Climbing

Climbed the 3rd Flatiron today with Matt and Dave.  That was the first time I’d done the 3rd and it was a fun cruise-fest.  The descent down the scree, however, was a miserable icefield… probably WI1.  

We’ve tried four times….once a year ago, where we set out to climb the Diamond and ended up getting engaged instead, twice this spring under rough conditions, and finally yesterday…Victory!

We set out at 3:00 am from the Long’s Peak trailhead with our friends Sarka and Jakub. Apryle set a quick pace up the trail; we passed a bunch of other parties (blew my mind how many folks were out there) and arrived at Chasm Junction by 4:30 am, Granite Pass by 5am, and were getting set to climb at the base of the route (after screwing around looking for water, found a nice little cascade up high just below a snowfield fyi) at 7am. We passed some former CMS clients on their first independent alpine route. The route was easy – almost painfully so after we suffered and toiled to climb it without success earlier this year. We breezed through the “technical” section on a running belay, stuffed the rope in my pack and scrambled the last couple hundred vertical feet to the summit. Summited at 9am. Incredible views. Felt good to get there, but almost a cheap experience by how easy it turned out to be.

We decided to return via the keyhole route – what a nightmare. we must have passed a hundred people on their way up. sort of upset me….people shortcutting trails, blaring radios, kicking off rocks onto the hordes below….not my kind of mountain experience. I don’t think I want to climb Longs again in the summer, for that reason.

I slipped trying to pass a handful of idiots on the trail on the way down and hit my knee pretty hard, but made it down just fine. We reached the car at 2pm, even after spending 20min or so soaking our feet on the hike out. an 11 hour roundtrip. unbelievable to me, after this spring.

I’m tired this morning, and sore. I feel like we can climb mountains, though…..like we actually have a shot at something big someday.

Apryle’s take:

So…we made it. We picked up Sarka and Jakob at 2:30am, drove to the Longs Peak trailhead and began the 6 mile hike to the boulderfield around 3am. We easily cruised the hike in about 2:45, passing probably 12 other parties and having no one pass us.

The amount of people hiking to Longs was incredible.

After a time-consuming search for a water source, we began climbing the North Face of Longs at 7am.

The North Face starts off with a bunch of scrambling over talus, which leads up to about 200 feet of 5.4 rock climbing. The 5.4 section is adequately protected by slinging the old eye-bolts that are still around from the days when there was a thick cable handrail running up this route. Jakob led easily. After the climbing let up, we unroped, scrambled about another 650 vertical feet, and that was it. Done. No false summit. No route finding dilemas. It was straightforward and just plain easy.

After enjoying the breathtaking views, signing the summit log, taking the customary summit photos, and grabbing a bite to eat, we decided not to rappel back down the North Face but to instead take the standard hiking route – the Keyhole route – back to the boulderfield. In my opinion, the Keyhole route had more consistently tricky, exposed sections than the North Face, in part due to the slick, pollished granite that day after day takes a pounding from tourist feet. This route was made increasingly challenging due to all of the moving obstacles – tourist hikers and falling rock due to tourist hikers. Looking down into the trough of the Keyhole route, you could see them queued up like ants.

At the car by 2pm. Came home, showered, napped, ate.

Abby and I rocked it out at Lumpy on Friday. I led more confidently than I ever have before and she was not scared at all. We met at the parking lot at 7am and started climbing around 8 probably. Finished the first 2 pitches quickly – especially considering it was her first multipitch climb. She had a hard time getting a few nuts out – to be expected. The

party behind us kindly removed about 4 pieces of various protection that she couldn’t get out. She liked the 3rd pitch best. Around 3:30 we were sitting on top of the summit. My camera batteries had died so we did not get any summit photos. No sunburn, even!

Gorgeous weather, great company, great climbing… and dinner at Casa Grande with Abby’s family and Phil to put the perfect end to a great day!

Abby and I rocked it out at Lumpy on Friday. I led more confidently than I ever have before and she was not scared at all. We met at the parking lot at 7am and started climbing around 8 probably. Finished the first 2 pitches quickly – especially considering it was her first multipitch climb. She had a hard time getting a few nuts out – to be expected. The party behind us kindly removed about 4 pieces of various protection that she couldn’t get out. She liked the 3rd pitch best. Around 3:30 we were sitting on top of the summit. My camera batteries had died so we did not get any summit photos. No sunburn, even!

Gorgeous weather, great company, great climbing… and dinner at Casa Grande with Abby’s family and Phil to put the perfect end to a great day!

