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Saturday, October 29, 2011

Pyramid Peak Adventure: Car to Bar

Peak: Pyramid Peak - 14,018 feet

Preface


This report is a little late but I guess 2 weeks is better than one year or several months. I always get so excited in winter when I see a report pop up from some crazy peak or route just to find out that someone is just now posting from their sunny trip in July two years ago. After Halloween weekend, I can assuredly say that winter conditions are in full swing up there. With a large storm hitting just 2 days before, I was itching to get some alpine action but I was skeptical of a summit. Lucky for me, I don’t consider myself a peak bagger. I am an adventurist at heart. Matt, my usual partner wasn’t available and I wasn’t about to solo something in the given conditions. I thought about the winter Quandary welcomer hike but I have never been big on large groups in the mountains. I’m sure it was a great group of folks but my since of adventure gets kind of lost in the mix. My brother in law, Ben said he was ready for an adventure. We planned for Holy cross if Indy Pass was closed and Pyramid if it was open. As we prepared the week prior, my Asian friend (yes he is actually from Asia), Arslan, who lived in Norway the past several years, said he was missing the arctic circle conditions and wanted to tag along. What a guy. I have had him out rock climbing several times and trust my life to the guy but I also knew he had never done a Colorado 14er before. He has done a couple over 18K around the world but never a Colorado 14er. Ben and I agreed he could come even if it meant no summit due to having a new partner we weren’t used to. I am very selective with my partners in the mountains and even more selective as the conditions worsen. I am by far no mountain expert but I think the right partners are key. You have to not only trust them with your life, I think a personality fit is also key up there.

The Journey Begins


Friday evening finally came and low and behold, Independence pass was by some miracle still open. I went and bought some snow-chains for Pabst, my 1970 VW bus and we set off for our adventure. The drive up was pretty cold seeing as my heat is minimal at best (working on that). We just rocked the propane stove on low the whole way up to give us just a little comfort as I drove in my down booties to keep my feet from freezing. Going over Wilkerson pass, Ben asked if he could drive the bus. I told him absolutely but warned him that it is not an “easy” vehicle to drive and that if he stalls out taking off, it probably won’t start again for several hours and thus jeopardize our mountain adventure. He gave me a hard time saying I didn’t trust him so I let him give it a whirl. Just as I suspected to anyone who isn’t used to driving the beast, he stalled it out trying to put it into reverse and the thing wouldn’t start again. With a little push from the guys, I had it running again and we were once again on our way.
We had fun going over Indy pass as we carefully maneuvered our way around the ice patches as Ben and I in our shallow minds described to Arslan how every woman in Aspen we ever saw was gorgeous. Even the ones that work at the gas stations only to pull up in town and see quite possibly the largest human being I ever think I have seen that happened to also be a woman. We laughed it off in our shallowness as we drove by with Arslan now not buying into our past stories. Our credibility was now gone. By about 9PM we arrived at the Maroon Lakes Trailhead to find dry or mostly dry parking lots. We parked the bus, cooked some dinner, and prepared our bedding in the close quarters for a quick few hours of shut eye. My trusty stove is seen in the picture.

The Business


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We drove over indy pass on friday night and got a 4AM start Saturday with a 2pm cutoff to get as far as we could. I bet 4 days prior looked much drier but the big storm right before added about 18" average to everything. We started on a snow packed trail that seemed like it went at least to the upper lake. The infamous pyramid cairn was completely covered and we walked right past. It was the first time I had to get out the GPS in a while to find a trail. For the most part, we followed the summer trail as it switchbacks up into the cirque. From about 11'900 standing right below the "pyramid" we had to make a decision to go for the right side ridge or the left side (standard route). The supposed 2+ section making the top of the ridge looked like it was ready to release a slide and was to far across the basin to want to even go look at. 2 of us decided to go for the right/east ridge route and check out conditions. It was a good clean snow climb for a while and then all of the sudden we were up to our chests in a north facing gulley that probably never fully melted out from last year and a 6" slab was easily breaking off the top. I jumped onto the rocks on the left side and did some 4th and low 5th class un-roped so I could make the top of the ridge at around 12,900.

