July 9th—A
Walk in the Park (Glacier Gorge Traverse) with Peter Bakwin.
Half > Storm > Longs Peak (via Keyhole Ridge) >
Pagoda > Chief’s Head > McHenry’s > Powell > Thatchtop
Car-to-car time: 10 hours 53 minutes
I definitely rank this right up there as one of the best
days I’ve ever had in the mountains. Such a great route! Peter and I hit the
trail hiking at first light and found ourselves ‘schwacking up Half in no time.
As Peter recalled, we were dead even on his previous splits for Half and Storm
when he did this route with Buzz and Tina previously. Everything up to the
Keyhole was pretty chill 2nd Class terrain.
The real fun began once we reached the end of the mellow
ramp at the beginning of the Keyhole Ridge route. Here, we began a steep ascent
of a flake/crack system for what felt like 100’ish feet. The scrambling was
fairly steep and exposed, but solid. Once we reached the top the terrain eased
for a bit. I probably should have done this write-up shortly after completing
the route since I don’t really remember too many details almost one month later.
I do remember a super exposed side traverse on small ledges to skirt around one
of the more vertical cruxes. I also remember an awkward step around a corner
(right by the off-width crack) that led to a 10-15 foot 5.6 cruxy section on
solid holds. This step around and 5.6 section was spectacularly exposed, much
like most of this route. Eventually, the difficult terrain relents into a 2nd/3rd
Class hike to the summit.
From the summit of Longs we headed down the Homestretch for
a short while before veering off and heading towards Pagoda. The key to the
descent to the Longs-Pagoda saddle is finding a break in the cliff band that
allows for an easy descent. We found this easily and trudged up to the summit
of Pagoda rather quickly.
Next, was the second crux of the day—the descent off Pagoda.
If you have a rope to rappel or you’re a more ballsy solo downclimber than
Peter or I then you can just downclimb the 5.7 west ridge of Pagoda. Otherwise,
you can sneak and meander your way down through a series of low-5th
Class downclimbs and ledges. We opted for the easier descent. The route finding
on this descent option isn’t obvious, but isn’t terribly difficult either. Once
through the difficulties we found ourselves on a nice ledge over to Chief’s
Head.
From Chief’s Head to McHenry’s was pretty easy,
straightforward terrain. A chilly wind picked up around this point and lingered
until we began our descent off Thatchtop. Everything we had read about the
descent into McHenry’s Notch had us prepared for another cruxy part of the day.
However, we managed to find our way down into the Notch without ever exceeding
4th Class.
McHenry’s to Powell was another cruiser section. From Powell
to Thatchtop was quite enjoyable 3rd/4th Class terrain
that kept us engaged enough to forget that we had been on our feet for over
eight hours. The only negative about this stretch was that it proved to be
pretty slow going due to a knife-edge traverse, several slabby downclimbs, and
a couple of lichen-covered sections.
Once on Thatchtop we were left with a talus hopping descent
down to Solitude and Shelf Lakes, which passed by quickly. The worse part of
the final descent was the section from Shelf Lake to the main trail running
along Mills Lake and back to the trailhead. This was steep, loose, and covered
in downed trees, which sucked to run down in dot rubber approach shoes.
When we finally reached the main trail we just ignored how
tired we were and ran all the way back to the trailhead. We wanted to see if we
could finish in under 11 hours, but mostly we just didn’t want the last few
miles to drag on forever because we were being lazy and walking. We ended up
reaching the trailhead in 10 hours 53 minutes and felt satisfied with our
effort.
It felt good to be back at the car and to get the
shoes/socks off. It felt great to stop at Oskar Blue’s for food and beer on the
way back home. It felt even better to get back to the Taco and pass out for a
few hour nap.
Splits: Total time
(split time)
Half—1:13 (1:13)
Storm—2:30 (1:17)
Longs—4:00 (1:30)
Pagoda—4:43 (0:43)
Chief’s Head—6:04 (1:21)
McHenry’s—7:15 (1:11)
Powell—8:00 (0:45)
Thatchtop—9:20 (1:20)
Trailhead—10:53 (1:33)
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| The route--going clockwise |
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| Peter leading the way at sunrise |
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| On the summit of Storm with a glimpse out what awaits us for the rest of the day |
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| Coming off of Half and catching our first views of Keyhole Ridge up Longs Peak |
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| Unobstructed view of Keyhole Ridge. Such a sweet route! |
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| Keyhole Ridge starts out easy enough on this ramp |
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| Then escalates rather quickly on this steep scramble up a flake/crack system (Photo: Peter Bakwin) |
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| This is a short 10-15 foot 5.6'ish crux section right after an awkward step around a corner. Both are very exposed. (Photo: Peter Bakwin) |
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| Look closely and you can see Peter making his way up the huge ramp. |
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| Embracing the exposure on this side traverse (Photo: Peter Bakwin) |
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| Looking down is fun (Photo: Peter Bakwin) |
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| Peter making his way to Pagoda, I think |
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| I think this is on the descent of Pagoda, but I can't remember |
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| One of the 5.easy sections of the Pagoda downclimb (Photo: Peter Bakwin) |
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| The sweet ledge system from Pagoda to Chief's Head |
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| Making my way across the nice, big ledges (Photo: Peter Bakwin) |
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| Looking back at Pagoda. If you look closely on the right side of the ridge you can see the grassy ledges that we used for the downclimb. |
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| Just a small taste of the route |
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| Peter making his way into McHenry's Notch, I think |
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| The knife-edge between Powell and Thatchtop |
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| Peter on the knife-edge |
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| Looking back on our route from the knife-edge |
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| Me on the knife-edge |
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| A fun finger crack/dihedral downclimb |
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| Panorama of our route from the last summit of the day, Thatchtop |
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| View from Thatchtop |
