Longs Peak Trip Report 11/14/2007

Peak(s):	Longs Peak - 14,259 feet
Date Posted:	11/14/2007
Date Climbed:	11/11/2007
Author:	firsttracks

North Face Cable Route
Recently, I've been trying to plan an igloo-making trip with Igloo Ed. Our latest plan was to head up Long's Peak over the holiday break and build an igloo on the summit. We also planned on climbing Long's via the North Face Cable Route. The plan sounded good, but I was somewhat concerned about climbing a technical route in the winter with partners I'd never climbed with before. So, I decided to give the Cable Route a test run over the holiday weekend with my climbing buddy, Chuck. I left Los Alamos at 4pm on Saturday, and arrived at Chuck's house in Westminster at 10:15pm. After catching up for a while, and meeting some other climbing friends from France who were also in town to climb, I went to bed. After just three hours of bad sleep, it was time to get up. After a preliminary gear sort, we were on the road. We arrived at the trailhead around 4:45, and spend another 30 minutes on the final gear sort. We finally agreed on a rack: 2 x #1 Camalot 1 x #2 Link Cam 2 x #0.5 Tri-Cam ("pinkies") 2 x #1 Tri-Cam (red) 4 x single length slings 6 x double length slings (Yosemite quick-draw configuration) Selection of hexes & nuts We hit the trail at 5:15. After about 1.5 hours of hiking, the sun finally made it's first appearance of the day. All of a sudden, the weather reports weren't looking good. The sky revealed the tell-tale signs of an inbound storm. ("Red sky at morning, sailors take warning.") The winds also looked strong. We made it to the boulder field, and had a good glance of the route ahead. By now, the temperature was starting to drop and the winds were picking up. We scrambled through the boulder field and headed up to Chasm View. Here, the thermometer read 20F, and we estimated the winds to be 30 mph for a wind chill of 0F. Chuck's CamelBack was frozen solid. We found shelter behind some rocks, and watched the winds whipping over head. We had a decision to make: continue on or go home. Chuck left his balaclava at home, we were planning on climbing in climbing shoes, and we figured we'd be climbing without gloves. We were already cold, and knew it would get worse. Finally, I suggested that we at least go up to the start of the climb and take a look. Chuck was the first to move, as I was finishing adjusting my crampons (just in case we needed them on the upper route). Chuck arrived at the base of the climb and couldn't hide his excitement: the climb looked easy! I arrived shortly behind him, and quickly reached the same conclusion: we could climb in our boots and gloves. The route was also somewhat sheltered from the wind, so we decided to give it a go. The beginning of the route is shown here, along with the first cable anchor. Chuck began to tie in while I got the rack and slings ready. I finished tying in, and began climbing. The first cable anchor was only five feet above the base of the climb, and I quickly slung the eye-hole and moved on. The climb got icy, and snow-filled shortly above the first cable anchor. The following picture, taken on the descent, shows the first part of the climb: I placed a few more pieces of gear (0.5, 1.0 Tri-cams) before arriving at a downward-facing flake, shown in the next picture. This was the crux of the climb, and it felt to be around 5.6 or so with the ice. At the top of the chimney, on top of the left rock, I could see another piece of gear. I arrived to find a brand-new, 0.75 Camalot! It had worked its way loose, and looked like someone was lucky to walk away from that rap. I racked it, and replaced it with a bomber hex. At this point, the difficulties looked to be over. The following picture is looking down on this section, with Chuck at the downward flake. I climbed up and left, and saw some easy remaining climbing: I continued to climb, slinging every cable anchor along the way. As I arrived at what looked to be the last cable anchor, my partner yelled, "Three feet!" I used the last 3' of rope to back up the cable anchor with two tri-cams, equalized the anchor, and brought up my partner. The next picture looks down on the final difficulties. The cable anchor about 10‘ below me (and above Chuck) and to the right of the cairn, is the final anchor that a 60m rope will reach, and is the one that we used for our final anchor. After he arrived at the anchor, I belayed him up past the snow slope above. Chuck set another quick belay station to bring me up, and we unroped and stashed our rope and climbing gear. We got our ice axes out, and surveyed the remaining route. The upper slopes were much more snowy and icy than the pictures show. We carefully traversed across the slopes above the Diamond, kicking steps and planting our ice axes regularly. After a while, we scrambled up broken ledges to the summit. The picture below shows the entire route we took, with the blue dots indicating the belays that we set at the start and end of the rock climb. (The third is our gear stash location). We arrived at the summit 6 hours after leaving the car. No another soul was around. Here are the current conditions on the summit: And, here are the summit shots of me and Chuck (respectively): We quickly turned around to re-trace our route. We carefully worked our way back to our gear stash, and carried the gear down to the last cable anchor to begin our rappel. As we looked down at the last anchor we used, it seemed funny that there wasn't another one at the top. We looked around, and sure enough, we found another anchor! We set the rappel, tied the ends of the rope, and began the descent. Chuck went first, and I clicked off a few pictures. Soon, he was anchored to another cable anchor 30m below, and I started down myself. We repeated the process another two times. At the end of our second rappel, we were still 5m or so above the start of the technical rock. This worked out well, because we set up a third rappel that took us down past the snow slope leading to the rock. As I pulled the rope for a third time, we finally breathed a sigh of relief. We were off the technical part of the climb and back to simple hiking. After another several hours, we were back at the car for a round-trip time of 11 hours. After a dinner at Buco de Beppo‘s, I began my drive back to Los Alamos, arriving at 3am. What a day! Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):

