November 3rd—Up/down
The North Face with Peter Bakwin
Car-to-car time: 7 hours 48 minutes
With the forecast on November 3rd looking perfect
and everything after that in the extended forecast looking like complete shit I
decided to use a sick day and try to get a November ascent early in the month.
Peter and I decided to finally use The North Face as one of our routes after saving
it all year.
We hoped for some decent snow conditions on the Cables
section to make for a nice, easy snow climb. Unfortunately, snow conditions
were quite terrible. The Cables section was slabby rock covered in a thin layer
of shit ice with 1-2 feet of sugar snow on top—not exactly ideal for an easy
solo. So, we decided to rope up even though we didn’t have any pro with us. We
each had a harness, a personal anchor, and a belay device. I tethered my anchor
around the lowest bolt while Peter climbed up a ways without pro. He eventually
reached another bolt and tethered in with his anchor. I climbed up to him,
continued up through the top of the Cables where I exited the slabs (crux), and
tethered into the highest bolt to bring up Peter. After exiting the Cables we
easily made our way up to the summit and into the sunlight.
This would be our last descent of The North Face for the
LPP, which was a great feeling. Descending this route had become a chore more
than anything over the course of the year. A short descent/traverse over to the
eye bolts, two quick raps, and then one last hike back to the Longs Peak
Trailhead. The crap conditions on the Cables made this ascent take several
hours longer than anticipated. Oh well…
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| Photo: Peter Bakwin |
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| Photo: Peter Bakwin |
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