While Jakub and Sarka were staying with us, Apryle found out that her friend Abby Senseney was in town. We decided to all go out for a day of sport climbing at Jurassic Park. It was a great time – I worked on a 12a and whipped a few times, but topped out and eventually went back for the redpoint. Jakub took a few whippers on some slabby sport lines, and Abby had a grand time for her first real rock climbing experience.

In the fall of 2005, we heard that Jeremy, Dana, and their friend Mark were coming to Colorado. We insisted that they come to Estes and stay with us. It was a great visit, and despite all being crammed into our tiny little apartment, Apryle and I were sad to see them go.

While they were in town, we did a bunch of climbing up at Lumpy. Apryle talked Jeremy into leading George’s Tree, a deceivingly hard 5.9 flaring handcrack that lends little confidence. I lead the first pitch of Osiris, next climb over, and photographed Jeremy as he climbed from above…

Saturday, August 6th, 2005

On Saturday afternoon, Apryle finally gave in. Agreed to join me for an attempt on the East Face of Long’s Peak, via the Casual Route on the Diamond.

The climb would not, however, be casual. The Diamond is a striking feature, visible from miles away as it rises over a thousand feet in an unrelentingly vertical sweep of unbroken granite. To attempt this climb in a day, the Diamond hopeful must first wake in the middle of the night and hike to Chasm Lake, 4.2 miles while gaining 2360 feet of elevation. The trail ends, replaced by a faint climbers path that weaves through boulders and gravel on the north side of the lake, up the ancient glacial moraines to the base of the ever-shrinking Mills Glacier. Now in the age of glacial retreat, this once-mighty iceflow amounts to little more than a permanent snowfield posing a minor inconvenience to the would-be climber. Only at this point does the actual technical climbing begin, first by treading carefully up the loose, rotten granite of the 600 foot North Chimney to Broadway Ledge. From Broadway, the climber strikes up the face, overhung so steeply at the top that it seems the! re is no sky to the west, only a vast sea of pink and black granite, split by thousand foot cracks only visible from this near vantage. The Diamond itself gives ample cover to approaching storms, so our tense climber glances nervously skyward at every puff and wisp of cloud, always ready for a monstrous black demon to rain down hail and lightning from above.

The Diamond was first climbed in 1960 by a Californian pair, via a challenging aid route that took two days and much fear to complete. Over the decades since, ambitious climbers have forged over 30 new routes up the menacing face, the easiest route wryly nicknamed “The Casual Route”.

Thankfully, the Casual Route itself offers a bit of a reprieve from the otherwise terrifying array of hard free climbs and aid routes on the Diamond. Though fully eight pitches long, the route is comprised of mostly moderate climbing, with a few fearful sections on easier rock and well-protected cruxes, culminating with an airy move of 5.10a climbing over a bulge high on the face.

Apryle and I started our day well before the crack of dawn. The alarm barely registered in my groggy mind as it blared away at midnight. She nudged me awake and we ate some cereal. We grabbed our packs, and as we turned off the lights and headed our I snuck a little package from high in the closet into my pocket. We were off to climb the Diamond!

A measly hour and a half of sleep had not treated either of us all too well, but we shouldered our climbing packs and hit the trail around twelve-thirty. The quiet chill of the night was broken now and again by other Long’s Peak hopefuls – packs of woefully underprepared Keyhole climbers headed off to do battle with the standard tourist route up the mountain. The cold night air was a surprise, I had expected warmer temps, so we trudged along with shell jackets tightly zipped. My cold fingers found refuge in my pants pockets, and I found myself gripping tightly to my little surprise. Apryle and I moved steadily up the trail, arriving somewhere near Chasm lake at around three o’clock in the morning.

The new moon kindly left us naught but starlight and the pale glow of our LED headlamps by which to navigate. Faintly silhoutted against the dark night sky, tremendous buttresses of rock surged skyward. I felt insignificant, indimidated, and tired. We found an overhanging boulder with a sandy sheltered bivouac site underneath, set a watch alarm for four AM, and curled up under a space blanket to wait for the reassuring glow of early dawn to show us the route.

Our “nap” passed just as unplanned bivouacs frequently do – slowly, with much shivering. By four AM there was light enough to see the hulking mass of the Diamond and the inky blackness of Chasm Lake lying before us. We started around the left side of the lake, though we were soon stopped by a short but steep snowfield, cliffs above, lake below. A pair of headlamps bobbed and weaved across the lake, so we backtracked and found the climber’s path. Other parties appeared, hiking up from below or rising out of their hidden bivouacs. We found ourselves third in line as we approached the final moraines at the base of the East Face of Longs.