The 3 AM alarm came ever so quick as we woke up and readied ourselves with a goal of being on the trail by 4. And after cooking oatmeal, drinking coffee and finding a place to drop the kids off at we actually got going by about 4:30. Arslan started out very happy.
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The trail started out as snowpacked ice so we elected not to bring the snowshoes. Since the snow was so fresh, I felt like we would sink about the same with or without them and really could do without the weight of the “Slow” shoes. The first supposed mile to the pyramid turnoff which is really more like about 2 miles where you turn just before crater lake came pretty quick with a packed trail. Knowing that the turn for Pyramid would be nearly impossible to pass, I carefully watched the GPS until we went about 100 yards past. I turned around to brush off a couple of feet of snow from the giant cairn that we had no idea was there. From this point on, we were on our own to cut trail. I stayed up front all day to preserve the energy levels of the others. I felt great throughout. It must have been those few times recently on the Manitou incline carrying a 65lb pack getting ready for the winter.
A ways after the Pyramid cutoff, we decided to drop some unnecessary weight and take a quick rest. Even with breaking trail, I was having to wait on Arslan. He is not used to the altitude and was kicking his own butt.
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At this point it was getting gradually lighter outside and we hardly needed headlamps. After getting tired of trying to find the switchbacks up the ridge with so much snow and drifts we eventually opted to pop straight up the last couple of hundred feet up the scree field to the right. It was a dreadful amount of snow. Enough to cover the abnormalities that you need to see but not enough to make soft steps. It was just enough to sprain your ankle.
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This report is being written solely off of Arslan’s and Ben’s Cameras that we all traded off with. Just after the sun was cresting on North Maroon, we arrived at treeline and the ginormous cairns. We popped down there for a rest and a snack. I had been cutting trail the entire way thus far and still feeling great but I was worried about energy levels of my partners who are some hard core dudes for even getting out there and trying a monster like this in these nasty fall/winter conditions.
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A self portrait shows the three of us just above treeline with our goal in the background. On the west ridge, you can see the wind spindrifts. We had made the call to pick the ridge that looked the best when we arrived up there. The red line shows the remainder of our route to our highpoint for the day. The green circle is the choss tower that was my highpoint that I almost regretted climbing. More to come on that.
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And looking back on North Maroon with Ben and I in the foreground.
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Wait a minute, this is way more snow than I usually remember for late October. Another foot of snow and I would have been on my skis up and down.
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I just kept chugging upward and cutting trail with the others behind me.
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We popup on the ridge where you have to make the decision to go left or right at 11,900’. The snow to the left was unbelievable and a bit scary.
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Ben and I studied the choices while we waited for Arslan to catch up. That steep headwall to the ridge section was enough to scare even me knowing the new snow could all just about come down. It was loaded and not at all solid based on what we just came through. If by a miracle we made it up, coming down would not have been cool. I of all people will admit I take abnormally high risks sometimes that would be unacceptable to most. Believe you me that I am constantly assessing and reassessing and making decisions out there. I will also be the first to say that I don't ever want to use my avy gear out there and I would assess conditions and go/no go as if I didn't have it on me. My take is that on avy’s is that while your partner will try their best for a rescue, the beacon is sadly only better for body recovery purposes in most cases. Prior to the trip I was smart enough to study other routes than our plan and made the decision to check out plan b which looked like much less of a risk by looking at the other ridge. I’m not going to just bail without taking a look and seeing for myself. We went for plan B and began assessing as we moved along. The first couple of hundred feet had very stable snow and we hugged the rocks to the left side as best we could and constantly monitored escape avenues in the case of disaster which was not eminent at the time as we kicked pretty decent steps.

