There is plenty of parking at the trailhead and there are several pull outs near the top. The road from the lower 2 wheel lot up to the 4 wheel lot isn’t terribly long but it is pretty rough. One of the roughest roads I’d driven so far accessing these mountains in my (stock) 4Runner. It’s totally doable but be prepared to drive up, around, and through some pretty big ruts. I’m sorry to say I scraped the bottom of my car a couple times.

Crestone Needle towers over the South Colony Lakes and made for a beautiful place for a snack as the sun began to rise. The arretes, spires, and granite features on the Crestones are both stunning and intimidating especially in the morning light. We saw a few rock climbers planning to ascend Ellingwood Arrete.

At this junction you can bear left to ascend Crestone Needle, continue straight to climb up to Crestone Peak (with an option to take the class 4/5 traverse over to Needle) or cut right up the ridge to Humboldt. 

Overall a fairly easy class 2 but it has absolutely incredible views of the surrounding Crestones the entire climb up from the lakes. It was super warm with no ice on the summit, especially in comparison to last year at this time when I was already hiking in the snow. It was however pretty windy on the ridgeline to the top, maybe a steady 25/30 with 40/50mph gusts.

We reached the top at 10:25am and we had some charcuterie under rock cover to hide out from the high winds before heading down. In total it’s about 11 miles, 4,200 feet, and a leisurely 7 hour day.

But to get to the Dunes from Humboldt (by car) you have to drive all the way around the Sangre de Cristo range to access the park. We opted to drive the 2.5 hours south towards New Mexico to wrap around the mountains to reach the other side.

We reached the park entrance, packed up some camping stuff and ventured out onto the dunes in the dark. It was pretty trippy walking up and over the dunes illuminated by the stars and our headlamps. It was really hard to tell how big or steep the dunes were in the dark, but we tracked the ridge line via GPS. 

After about a mile of walking we put up the tent in a flat spot, had a beer, and took some photos. In the morning we ventured up High Dune (they all look the same) and the dunes weren’t quite as steep as they seemed the night before in the dark. The high winds blew plenty of sand into the tent (I had my camera sealed in a garbage bag) so we shook sand out of everything before making our way back to the parking lot.