Longs Peak Project (June) -- Kieners

June 25^th—Ascended Kieners, descended North Face with John Greedy

This ascent went a lot smoother with the route fresh on my mind. John hadn’t been up Longs in several years. So, his stoke was pretty high. We made good time up to Lamb’s Slide where we put on crampons and got out our axes. There were a few groups above us so I hauled ass to try to get to the top before they started the traverse over to Broadway and knocked rocks down on my helmetless head. John had a helmet so I didn’t feel too bad dropping him here. The few snow spots that were on Broadway last week had all melted leaving Broadway a cruiser alpine sidewalk. We quickly made our way through the short crux sections of lower Kieners and found ourselves on mellow terrain in no time. We actually stayed on route for upper Kiener’s, which made for a much more pleasant experience compared to last week. We spent almost an hour on the summit chatting with Peter Bakwin (who had ascended Keyhole Ridge) and a few others before making our way down the North Face waterfall route. After 8 hours 4 minutes we found ourselves back at the trailhead enjoying a few beers. 

Our route: Up Lamb's Slide, traverse Broadway, up Kiener's

Sunrise above treeline

Longs Peak in the distance

Pretty awesome place to be

Skirting around Chasm Lake (Photo: John Greedy)

Looking up at Lamb's Slide and all of the people that will be potentially knocking rocks on us from above once they start the entry to Broadway (Photo: John Greedy)

Getting ready to shimmy up Lamb's Slide (Photo: John Greedy)

John heading up Lamb's Slide

Pulling around the crux bulge on Broadway (Photo: John Greedy)

John Greedy making his way across Broadway

Cruising up the easier upper Kiener's route (Photo: John Greedy)

John on upper Kiener's

Loitering on the summit for over an hour. Hard to beat weather like this at 14,000+ feet! (Photo: John Greedy)

Looking back at the descent.

June 19^th—Ascended Kieners, descended North Face with Derrick Clemmenson

I had only done Kieners once prior to this and it was almost a year ago. So, my knowledge of the route was very limited. However, I did at least know where the start was. Derrick and I made good time up to Broadway where we removed our crampons and stowed our axes. There were a few patches of avoidable snow and the snow that was above the ledge had frozen ice axe holes in it, which provided great hand holds. When we reached the Notch Couloir there were two climbers hanging out and belaying a lead climber who was heading up Kieners. Those guys didn’t seem too thrilled to see two guys in running shoes come past them with intentions of soloing the route they were pitching out. Fortunately, the lead climber was much nicer and let us pass quickly. After scrambling through some of the crux section we found ourselves in some sort of gully that appeared to have two exits: one directly to our right and one straight ahead. The footprints in the snow led us to believe that straight was the correct way. So, I scrambled up and some stuff that felt a little harder than 5.4 and noticed several pieces of webbing along the way. I should have realized that these were likely for parties that bailed out, but I didn’t. I eventually topped out and noticed that the exit was going directly into Notch Couloir. After downclimbing a bit I made my way back to our second route choice, the one of the climber’s right, and we easily exited the gully onto cruiser terrain. The rest of the ascent was harder than expected since we stayed way left of the route. We ended up scrambling up shitty, lichen-covered slabs with some old fixed gear before finally topping out. Another routine North Face descent and hike out saw us back at the car in 8 hours 10 minutes. Not bad, considering our bounty of route finding mistakes.

Sunrise at Chasm Junction

Summer is finally here!

Broadway without snow is much less sketchy than with snow

Cruising along the sidewalk

This is right before making our first route finding error of the day.

Summit shot

Descending the Cables waterfall

One great thing about all of these descents on the North Face is that there's always a sweet view of the Diamond waiting at the bottom

Longs Peak Project (May) -- Notch Couloir

May 28^th—Ascended Notch Couloir/Clark’s Arrow, descended The North Face with Peter Bakwin and Justin Simoni

With significantly cooler temperatures we got another early start to see if we could get up the Notch Couloir and Stepladder. The approach to the base of Lamb’s Slide passed by quickly. We stopped to gear up (more layers, harnesses, crampons, axes, etc.), down some calories, and get ready for the rest of the ascent. We made our way up Lamb’s Slide and traversed over towards Broadway where we roped up. Justin took the lead while Peter and I simul-climbed behind. I was surprised at how serious Broadway is in the winter versus summer. Justin set up a belay at the climber’s right-hand side of the Notch Couloir where we regrouped for the climb. Again, Justin took the lead and headed up, while Peter and I followed. This was slightly steeper and higher consequence than Flying Dutchman, but the crux of Notch Couloir felt significantly easier than that of the FD. This could have been because the ice on FD was absolute shit when I led it and the short section of ice on NC was perfect. When we topped out at the Notch it began snowing on us. Justin was done leading for the day, Peter knew the route on the Stepladder but isn’t really comfortable lead climbing, and I had zero prior route knowledge. In summer conditions I would have went questing up the route, but I’m not exactly the most confident climber while wearing crampons. I had also talked to Stefan Griebel about this route and he told me that he fell while following Bill Wright. So, with none of us willing to take the lead we decided for the anticlimactic Clark’s Arrow finish. After our North Face descent, which only required about a 15 foot rappel, we quickly hiked out to get back to the car in 14 hours 54 minutes. What a long day…

May 21^st—Ascended Lamb’s Slide/Clark’s Arrow, descended The North Face with Peter Bakwin and Justin Simoni

Our goal was to ascend via the Notch Couloir and Stepladder. Unfortunately, the sun was out in full force and led to some dangerous snow conditions on Broadway. So, we bailed on that idea and continued up Lamb’s Slide/Clark’s Arrow instead. Pretty straightforward ascent route. A descent of the North Face and hike out saw us back at the car in 9 hours 15 minutes.  