By this time, it was already about 11 AM and our chances of a summit were dwindling as we tried to pick a route. I could tell that Arslan was tuckered out and Ben didn’t have too much juice yet either. We decided that it was the last chance someone could turn around alone and still be safe. Any farther and if anyone turns around, we all turn around. Arslan graciously admitted that there was no way he had another 2K in the conditions we were seeing in mind. He turned around with the bus keys and instructions that if we don’t get back by 8pm to drive to get cell service and call somebody for help. By 1130 Ben and I finally took off.
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As Arslan made his way down, I kicked step after step leading the way. We were plunging deeper than our knees but not in too bad shape otherwise. Arslan got this of us on our way up.
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10 or so minutes into this Ben and I were doubting that we would make a summit and wondered if we should bail. Eventually I explained the reality to Ben that if we don’t commit to giving it everything we have, it will never happen. I convince him to push on but I can see his energy depleting quickly. One last shot of the “other” route.
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You can see us in the circles in the following picture. Where the red line takes a sharp left is the couloir we chose to make the first ridge knowing there would be more gulley crossings.
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As soon as we turned left we were pushing through north facing slopes up to our chests in snow. There was no way this couloir was going to let us pass. The layers here seemed stable but it was just so deep. At this point, I have realized that a summit is not going to be in our cards but we still have some time to explore so I told Ben to stay put as I pulled some 4th to low 5th class unroped moves up the slippy rocks to the left of the couloirs so I could go check out the ridge or else get turned around due to difficulty or unacceptable conditions. Eventually, Ben got tired of waiting and decided to see how far he could stand the deep conditions or until he found signs of bad snow that he did not like. I carefully picked my way to the top of that ridge and was very disappointed at what I saw. The summit was so close but yet so far. I must have gotten the camera wet for these next few but they do show conditions.
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I saw Gulley crossings with what appeared to be steeper snow climbing than we had already done.
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I pushed Ben to look at this point and I think it would have been a mistake for us to try and go through there. This very vividly shows how people die in Avalanches in October in Colorado. Maybe it wasn’t steeper, but being that it was already after 2PM, it wasn’t time to try.
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This shows at what I thought would be around or near the “safest” line across. It seems like it would have taken about another couple of hours to cross to the other side and then we still had the 4th class summit bid on what appeared to be drier rock.
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While I waited for Ben to catch up to see what lay ahead, I climbed the tower that the arrow points to which I consider my only truly iffy decision of the day. I seriously contemplated it knowing my abilities and knowing I had gear on me should I need to bail. It was pretty chossy and I just maintained the 3 points of contact rule and triple checking every hold. Upon topping out, I was in the sun for my first time in the day though. It was amazing.
I hung out up there for a few minutes while Ben just kept trying. Seeing the conditions of what we just came up and seeing that we would have to cross this next giant gulley and climb something even steeper just to get to the actual ridge we were to climb, I knew there was no way we were walking away with a summit without an epic or a casualty and Ben would not have the energy even if we tried.
Eventually Ben decided that he couldn’t make the last 50’ of the couloir and was trusting that what I saw was not going to be in our agenda today. It was now time to get back down to him. Stuff never looks so steep when you go up until you go down. I peep down to see the snowy slushy choss laying about the route down with serious consequences for mistakes. As I stood atop and peered at the summit of pyramid, my stomach had butterflies as I looked at the size of the drop in front of me going from our high point there at about 12,700’ or so back down about a vertical 1000’ to below. I have my 30 m rope that I really would have left any amount of gear to make a safe rappel but I just couldn’t find any place to put gear that would hold to bail on. It was all so chossy. I distinctly remember laughing at the fact that I had won one of the weeks of the American Alpine Club’s Choss Boss photo contest with a picture of my partner Matt this summer.
I said out loud “Here you go Choss Boss,” as I turned to face in and began my descent, “Just like home in Garden of the Gods.” I kept my gloves off for grip as I climbed down. I was comfortable with the 5.6ish climbing but I wasn’t comfortable that there was literally nothing that made me feel super safe. Some of us may call those “Thank you Jesus” holds. I had to man up and get down what I went up. Slowly but surely, I made it down checking, re-checking, and re-re-checking every hold and always holding tightly at least 1 solid thing. I finally made it back down to the ridge. Meanwhile Ben at his highpoint up to his chest. Hmmm I wonder why he couldn’t go up anymore.
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I decided to take the couloir back to Ben’s position because he felt good about the pack and I felt ok from my position. Upon arriving at Ben’s position, at my request we began to perform a few snow tests easily getting a 6” slab to break and release off of the top with another questionable layer about 2.5’ down. We quickly tested our Beacons to make sure they worked right at that point in time and there was no problems since the morning. Once they were verified good, it was time to get out before something bad happened. This next picture is just before we started really getting slabs to break off. We didn’t get more pictures until were into more of a safe zone after that. This was one of those situations where you make decisions and take risks.
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Unfortunately, our risk taking for pushing ahead was over but the conditions seem to have changed in a short period of time. We aren’t going to sit and wait for things to worsen and Ben wanted to book it out of there. My decision based on our new find was that we already scouted what we thought was the safest line up. I also decided that going down our kicked steps would cause the least stress to the pack than plunging in new steps and possibly creating new fractures that would haunt us. Many mountaineering accidents happen right at this point as people rush out to bail to safety. As our stomach churned about, we cautiously made our way down constantly discussing our outs. We kept cautiously moving along until we reached what we thought was a point of safety and then continued to be cautios.
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Getting back from there to the large cairns at tree line was the low point of the day. Again stepping through enough snow to be hard to walk in but still little enough to allow you to roll an ankle from the talus below. We took a quick rest at tree line and made our way back down. For a while we just aimed straight down through the trees until we hit our switch-backing trail and descended. We could see Arslan about hitting the main trail between Maroon and Crater lakes. We just kept trucking as we got lower on the trail to find nasty mud where it had been frozen that morning. Ben and I arrived to the lake just 3 minutes after Arslan. We looked back up in the hills and were just in awe of the beauty of the last of the sunlight tickling the Bells.
We snapped our photo and got the heck out of there. Leading all day, I was finally tired. That was about the longest 7 miles I have ever done. If driving 4.5 hours in the bus, sleeping/laying only 4 hours, mountain climbing all day, and driving back to Colorado Springs wasn’t enough, Ben and I decided to take our wives out for the Colorado Springs Halloween extravaganza. With not a lot of energy, we Dressed as mountaineers. How original. People would touch our ropes and be like… whoa, you bought real ropes just for your costume. I never go out to bars or night clubs except for Halloween every year for the sole reason of people watching. Seeing everyone playing dress up is pretty wild. We ended up going to bed at 2:45 am just 23:45 after waking up that morning. Not a bad day and another great adventure where everyone enjoyed the beauty of the mountains.
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Disclaimer


