Petit Grepon

June 24, 2017
Rocky Mountain National Park
Petit Grepon

We are still in full on alpine mode in preparation for our upcoming trip to Switzerland.  Petit Grepon in RMNP had been on my radar for a few years and this weekend looked promising for a weather window to make it up without getting rained on. Only a 15% chance of rain after noon, increasing to 30% by about 2 pm, we decided to get on the trail early. We arrived to the parking area the night before and were welcomed by several momma elk and a young one sleeping in a field beside the road.

It is 4.5 miles from the Glacier Gorge parking lot to Sky Pond at the base of the Petit, so we started walking the next morning around 4am. There were quite a few cars in the lot, but seemingly no traffic on the trail. Seems we left early enough to enjoy a quiet hike in on our own!

We were treated to a great sunrise in a perfect mountain setting - it doesn't get any better than this!

By the time we reached the climbing route there were already two groups in front of us, so we took our time knowing that the day might go somewhat slow. I lead up the first pitch and Laura followed. The next pitch was a very long one. I combined 2 sections together and ran out a full 70 meters of rope to the base of a chimney about 350' up the rock.

The route is only rated 5.7-5.8, but we decided to take a 5.9 variation to add some spice to the day and were happy that we did. This was the most fun pitch of the day, a beautiful finger crack with good protection after the first 20'.

At one of the belays, I met a guy from Colorado Springs. He was a student and instructor for an outdoor program here. It was great to talk to him and learn about what the program offers and is nice to meet folks who also enjoy getting others outside! It is a good thing he was following us, because on the next pitch, I placed a cam that Laura could not get unstuck. She ended up leaving it and climbing on, but Nick, the instructor ended up getting it out with a nut tool and returning it to me at the summit of the Petit.

 After summiting, we had a quick snack but knowing that the rappels were tricky to find, we started down quickly. We easily found the first 2 but then the fun began. Search for chains, find slings everywhere, guess where to go, repeat. We got the rope stuck one time and I ended up climbing up to unloop in from around two different chock stones. 2.5 hours later, we were once again on solid ground.

The Petit Grepon is listed in a book as one of the 50 classic climbs in America. It certainly was an outstanding route and was even better with one wonderful woman! Our hike out was peaceful until about 2 miles from the trailhead where we encountered hoards of day hikers looking at waterfalls. We headed for the car, went and ate mexican food for dinner in Estes Park and were back home by 9 pm, already with a plan for the following day!

Royal Flush and Father's Day

June 17 - 18, 2017

Mt. Royal
Royal Flush + Aces High
1,500 ft, 8 pitches, 5.10

Laura and I decided that since we were going to spend Father's Day fishing near the cabin, that we would make a day trip to Mt Royal before a day of relaxation.  I had climbed the route two times before, but since she had not, I agreed to go back since it was a fairly enjoyable route.  

We decided to swing leads on all the lower pitches since they are rated 5.6 - 5.7 and there is a fair amount of traversing between them. At the final headwall, there were 3 groups ahead of us on the standard royal flush route, but we had planned to go to the Aces High option. It is a 60 meter pitch, 5.10 and well protected with good bolts. We were the only ones on this pitch and it was definitely the best one of the day. After the aces high pitch, we traversed 20' right anchored in and made one long pitch to the summit (all the way to the tree). This pitch was about 68 meters of our 70 meter rope and is very enjoyable 5.8-5.9 climbing. The route took us about 4 hours, with about an hour of waiting here and there. Descent is by the standard Mt. Royal hiking trail and takes about 45 minutes.

Father's Day was Sunday so we invited Dad up to the cabin for a BBQ and some fishing. Laura and I jumped on two climbs near Montgomery Reservoir before Dad got there. We had a fun BBQ and fished with Dad and Kim. Dad caught 3 fish, Kim and I caught 0. 

 

Lumpy Ridge, Jurassic Park, Bucksnort Slab

June 10 - 11, 2017

Rocky Mountain National Park

South Platte Area

Headed out for a weekend of crack climbing and picked Lumpy Ridge. We climbed the 4 pitch classic Pear Buttress (5.8) in the book area of Lumpy Ridge and the first pitch (5.8) of Fat City.

We then headed over to Jurassic Park near Lily Lake for an ascent of the ultra classic photo op route, Edge of Time (5.9) and two other 5.9 routes just to the left.

Since we were on a classics mission for the weekend, we ended up on bucksnort slabs and climbed Classic Dihedral (5.7). 

 

Mount Meeker and Longs Peak

Mount Meeker and Longs Peak
June 3, 2017
Dreamweaver and some variation of Kieners

Despite being home from the Pacific Northwest for less than a week, we were already anxious to get out again.  After some discussion on the weather and our various options, we settled on Dreamweaver on Mount Meeker.  Although we don't have a lot of experience on mixed climbs, we thought it would be good practice for the climbs we're planning on the Eiger and the Matterhorn.  With the warm weather, we knew we would have to get an early start.  We drove to the Long's Peak trailhead on Friday night and slept in the car with an alarm set for 1:30 AM.  We both slept surprisingly well and felt good when we started hiking.  The hike in went fast and we were at the falls below Chasm Lake before the sun came up.

We stopped for quite a while to eat, drink and gear up with the crampons and harnesses.  The sunrise was beautiful as we started working our way up the couloir. 

