Last year I completely missed the spring mountaineering season in Colorado. So with the snow in the rockies mostly consolidated and the weather for the weekend looking good, both Grace and I really wanted to do something big. Problem was, she had her residency "graduation" dinner Sunday night. That meant doing something big in a day. This is definitely a prescription for type-2 fun, which I guess is what we were looking for. Maybe we've had too many easy weekends recently. However, It turns out that me attempting a technical route on a 14,000 foot peak without stopping to aclimatize also involves lots of type-3 fun, which, really, isn't fun at all.
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| Longs Peak, our route in red |
We picked up Ethan in Boulder at 02:45 Saturday, and headed up to the Longs Peak trailhead. It was windy, and very cold on the approach up to Chasm Lake, but the bulk of Longs protected us once we were at the base of the route. Conditions were excellent with good snow, cloud cover, and cool temperatures. We made good time up Lambs slide and roped up before starting out across broadway. By the time we got to the base of the couloir I was already slowing down dramatically, but feeling ok. This is just the way it goes for me at altitude - very slowly. But I was focusing on staying hydrated and didn't really feel sick. Both Grace and Ethan were fine.
I led a long simul pitch most of the way up the couloir and hammered in some pins for an anchor when I ran out of gear. From there, Grace took over the lead, as my slow pace had both her and Ethan shivering. Grace brought us up to the base of the summit cliffs, and found what looked like an easy rib that would bring us to the summit. I led another simul-pitch up almost to the summit ridge, but was stymied by slabs about 20' from topping out. At this point, both Grace and Ethan were getting worried that I was becoming too impaired by the altitude to lead effectively, so they called me down to check out other options and switch leaders. We collectively decided on an alternative route to climbers right, which looked steeper but more positive and protectable than the route I had been trying. Grace did a brilliant job of leading this last pitch to the summit, which I think went at about 5.6. Nevertheless, I don't think we found the "correct" (easiest) route to the summit.
We summited around 18:30 and spent some time soaking up the views and the sunshine. The wind had mostly died down, but it was still quite cold. Around this time I began to feel really sick, with a pounding headache and serious nausea. We opted to descend the keyhole route rather than try and find the rappel anchors down the north face. The views were fantastic.
We followed boot track to something that was not the keyhole. As it was getting dark, we cheated. I whipped out my phone/GPS, and shortly we were back on track.
At the keyhole, in the dark, 22:00. Grace was stumbling, and I just wanted to curl up and die. So we took a little break, heated up some water and I forced down some food. A few minutes later about a pint of the water came back up. Fortunatly I hung on to most of the food. We headed down through intermittent fog.
Occasionally I was able to look up at the stars and really appreciate the grandeur of it all, the way I normally do on these night marches. Mostly I just stumbled on, tried not to puke again. By the time we were back below tree-line the headache and nausea were gone, and it became a straightforward battle with exhaustion.
Back at the car at 02:00, we gorged on cherries, strawberries and peaches. Nothing ever tasted so good.
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Descending the Keyhole route, Longs Peak. |
We summited around 18:30 and spent some time soaking up the views and the sunshine. The wind had mostly died down, but it was still quite cold. Around this time I began to feel really sick, with a pounding headache and serious nausea. We opted to descend the keyhole route rather than try and find the rappel anchors down the north face. The views were fantastic.
We followed boot track to something that was not the keyhole. As it was getting dark, we cheated. I whipped out my phone/GPS, and shortly we were back on track.
At the keyhole, in the dark, 22:00. Grace was stumbling, and I just wanted to curl up and die. So we took a little break, heated up some water and I forced down some food. A few minutes later about a pint of the water came back up. Fortunatly I hung on to most of the food. We headed down through intermittent fog.
Occasionally I was able to look up at the stars and really appreciate the grandeur of it all, the way I normally do on these night marches. Mostly I just stumbled on, tried not to puke again. By the time we were back below tree-line the headache and nausea were gone, and it became a straightforward battle with exhaustion.
Back at the car at 02:00, we gorged on cherries, strawberries and peaches. Nothing ever tasted so good.
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