As a quick disclaimer, it may seem reckless to go out in these conditions and you may ask why we would even try given the high chance of not summiting. My take is that if you don’t get out there and try, you won’t have those eventual monumental successes such as the Little Bear to Blanca Traverse in Winter like I had the privilege of last year or anything like that. You can study the weather, you can study the conditions, and even study the forums waiting for someone to plow you a trench and bring you pictures of the conditions so you can up your chances for success, but sometimes it is just nice to go prepared for anything. I go up there every time knowing very well my limits of my abilities and those of my partners and knew full well this time that we probably wouldn’t walk away with a summit even when we left the house but we walked away with more knowledge than we had before thus building on our quiver of tools to use in the mountain. What I did know was that I was capable of making good decisions up there. Everything is not a plan, it is a temporary decision and you keep going until you have hit your limit, either mentally or physically or even due to conditions which I guess is also physically. Knowing what you are capable of and having the patience to turn around can create a lot of fun. It allows me to get out there and at least observe some conditions and admire God’s beauty as well as realize how small we really are. My main take away from the disclaimer for you is to know your limits. Know when you can go out and what is safe and acceptable to you and then what is not and go there.
Until next time…

See you at the top!

Sunday, July 31, 2011

Almost Free Solo 5.6 Keyhole Ridge: Longs Peak 14,255'