A cold wind had accompanied the blood-red sun, so we huddled behind a small boulder as the other parties geared up to ascend the rotten North Chimney. The Diamond looked friendly almost, shining pink and orange as it stretched skyward for half a mile. We were worked. I was nervous, whether from the challenge before us or my hidden agenda I know not. I felt sick as I had on Gannet Peak in the Wind River range, the last time I reached 13,000 feet in the States. Apryle was tired from the hike and lack of sleep; she was worried that in her state she wouldn’t be able to contribute much to the climb, let alone lead the crux pitch.

So instead of climbing, I pulled the ring out of my pocket and proposed.

I was almost sure she expected it. I couldn’t fathom how she hadn’t caught on, when she had discovered my intentions and foiled this very plan two weeks earlier. Unbeknowst to her, I had received the ring in the mail a day earlier, a beautiful brilliant diamond set in the smallest of platinum bands. I was excited, and wanted to take her on the Diamond to propose. I asked her to go with me a few times, but she wasn’t ready. She wanted to wait until she was ready to play an active role in the ascent – to share the leads, not just follow.

My co-worker Todd, an experienced climber and Diamond veteran, goaded and coaxed hard us that day when we stopped by the CMS office. “Just give it a go! You can send that route; it’s so beautiful!” That afternoon, Apryle guessed at my plans, certain that Todd knew something she did not. My overanxiety to climb a route that we both knew might be beyond us seemed uncharacteristic….but suddenly she knew why. And she was sad to ruin my surprise, but what could be done? It was a grand idea, we both acknowledged.

I had played the fool with respect to diamonds and rings; anytime we talked of marriage I made it plain to Apryle that I didn’t know a diamond from a granite crystal. She knows me well enough to know that I would never embark on such a purchase without months worth of research and pondering. She couldn’t believe I thought I could just run out and pick up a ring the week before she agreed to climb that menacing and thrilling Diamond. She was completely fooled. When I asked her again to climb the Diamond, she honestly thought we were just going to climb, that she had ruined my surprise and I would end up taking her out to dinnner or some other cliched proposal.

As we huddled behind that boulder with the East Face of Longs Peak soaring above us, painted pink by the rising sun, and our faces flushed from the cold night air, we decided to throw in the towel and head back home. Apryle looked at me and jokingly said, “So you don’t have anything for me?”

I smiled told her “No”, even as I pulled the ring from my pocket. Her jaw dropped and her eyes went wide. She said yes.

We both felt like giving the climb a chance after that, but three hundred feet up the North Chimney we bagged it. I was still feeling the altitude and Apryle was tired. We enjoyed the warmth of the rising sun for a half hour on a little ledge as rockfall rained down from above, then quickly descended and happily hiked down the valley and headed home. We didn’t climb the Diamond, but it isn’t going anywhere. And if you ask me, what we accomplished up there was far more important than any rock has ever been. Definitely a day to remember, forever.

Shortly after our successful climb on Hallett Peak, Apryle and I discussed another alpine adventure. She was interested in climbing a route independently, to see what she was capable of in the mountains without relying on my experience….so she paired up with Sarka, a friend of ours from the Czech Republic. Sarka was a strong climber but had little trad experience and had spent almost no time alpine climbing. She was the perfect partner. They planned to climb the Spiral Route, a well-known 5.4 that wraps the entire way around Notchtop before topping out in the notch itself.

I paired up with one of the CMS guides, Randy Judycki. We aimed for the South Face, a 5.8 that shoots straight up the south-facing prow of Notchtop on clean granite.

Both parties had a good day. Randy and I swung leads and topped out in the early afternoon, then rapped the descent route without major difficulty. Apryle and Sarka had no trouble climbing the route with Apryle leading every pitch, but got hung up with another party on the descent and took a while getting off the mountain.

We wanted to get out and sample the alpine rock offerings in Rocky Mountain National Park, so we set our sights on the classic “Better Than Love” route on Hallett Peak. The route was moderate, especially in the lower sections, and ended with a stellar vertical face. Route-finding was ambiguous, as with most mountain routes, but we made our way without major difficulty. Protection was good but not frequent, especially on the upper sections. All in all it was a great moderate route, but not one for the first-time alpine rock climber. It took us about 14 hours from car-to-car.