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.