It's a Big Sky: Longs Peak Project (July) -- A Walk in the Park

July 9^th—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 2^nd 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 2^nd/3^rd 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-5^th 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 4^th Class.

McHenry’s to Powell was another cruiser section. From Powell to Thatchtop was quite enjoyable 3^rd/4^th 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)