Peak: Longs Peak - 14,255 feet


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Summary
Total Elevation Gain: ~12,700 between 3 attempts. 5,100 on success day.
Total Mileage: ~40 Miles between 3 attempts. ~14mi on success day.
Peaks Climbed: Longs Peak
Ascent Party: Mountainmicah83, Sean
Note: Picture credit to Sean for donating his pictures. I won’t list every picture of who took what but below are a mix of our pics. We have plenty more so email if you need for reference or more conditions.
Preface:
(Warning: This preface is a long read so if you wan’t current conditions skip this text and a few pictures until you see summer conditions.)
It’s so funny that I have done quite a few peaks and Long’s peak hasn’t met my tick list yet. I think part of that was on purpose a couple of years ago when I was looking at what peaks were possible in winter. Another part of me wanted to save Longs for my last and summit my first time via a technical route on the diamond. Well, Thanksgiving weekend rolled around this year and I had a planned attempt on the North Face Cables route with Dancesatmoonrise. With an originally good weather forecast, it slowly deteriorated throughout the week until the usual 100MPH summit winds were forecasted and we had to cancel our plans. We know our limits and know we aren't invincible! Winter rolls in and Matt and I get the Little Bear Blanca traverse in the end of January and we are looking at something that will fuel our desire for exposure and difficulty. How do you top something like that? I look at harder things and my soul quivers. I look at easier things and think, ohhh too easy. Stuck, Matt and I finally decide to make a go at the cables in an unfavorable forecast with Dancesatmoonrise. Our motto is almost always to go check out the conditions and at least get a recon trip out of the deal. With 80MPH winds forecasted, we left Colorado Springs around 2 AM and were on the trail by 0530. The trip to treeline was quick but then we got blasted. Every step was grueling as we fought the wind and we kept wanting to turn around but just couldn’t. Our cutoff for starting the 5.4 section on the N. Face was 1100 AM and we arrived just in time to give a go at it. With iffy conditions on the slow below the technical stuff, we decided to rope in to keep us from washing down the hill in a slide. I lead up to just below the “technical” section

You can’t tell that well in this picture but the winds were horrendous and going up in thigh to waist deep sugar was not easy progress. Eventually, I set an anchor and brought the others up. We begin to look for the infamous eye bolts that used to once hold the cables going up and down the mountain to assist folks in getting to the top until someone realized it probably wasn’t the best idea. Matt went for the frigid lead to grab the first eye bolt we could see which was about 30’ above us. Little did we know that that first eye was actually the top of the first pitch and the first eye was actually very buried. Gust after gust wore us down and caused us to bail on a safe call and try again another day.
Late March rolls around and Matt and I want our revenge. This time, we plan to start even earlier. Driving in we get hit by heavy snow starting at about Allen’s park. By the time we arrive at the trailhead, we are barely able to drive the last half a mile in 6” of fresh snow. We opt to not even leave the car and nap til the sun came up (the ranger’s did not like this). By the time the sun came up, there was 10” of fresh pow on the ground and we headed back toward boulder knowing we made the right decision based on conditions. As a consolation prize, we climbed the first flat iron in our approach shoes, alpine harnesses, 2 cams smaller than 1” and a half a rack of nuts. After 2 pitches, we just unroped and finished the rest solo because it was so easy.
April rolls around and now we want our revenge on this route. It is time to go take care of business. We know the snow has been hammering the mountains in record amounts but we decide to go take a peek and hope for stable conditions to the summit. This time we were smart enough to carry snowboards up with us to a point past treeline for a hasty descent.
Arriving at treeline, the visibility is almost 0 but the winds are rather calm.

This time, there is sugar powder filling the boulder field and it is a nightmare to cross. We shouldn’t have dropped our snowshoes down lower. After a lot of frustration and post holing to cross, we think we can actually see that snow has loaded the entire 5.4 rock slope of the cables route. It was just waiting to blow in a slide and neither of us wanted to touch it. Yikes… We have been here so many times this year. We decided to go look at the Keyhole route and see if it would go just so we could get something. Finally making the keyhole, the rock is covered with verglass and is slick as snot and the winds are ridiculous on the backside. There is no way we are going for a summit in those conditions. Does this mountain ever get decent weather?

We decided to hunker down in the Keyhole Super 8 Lodge only to discover that there is no door and rock hard snow is filling the thing out the gills. We chip it away with our axes and rest from the relentless conditions for a while before making our descent. Once we arrived at the snowboards, we were back at the car within 15 minutes or so. Some people actually were eating a picnic on the packed trail and complained at us for riding snowboards near the hiking trail. Oh the nerve of us to ride snowboards down a mountain the way we came up!

At this point, we were done with this mountain. Until next winter at least….


