 Hey, good morning everybody. It's 445 a.m. on June the 6th 2013 I'm gonna go do a climb today of Longs Peak and I try to get up to the summit right now at the trailhead at 9405 feet on a beautiful Beautiful Thursday morning. Absolutely no wind and perfectly clear sky. So let's go see how the day gets going All right, let's go approaching the treeline area But you can really see the transition between spring and summer like a few weeks away The Sun's rising still have snow up here, but also you can see the snow melt Absolutely perfect day so far Okay, now just above treeline And the Sun is coming up just above twin sisters Again perfect morning Okay, I'm at the junction between going to the loft route and the Boulderfield the keyhole route. I'm gonna take the keyhole today and so you can see the loft right there On the right there is the diamond of Longs Peak and the north face the white covered face You see on the right hand side. That's Mount Lady Washington right here in front of us Over here to the right and I'm out in Washington Okay gone about four miles And there's another three miles to go up to the Sun of Longs Peak Well, I'm at the Boulder field and see you can tell it's pretty snowy This is the north face of Longs Peak It used to be called the cables route because there was a steel cable that went up to the top of it But when Rocky Mountain National Park became a wilderness area, they removed the cable Also, there was a rumor that it attracted lightning, which is probably not a good thing Over here to the right. That's the keyhole and that's the route that I'm going up Hence the name keyhole route and that's the Boulder field. Actually, I'm in the Boulder field right now As you can tell it's quite snow covered, which is gonna make it infinitely easier to cross Okay, I'm at the keyhole It's a little bit breezy up here, but nothing here and this is called the ledges and this is where I'm going next I'm going to cross over here and then turn left and go up to the Drowth, which is right underneath that that outcropping that you can see swinging around Oh boy, just absolutely beautiful beautiful view, place your gorge down here below Just unbelievable Perfect days you can see blue skies just absolutely great. Okay I'm gonna swing back around Look at the Boulder field and then I am off Make them good time About four hours up here Well, I'm just about in the middle of the ledges so you can see it's a very snow covered But looks like some people have been up here. There's some nice tracks to follow But you know, you wouldn't want to fall here It kind of goes down a little steep down the glacier gorge and this is where I just came from Actually climbed up and around to the left of that outcropping Okay, onto the trough So this is a trough on Longs Peak You can see it's really snow packed and that which is gonna make the climbing much much easier than Going on the rocks at the top is a feature called a chalk stone Which you had to kind of climb over a little bit of a scramble get some people some problems swinging back around This is where I just came from this is the ledges and you can see a little bit of a track going through there Where I just crossed and utilize other people's tracks, which made it a lot easier. Okay now time for the trough Well, I'm about halfway up the trough now Making really good time I've got crampons and ice axe And I'm glad I do because this is pretty steep and you wouldn't want to fall Okay, I'm at the top of the trough as you can see really snow covered But some good stuff for kicked in and I made my own you can see the top up here is covered in snow So the chalk stone was pretty easy to get across down below is Glacier Gorge absolutely beautiful today on this Thursday June 6 2013 just a beautiful day in the Rocky Mountains here Okay So the next feature that I have to go across is called the Narrows and there's a reason it's called the Narrows It's very narrow as you can see that's what I'm gonna walk across right there You can see the Bullseye, but the National Park Service has put in to walk around But it's pretty obvious you just kind of follow the very narrow path and you don't want to fall here Okay, so I'll check back in about halfway through the Narrows Well, I'm about halfway through the Narrows at this point. It's really crazy. I mean That's where I would fall it would not be a pretty sight That's where I just came through right there having a very very careful coming through here using the plunge with my ice axe in my left hand my uphill hand to Protect me if I should slip or the snow should give away and getting good purchase with my crampons Across the Narrows now as you can see it's really snow-packed You know in some ways it makes it easier Obviously it's much more dangerous because you're walking on snow and ice It could give away at any moment So I'm glad to be across that section. Okay next up is called the home stretch and then the summit Well, here's the home stretch as you can see it's got a lot of snow on it It's unbelievable for June 6 to have this much snow on it So it's gonna be pretty quick and pretty easy to get up there You know obviously you don't want to slip because it does go down and has a lot of exposure If you were not able to self-arrest and you would plunge right over and to kept on a cooler over here That's called the Palisades and that's Mount Meeker the peak on the far left upper left corner of the screen right now And this is just some more beautiful views Okay, now I'm heading up the home stretch Well, here I am on the Summon of Longs Peak got up here at about five and a half hours Yeah, it was really a good climb the snow was pretty pretty firm pretty crusty and a lot of good places So I'm gonna stay up here for a little while enjoy the view. It's about oh, it's about 10 30 or so 10 15 And so I had plenty of time the weather looks great And then I decide which way to go back down either the same way I came down came up the keyhole Or I may go down the the loft route I'm kind of leaning towards that because that's a lot of fun to go that way. Okay, climb on This is Alan and remember memory's your everything. Well, here's the top of the home stretch Gonna be leaving the summit now and say goodbye to the Marmot This is pretty snowy it was easy coming up and I expect the same going down I think I'm gonna head off to the left which is going to be up heading over here under the palisades Near Clark's arrow and then up climb to the loft between meekers and longs It'll be a much more fun route going down than the keyhole coming back And so I'll check in under the palisades Well, here I am that's the palisades and I'm heading down this route right here. It's a little steep I'm a little snowy So I gotta be really careful because if I do fall I go really far This is one of the steeper and icer sections that I've been down Again, this is going down underneath the palisades down towards Clark's arrow in the Kaplan's cooler Well, that's the home stretch up there and that's why this down climbed down here through Kaplan's cooler along through here and lo and behold This is Clark's arrow. It was an arrow painted by Ranger I think his name is John Clark in the 1930s and he did it with white paint amazing here What nice, you know, whatever 80 90 years later that is still you can still see it And what he painted it for was to mark that this is the way that you climb up to get to the loft And that's what I'm about to do And that's the gully You know, it's probably It's probably class 4 but with crampons it kind of makes a little bit more difficult. I could take my crampons off, but I Couldn't be bothered. So this is the top of the gully Little bit of snow up here, and that's where I'm gonna go and next stop is the loft between meekers and longs So this is the loft that's Mount Meeker right there. That's a named 13,000 foot mountain the loft is just a saddle between meeker and What's also called a saddle Well, that was the descent right there from the loft a little little dicey little icy Steep and so now this is where I'm gonna go to catch the The loft proper and I'll give a better picture here in a minute with that's the route down So this is the loft Kular This is what most people see when they look at from like Denver and they see a longs peak and meeker So I'm gonna go right down the middle of this thing And I'm gonna kind of pick up my pace because it's now starting to snow and that's the loft Kular And that's chasm Lake and right above that is is an ice climb called Martha Because that is on Mount Lady Washington Martha Washington. Get it? Anyway, so this is where I'm headed down Making really good progress coming down the loft Kular Back down to grass and running water Wow, that was quite the tour day longs up the keyhole route to the summit and then back down the loft route Right next to meeker It was really a good day So now all I need to do is get back down to the car So that's another couple hour hike and then I'll check in then