Alexander's Chimney

Longs Peak, East Face. January, 2010

Brice and I climbed Alexander's Chimney on the lower east face of Longs Peak, Sunday. Unfortunately, I left my camera in the car! I was kicking myself for this throughout the day, as this was one of the most spectacular days I've spent in RMNP. The photo at left is from more than a year ago, the last time I was up at Chasm Lake.

We made the approach through intermittent rain, snow, and fog. The forecast was not cheerful, but seemed "good enough". We were both prepared to climb the route in a whiteout. However, when we got up at 03:30, the stars were shining, and a crescent moon was making its way out over the cloud-wracked east. As dawn approached it revealed a layer of sculpted clouds, like a blanket of cotton balls, shrouding the world a few thousand feet below us and crystal-clear skies above.

The sun rose through high clouds to the east in a glory of red and pink. The first direct golden rays reached us as we climbed the final snow slope beneath the route, creating unreal, intense colors. It seemed impossible that the sky could be so intensely blue, the rock so painted with reds, pinks, and browns. Even my jacket popped with a red so brilliant it was almost painful to look at.

Brice took the first pitch into the chimney system: a short 85 degree flow of rotten sun-baked ice that he soloed, since there was no viable way to protect it. A fall would have landed him in deep powdery snow, which provided some peace of mind. From there we had easy snow up to the second belay, just short of a huge chockstone (60 m). 

I took the second pitch, which turned out to be the crux. When the route is "in" there is much more ice and much less snow than what we had. When the route is in, you can belay standing beneath the chockstone. I had to take my pack off and burrow through the soft powdery snow to get behind it. This was the last time all the snow would make things easy for us. From behind the chockstone, I had a steep left leaning corner to dry tool, followed by a stretch of easier ground, and another left leaning corner with a snow choked off-width crack. These two distinct cruxes were very awkward, and scary in places. Both involved pullups on invisible hooks, which I am not very good at judging the quality of. I belayed atop a boulder beneath a steep wall (55 m).

Mountain Project photo. The traverse pitch.

 

Brice took the third pitch, traversing out right on a narrow ledge system. The moves getting onto it were very tricky, and I unashamedly tugged on the cam he'd protected it with. The ledge quickly gave way to a steep snow slope, and Brice belayed at the base of a final rock band (40 m).

One more short pitch of 50 degree rock and snow got us up onto Broadway, the huge ledge system that separates the lower and upper east face of Longs. We had originally intended to complete our climb to the summit of Longs via the Notch Couloir, but snow conditions were worsening quickly. We had not expected such a warm sunny day, and after observing some significant avalanche activity, we decided to call it quits and descend. By the time we were back at our skis/snowshoes in the basin, there were BIG wet slides rocketing down from all over the place, including the vicinity of the Notch Couloir.

All in all a spectacular weekend! I hope I never ever forget my camera again!