Fast Forward July 28, 2011:
My good friend Sean had a soul itchin’ for some mountain time. If he had his way, I think he would usually choose a day at the crags but I manage to usually drag him out to the mountains some time. He was hot for a peak but the weather wasn’t looking that great in any range. We settled on Long’s Keyhole Ridge because the front range had a slightly better forecast than the other ranges at a 40% afternoon chance of thunderstorms. We decided to just to plan to be back to the car by noon and we should be fine. We rack out our gear on July 29 and keep reminding ourselves that the route is only 5.6 as we glean out our gear to the bare minimum.
Rack:
A 9.5 Mammut Infinity duodess Rope
Alpine Bod harnesses
6 double length runners
1 triple length runner
2 ultra light draws
Bd nuts size 6-10
Pink and red tricams
Metolius Ultralight Power Cams size 1-7. (up to about 2.5”)

I roll up in Pabst, our vehicle of choice for the journey, at about 1030PM on Friday night. Pabst is decked out with an auxiliary 125 amp hour marine battery and a mini fridge. It is like a home away from home.
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I have read that Long’s peak on a summer weekend has a full parking lot at 12:30AM but I always thought that was just a ploy to get folks to start earlier to be safer. Well, when we arrived at about 2:15AM, we surprisingly got one of the last spots open up top. We step off from the car at about 2:30 AM up the long and un-steep trail up through trees. Even though there is really no residual moon light showing and it is rather dark, we shut off the headlamps after about 10 minutes. Within 5 minutes, we could see well enough to make our way up the trail. We figured we wanted to be starting the 3rd class ramp right at sunup so we had some extra time and this would be a way to go a bit slower. It startled folks as we caught and passed them without any torch light. Most folks either had to make some sort of comment or stare at us with their headlamps just ruining our night vision. Why is it that people think it is ok to stare at you with a giant bright flashlight on their forehead? It was amazing to see the chain of headlamps headed up the hill up ahead.
It took longer than I thought to make the boulderfield, not because we were going by natural light but because I Didn’t realize how much out of the way the trail goes out of the way. In the Winter, it was straight up through the trees from the little wood foot bridge and straight to granite pass from there and straight up from there. Being inappropriate to travel like that in summer, it was a long and windy road to say the least. We actually walked right up on a heard of about 50 elk just past Mills Moraine. They were bolting within about 10’ of us. We probably would have seen them sooner if we had light. Oh well. About halfway through the boulderfield, we were greeted by the light.
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We took a rest just below the keyhole as we pulled out our technical gear and readied for the 3rd class ramp. Between 5:30 and 6, we set off for the business of the route. It’s amazing how much class 2 we will suffer thorough for a little bit of class 5. Look at these goobers:
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We were so happy to be away from the mass quantity of people. You don’t go to Longs in summer for solidarity, that’s for sure. We had Keyhole ridge all to ourselves though.
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In no time, we found the 4 shiny bolts with hangers just below what seemed to start to be a bit more technical. Looking at the terrain ahead, we both agreed that it hardly required a rope. Sean threw on his rock shoes and I continued on in my Approach shoes. With some careful moves, we made quick work of the next section. You can see one of the bolts in the lower right hand corner and the red line above me is our approximate path. Easy climbing but there are no unimportant steps here. Every move must count as there is zero room for error.
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I took the lead while Sean put his shoes on and he caught up fast on the fun and rather solid rock compared to other harder routes on other mountains.
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Over and up. Over and up we went.
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The fun solid granite just kept throwing itself down in front of us.
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The exposure grows with the excitement. False Keyhole and the 3rd class ledges are seen behind me along with the boulderfield and Storm Peak. When are we going to need all that gear we are hauling around?
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And a sneak peak of the route ahead
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How about on this splitter crack? This came as quite a surprise but we didn’t have any gear big enough for this anyhow. We could have set up an anchor at least but there was a decent decking ledge below and the granite was so sticky. Just stuff your limbs in and up you go. One foot in the crack… ouch. Two feet… a bit scary. I actually came down to re-think my future before sticking the third foot in the crack. Then…. Three feet in the crack…….. You are now committed. No going back, no mistakes. Just about the time your butt is puckerin’ pretty good, you can grab the top and mantle up. The feeling was truly exhilarating.
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Sean in close pursuit with biiiiig exposure in the background.
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Now atop the tower, Petit Grepon is seen in the lower left as Sean contemplates the route ahead.
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Everything is so pretty.