Broadway traverse into the Notch Couloir route

Approaching Chasm Junction

Approaching Chasm Junction

Nearing the base of Lamb's Slide. (Photo: Justin Simoni)

Peter making his way towards the bottom of Lamb's Slide

The Diamond covered in rime ice

Nice view of MLW from Broadway

Peter threw the rope over a horn for a little extra protection when I scooted around this bulge

Peter and I following up Broadway. (Photo: Justin Simoni)

Justin beginning up the Notch Couloir

First ice beard of the LPP

Summit shot

Peter charging down the North Face

Justin downclimbing the Cables

Looking back at our descent

Longs Peak Project (April) -- The Trough

April 9^th—Ascended/descended via The Trough from Glacier Gorge Trailhead with Peter Bakwin

Pretty uneventful outing. Peter and I met at the bus stop at a reasonable hour for once. We hit the trail around first light and began the approach hike. Conditions on the Trough were absolutely perfect. Someone had kicked steps in the entire way up, which allowed us to get to the summit in nothing more than Microspikes and trekking poles. After lingering around the summit for a while we decided to begin our descent. We got out our axes for the glissading descent and were down on level ground in no time. The hardest part of the day was the return hike since the strong sun had softened the snow significantly. Eventually, we reached treeline and the snow was a little firmer. This was definitely the easiest ascent of the LPP so far; only taking us 6 hours 46 minutes car-to-car. 

Longs Peak Project (March) -- Flying Dutchman

March 3^rd—Ascended via Flying Dutchman to The Beaver to Clark’s Arrow, Descended via The North Face with Peter Bakwin

Our original plan was to ascend via the Flying BeaverTraverse that Bill Wright and Charlie Nuttleman used during their May ascent in 2015, but we ended up deviating from that plan. 

We started out the day from our usual meeting spot—The Bus Stop. On the drive up to the Longs Peak Trailhead we could feel the wind whipping the car around pretty good, which let us know that we might be in for a long day. Fortunately, the winds were fairly tame at first. The approach hike to Chasm Junction went by fairly fast. While traversing to below Chasm Lake we had to get out our axes due to unbroken snow. This was my first time walking across Chasm Lake when it’s solid ice. Peter and I both were in favor of hugging the shore of the lake just in case. We reached the base of the Flying Dutchman in 2:18 and decided to stop here to put on more clothes, crampons, and get in some calories. 

Frozen Chasm Lake

Snow conditions on the Dutchman were actually pretty good. Peter has a lot more experience/confidence than me on snow so he just stuck his front points in and cruised up the snow. I’m much more timid in the snow since I’ve done minimal snow climbing. So, I took forever to ascend while kicking steps in the entire way. Eventually, we reached the crux section of the FD, which was mixed rock and shitty, thin ice/snow. We decided to rope up here. If the ice would have been good or the rock dry we would have just soloed up it, but with conditions looking less than ideal and a rope in our bag we opted for a protected climb. 

Peter built an anchor that was protected from rock fall and I got on the sharp end. I’ve never climbed ice. I’ve never climbed in crampons on rock or ice. I’ve never used ice tools. So, this was an interesting experience to say the least. Getting out of the snow and onto the rock at the base of the crux was somewhat difficult since all of the snow and ice kept collapsing underneath me. I eventually figured it out and found a place to shove a cam on the climber’s left side of the gully. I carefully shimmied up little-by-little using an ice tool in my right hand and keeping my left hand free to grab features/cracks on the left wall. Getting purchase with my front points was difficult since the ice was so thin. Everything I touched with my crampons shattered. I managed to get in three solid pieces of pro within the first 15-20 feet of this mixed climbing section and then continued on another 30’ish feet without another piece of pro. For the most part, I was sticking my ice tool in shitty rubble (rocks, dirt, grass) somewhat held together by snow and ice. So, I dislodged several small rocks and sent them down the snow field towards Peter. During this crux section I only really got two good sticks with the ax and two with my front points. I eventually reached some webbing and used this as an anchor to bring up Peter. First, I had to spend 5+ minutes thawing out my hands that were frozen solid. 

With my first ice climbing experience out of the way and Peter up the crux section we took off our crampons and made our way up to The Beaver to check out the rappel into The Notch. Winds were howling through The Notch. We weren’t 100% certain that our rope would get us to the ground and the wind was blowing our rope horizontally. So, we couldn’t get a visual of the rope ends touching. Neither of us really was thrilled with the possibility of having to jug back up the rope in the event that the ends didn’t hit the ground. So, after a little talk we decided to bail on the rappel/Stepladder and finish our ascent via Clark’s Arrow. 

The rest of the ascent seemed to take every bit of energy I had. I’m not sure if being gripped during the FD crux took everything out of me mentally and physically or what, but it was a slog to the top. We summited in about 8:10, ugh…

Peter gearing up for the Flying Dutchman

Fortunately, we’ve descended the North Face in winter several times now and were able to cruise down to the eyebolts, quickly rappel, and be on our way. I coiled the rope around my neck and kept it there until we reached the end of the snow and could take off our crampons. This eliminated an extra stop. We stowed the rope, harnesses, and crampons then quickly began our hike back to the parking lot. We eventually had to stop one more time to shed a bunch of layers so that we could push the pace without sweating our asses off. 

The entire descent took around three hours, which made this our longest ascent so far at 11 hours 10 minutes. We managed to make it to the car before dark (just barely), but we were both pretty exhausted at the end of the day.