North Face Cable Route

Recently, I've been trying to plan an igloo-making trip with Igloo Ed. Our latest plan was to head up Long's Peak over the holiday break and build an igloo on the summit. We also planned on climbing Long's via the North Face Cable Route.

The plan sounded good, but I was somewhat concerned about climbing a technical route in the winter with partners I'd never climbed with before. So, I decided to give the Cable Route a test run over the holiday weekend with my climbing buddy, Chuck. I left Los Alamos at 4pm on Saturday, and arrived at Chuck's house in Westminster at 10:15pm. After catching up for a while, and meeting some other climbing friends from France who were also in town to climb, I went to bed. After just three hours of bad sleep, it was time to get up.

After a preliminary gear sort, we were on the road. We arrived at the trailhead around 4:45, and spend another 30 minutes on the final gear sort. We finally agreed on a rack:

2 x #1 Camalot
1 x #2 Link Cam
2 x #0.5 Tri-Cam ("pinkies")
2 x #1 Tri-Cam (red)
4 x single length slings
6 x double length slings (Yosemite quick-draw configuration)
Selection of hexes & nuts

We hit the trail at 5:15. After about 1.5 hours of hiking, the sun finally made it's first appearance of the day. All of a sudden, the weather reports weren't looking good. The sky revealed the tell-tale signs of an inbound storm. ("Red sky at morning, sailors take warning.") The winds also looked strong.

We made it to the boulder field, and had a good glance of the route ahead.

By now, the temperature was starting to drop and the winds were picking up. We scrambled through the boulder field and headed up to Chasm View. Here, the thermometer read 20F, and we estimated the winds to be 30 mph for a wind chill of 0F. Chuck's CamelBack was frozen solid. We found shelter behind some rocks, and watched the winds whipping over head. We had a decision to make: continue on or go home.

Chuck left his balaclava at home, we were planning on climbing in climbing shoes, and we figured we'd be climbing without gloves. We were already cold, and knew it would get worse. Finally, I suggested that we at least go up to the start of the climb and take a look. Chuck was the first to move, as I was finishing adjusting my crampons (just in case we needed them on the upper route). Chuck arrived at the base of the climb and couldn't hide his excitement: the climb looked easy! I arrived shortly behind him, and quickly reached the same conclusion: we could climb in our boots and gloves. The route was also somewhat sheltered from the wind, so we decided to give it a go. The beginning of the route is shown here, along with the first cable anchor.

Chuck began to tie in while I got the rack and slings ready. I finished tying in, and began climbing. The first cable anchor was only five feet above the base of the climb, and I quickly slung the eye-hole and moved on. The climb got icy, and snow-filled shortly above the first cable anchor. The following picture, taken on the descent, shows the first part of the climb:

I placed a few more pieces of gear (0.5, 1.0 Tri-cams) before arriving at a downward-facing flake, shown in the next picture.

This was the crux of the climb, and it felt to be around 5.6 or so with the ice. At the top of the chimney, on top of the left rock, I could see another piece of gear. I arrived to find a brand-new, 0.75 Camalot! It had worked its way loose, and looked like someone was lucky to walk away from that rap. I racked it, and replaced it with a bomber hex. At this point, the difficulties looked to be over. The following picture is looking down on this section, with Chuck at the downward flake.

I climbed up and left, and saw some easy remaining climbing:

I continued to climb, slinging every cable anchor along the way. As I arrived at what looked to be the last cable anchor, my partner yelled, "Three feet!" I used the last 3' of rope to back up the cable anchor with two tri-cams, equalized the anchor, and brought up my partner. The next picture looks down on the final difficulties. The cable anchor about 10‘ below me (and above Chuck) and to the right of the cairn, is the final anchor that a 60m rope will reach, and is the one that we used for our final anchor.