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After the splitter crack, it is obvious that the only way to continue is over the tower and down. The back includes a tippy block and some high exposure. We opt for the safe option and pull the rope out for a 10’ rappel on the rap ring and decent looking webbing already in place. Normally, I don’t use used webbing but upon inspection, this piece looked alright. It wasn’t hard moves, just high exposure. A quick no hands traverse lent us passage across the backside of the tower. Meanwhile, the folks down on the keyhole route below were totally oblivious to us above so we had to be extra careful not to send any projectiles careening down. The black arrow depicts where the rap happened and then we traversed the ledges.
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Standing on wet moss and staring up at the next section, the route was obvious where we had to go. Due to the unknown factor of what was above, we opted to rope up since we had wet shoes and I was only in approach shoes. This was not worth the risk given the factors. I threw in a nut for an anchor and belayed Sean as he placed 3 pieces before setting anchors about 50’ up since the route looked fine after that point. I followed quickly noting that there was one piton hammered behind a flake on the face about 1/3 of the way up the pitch that Sean didn’t even see. His cam placement was probably better anyhow.
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I made quick work of the short pitch while enjoying the bluebird day. Wasn’t it supposed to be 80%+ cloud cover today? What a treat. I felt good. We made the decision to be safe as soon as safety was in question and we roped up right where we needed.
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Putting away the rope, we traversed left and up to the next tower. I topped out to realize it wasn’t the right way. This isn’t where I parked my car! I came back down as Sean searched the area below for passage. With a high traverse I found passage into the infamous notch.
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Monkey see. Monkey do.
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What a beautiful Notch! The rock was reminding us both of turkey rocks in the south platte.
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We chatted with another guy who I think had come from the choss gulley below the notch. We waited for him to top out on the right line since he kicked down a good sized rock. We took the left side.
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Some talus hopping and hard slab put us on the summit block.
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Here is one of the 4 USGS Markers. It is kind of shiny, presumably from the thousands of hands touching it.
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And… A summit shot. #49 For Me and I think #8 for Sean. It is nice to have a partner with technical rock skills as it makes numbers matter quite a lot less. I now have 9 to go. Single digits baby. This is a hard earned summit if I ever saw one. This isn’t to say that I have some unfinished winter business here. I also want that chance on the Diamond understanding that there might be more than 40’ of roped climbing there! I would like to do many other routes on this magnificent mountain in the future as well but it feels good to have it ticked off the list.
Sean surprised me with shooters of Jim Beam Black and some Brandy. We downed the Beam and saved the brandy for the car. What a pal!
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Sean took a pic of his new friend.
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I point out Chasm view as we make our way down for our descent on the North Face Cables route. This seems like a better option than the crowded keyhole route with the army of people kicking down rocks on us. We opted for the straight line. Why not, we have a rope and need to get some use out of it.
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Traversing down and left and following the cairns, I don’t think the route ever exceeded class 3 until we found the highest eye bolt. It was about 25 meters above the next set that actually was the 5.4 section. We skipped it and waited around the next two. We awaited for another team to finish the 2nd technical pitch and made our rap down to the winter highpoint for Matt, Dancesatmoonrise and I. I couldn’t believe how close this was to the summit and we had to turn around. You can see there is still some wetness on the route.
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It sure does look a lot different than in winter. The next pitch we rapped more to the left (while facing down) since there was other groups waiting for the first pitch. 2 raps with a doubled 60m was perfect and I presume that 2 30m ropes tied together would suffice as well. The next image is our approximate route for the day. Red is un-roped ascent. The tiny blue is roped ascent. Black is descent. Yellow is rappels. What a stellar route. Everything went too smooth. Unbelievable.
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Afer spending some time looking at climbers on the diamond from chasm view and dangling my feet over the edge, we took off because Sean felt the altitude still messing with him a bit. We were on our way back to Pabst. Here is a shot of a future goal from near Mills Moraine.
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Getting back to the trees was quite a relief from the heat and sun as we dipped our heads in the rushing water and slogged it out back to the car.
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1230 on the dot gained us the parking lot. We hung out in Pabst as we shook off the day and prepared for the hot drive back to the springs with no air conditioning. Lucky for us, there were yummy popsicles in the fridge.
Thanks for reading through as I learned my lessons in patience to tick this one off the list.

Thanks to Sean for suggesting this climb and accompanying me on the journey.

See you at the Top!