prepared for some runnout sections on this climb and bring a 60m rope if you have one. All in all, a fantastic climb.

Climbed the North Pillar this weekend. We did a slight variation to the info above, and I thought it'd be helpful to post our progress.
The 4x4 road is still open to the trail head (about 2 miles from the lake). We got an early start (4am) and were walking off the top of the pillar by 11:30am. The crux of this climb may actually be the approach. Above the lake we crossed loose talus and some boiler plate snow fields in low morning light. That took a lot of concentration. Once at the base of the pillar, things eased off and the fun began.

P1. We started up the left of two possible crack systems at the base of the climb. It went at easy 5.7 but was a little tricky to protect. Larger cams 2 through 4 worked well, and a few hexes did the trick. Could also skillfully place some smaller stoppers and cams in the neighboring cracks. Belay on top of a spacious ledge.

P2. Follow a narrower crack that starts with a slight overhang (very slight) directly overhead. About 30 or so feet of this crack leads to angled face climbing that's a bit run out. Nothing over 5.6 here. Angle right to a small roof and set a belay.

P3. Follow a left-facing corner straight up, pass a small overhanging block, for a full rope length (60m). This was also easy 5th class. Set a belay on the obvious ledge.

P4. The most fun pitch. Goes up the open book overhead. Climb left around a small overhang (5.6) or pull the roof (easy 5.8). Run this a full rope length (60m) until you get to a grassy ledgy area. Tricky placing pro for a belay up here. Save a large cam for this if you can.

P5. From the belay, drop down about ten feet into a grassy gully and look for an obvious crack that goes up straight ahead. (Do not go up right directly above the belay). This goes for about 50 feet to another large ledge (easy 5.6).

From there we simul-soloed up the 4th class gully to the top. The rock was mostly solid, but watch for the occasional loose block. This was a very relaxing and enjoyable high alpine rock climb! Good weather and an early start, mixed with some great photo ops with mt. goats, made this a near perfect day.

7 pitches. 5.7+. 1st two pitches were solid rock, next two pitches had some holds come off, stay cautious, helmet required. More sustained than Ellingwood Arete. Recommended.

Jeff Lowe and I did a route up here in the early '80s. I wish I had had my camera, because then I wouldn't have to try to remember. Damn memory.... I recall walking up past Colony Lakes up to the peak, spying a primo buttress right up the middle, then going for it. I don't remember much pro, but there were tons of bowling-ball-sized cobbles and an occasional belay. We did a fair amount of simul-climbing and it felt like 5.9+ or so. My memory tells me that the buttress went all the way to the top.

I thought the first pitch was the crux but definitely no harder than 5.8 (runout in a couple spots unless you have large cams). We climbed it in 4 pitches with a 70m rope but had to simul-climb a bit on a couple of them.

Did this climb last summer and it was a lot of fun. Good pro and solid rock. Pretty much the same route as the one pitured on the page, but, for the 1st pitch we took the left side. It was definitely around 5.8. Wouldn't really give it an R rating though.