The Flying Buttress is pretty impressive and we decided we would have to come back when we thought we could climb at that level.  There were a few short ice/rock sections, but the climb was relatively easy for us.  We had fun and enjoyed the beauty of the mountains.  Despite the snow being somewhat soft, we made good time and reached the summit of Meeker by 8 am.

At this point, we weren't sure what to do.  We had discussed adding on Longs if we made good time.  The weather seemed stable, virtually no wind and sun as far as we could see.  Justin had been wanting to do the Kieners route on Longs Peak for quite a while and we suspected that we could get there by crossing over the Loft and descending the top portion of Lamb Slide. 

So we set off to see if we could figure it out.  Sure enough, just a little ways down Lamb Slide, we could see where Broadway took off and it looked like a set of tracks from someone who had been up that way earlier in the day.  The snow was deteriorating and we were post-holing pretty badly by the time we got to the Broadway cut-off.  

We again evaluated our options; Justin said that he had wanted to climb Kieners for a long time and wanted to go for it.  We started across Broadway at 9 AM following the tracks of the person before us.  We roped up pretty quickly and were belaying each other across the traverse.  The conditions were very slippery; every step it seemed like the snow would just collapse below our feet and slide off the ledge down to Chasm Lake below.  After just a few hundred yards, I'm pretty sure Justin regretted the decision when we realized how slow we were going through the deep slush.  We got past the notch couloir and started up the rock ledges. Since we're not experienced mixed climbers, we were having difficulty climbing the rock ledges with the crampons on.  But when we took the crampons off, it was even worse. We had no traction on the rocks because there were still patches of snow, slush and ice as well as running water.  At this point, we decided that it was easier to just continue straight up notch couloir rather than follow Kieners up and right through the rock bands.  The hours passed pretty quickly as we trudged through the steep slush straight up to the notch.  At some point, the clouds started moving in and we were worried about rain.  We knew we had to keep moving as quickly as we could.  I can honestly say I got a good workout for the day.  Once at the notch, we got on the ridge and followed that up to the summit.  It was 2 PM and we were exhausted.  I was very surprised to see another person on the summit when we got there and it was clearly a runner wearing shorts!  Before we could make our way over to him, he took off straight down the north face running the entire way and didn't even rappel over the rock slabs at the bottom. 

We started our descent down the north face.  Our plan was to rappel the slabs where the old cables route used to be.  The sun started to come out again, the clouds cleared, and we were able to enjoy the views of the surrounding peaks and the front range.  As we were descending the north face, there were three skiers still headed up.  They were just past the boulderfield on route to the keyhole, and I thought we were out there pretty late!  The descent went smoothly.  We saw a ptarmigan with a really neat house built under an evergreen tree.  We cruised down through the forest and were easily back to the car before 6 PM; about 15 1/2 hours after we had started.  We cracked open some beers and took off our wet boots off.  Overall a great day on some interesting routes.   

For those that are interested, here is the route on Longs that I believe we took marked in purple.  The standard Keiners route is marked in orange for comparison.

Mt. Hood

May 26, 2017
Mt. Hood
Pearly Gates

Mt. Hood, or Wy'East as named by the natives is an amazing, beautiful volcano. From a distance, it is apparent that the routes on the mountain all are quite straight forward, and straight up. Laura and I had been relaxing and sightseeing for a few days since our climb of Mt. Rainier and were looking forward to our third volcano for the week. Originally planning to climb a different route on the mountain, we changed our plans due to heavy snowfall just a few days prior and switched to the commonly traveled Pearly Gates route.

Before we left on our trip, a friend of mine learned that we were headed to Mt. Hood and insisted that we go to Timberline Lodge at the base of the mountain. The lodge is unique in that almost everything is hand carved or forged, including all the furniture and fixtures hand built and unique in their own right. We spent some time in the lodge having dinner and looking out upon the mountain and our route for the next day.

Waking at midnight, we started hiking at 1 am. It was a windy night and I was not feeling great early in the morning. The route starts off walking up a gentle slope and I was not moving at a my normal pace. Laura was worried about me because I never move slowly unless something is wrong. She kept asking me if I was okay, but I pushed on. When were passed by several groups who had started behind us, she became worried even more, asking if I needed to turn around. I told her I needed a rest and food and so we took a 5 minute break and ate and drank. Within just a few minutes I began to feel better and my attitude improved. We hiked slowly for another hour and stopped for a break once again. After eating again, I started to feel like myself and the pace picked up. Pretty soon, I was out front again with Laura wondering what the hell was going on with me and considering telling me to slow down. She didn't slow me and within a short period we had gained ground on the groups who had passed us earlier. We were soon looking up the last 1/4 of the mountain with nobody in front of us.



The last 1,000' feet of the mountain is quite steep and has two small difficulties. We crossed the bergschrund without issue and worked our way up the icy slopes of the pearly gates, a narrow passage leading to the summit. Making it to the summit first that day, we enjoyed a colorful sunrise and chatted with a young man from Ecuador. We talked about the high volcanoes of his country and what we each had done there. It was interesting to have a local perspective on mountains and a country we had just recently visited and was cool to meet someone from there who is now enjoying our mountains!



After 30 minutes on the summit, we headed down the mountain, stopping to chat with several groups. Everyone wondered about how to get through the pearly gates section, so we took the time to explain the way we went. We had breakfast at the car and then went to a lake to camp for the evening.

Mt. Hood is definitely a mountain worth returning to, and next time we will plan for the Wy'East route.