After he arrived at the anchor, I belayed him up past the snow slope above. Chuck set another quick belay station to bring me up, and we unroped and stashed our rope and climbing gear. We got our ice axes out, and surveyed the remaining route. The upper slopes were much more snowy and icy than the pictures show. We carefully traversed across the slopes above the Diamond, kicking steps and planting our ice axes regularly. After a while, we scrambled up broken ledges to the summit.

The picture below shows the entire route we took, with the blue dots indicating the belays that we set at the start and end of the rock climb. (The third is our gear stash location).

We arrived at the summit 6 hours after leaving the car. No another soul was around.

Here are the current conditions on the summit:

And, here are the summit shots of me and Chuck (respectively):

We quickly turned around to re-trace our route. We carefully worked our way back to our gear stash, and carried the gear down to the last cable anchor to begin our rappel. As we looked down at the last anchor we used, it seemed funny that there wasn't another one at the top. We looked around, and sure enough, we found another anchor! We set the rappel, tied the ends of the rope, and began the descent. Chuck went first, and I clicked off a few pictures. Soon, he was anchored to another cable anchor 30m below, and I started down myself.

We repeated the process another two times. At the end of our second rappel, we were still 5m or so above the start of the technical rock. This worked out well, because we set up a third rappel that took us down past the snow slope leading to the rock. As I pulled the rope for a third time, we finally breathed a sigh of relief. We were off the technical part of the climb and back to simple hiking.

After another several hours, we were back at the car for a round-trip time of 11 hours. After a dinner at Buco de Beppo‘s, I began my drive back to Los Alamos, arriving at 3am. What a day!

Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):

Comments or Questions

Billygoat	Nice report 11/16/2007 6:30pm That was an interesting report, pictures too. I did that route up about ten years ago and can appreciate your experience. Well done!
lordhelmut	nice sunrise shot 11/16/2007 10:18pm nothing like a shot of the sun, clouds and a shitter. I‘ve dropped a lot of deuce‘s in my time, but the ones at chasm junction are the most memorable. Nice report too.
cftbq	good pictures 11/17/2007 6:54pm Nice reort; very helpful. I‘ve heard it said that this route can be climbed without ropes (in summer, obviously). Do you agree?
firsttracks	Next time... 11/18/2007 12:44am I do think that the route is easy enough to solo in the summer. BUT, it still is probably 5.4, so climb at your own risk. If I were to climb it again, I would definitely bring a lighter rack, something like: 6 slings for the 6 cable anchors on the route 2 double length slings 2 x #0.5 Tricam 2 x #1.0 Tricam #7-9 Stoppers #6-7 BD hexes I only used #0.5 Tricam, #1.0 Tricam, #9 stopper, #7 hex, and slings for this ascent. I never even thought about placing a cam.
malcolml1	Vicarious Pleasure 12/13/2007 5:42pm I ascended this route in 1985 with my 11 yr old daughter, and we were the second party on top. In the same year I descended this route with my 12 yr old son after a memorable ascent of Kieners. Thanks for bringing happy memories with your splendid photos. Malcolm
parakeet	nice 1/24/2008 6:03am gnarly route dude
caveman_ug	Thanks for the beta 10/11/2009 8:45pm Austin and I are planning a shot at the north face around February and I am already of course agonizing over onces and what gear to bring for the tech section so thanks a lot for including that. Yes I know February will be harsh but in addition to bringing a bomber tent I am hoping to build a nice snow cave. One question though. What was the predominant wind direction if you can recall? trying to get a broad view of other peoples experiences
Yog	Well done! 2/5/2011 12:22am That is a great route! I have only descended it so far (ascended Keiners, came down Cables), but think it would be a great climb! Thanks for posting
Devin	Nice.... 1/14/2014 1:11pm Summit shot, bro. I think those are the first pictures that I have seen of Chuck on a mountain where he wasn't eating something. Only 7 to go! Good report.

Caution: The information contained in this report may not be accurate and should not be the only resource used in preparation for your climb. Failure to have the necessary experience, physical conditioning, supplies or equipment can result in injury or death. 14ers.com and the author(s) of this report provide no warranties, either express or implied, that the information provided is accurate or reliable. By using the information provided, you agree to indemnify and hold harmless 14ers.com and the report author(s) with respect to any claims and demands against them, including any attorney fees and expenses. Please read the 14ers.com Safety and Disclaimer pages for more information.

Please respect private property: 14ers.com supports the rights of private landowners to determine how and by whom their land will be used. In Colorado, it is your responsibility to determine if land is private and to obtain the appropriate permission before entering the property.

14ers.com

Social

Mobile App