Rocky Mountain Nat'l Park, CO

We’re just about to wrap up our summer vacation and what better to end on than a great trip to Rocky Mountain Nat’l Park. We arrived in Fort Collins, CO on Saturday, stocked up at REI, took in an afternoon movie, and then headed up to Estes Park with no plans whatsoever for accommodations. It’s a busy time here in the Park and it was a Saturday, so campgrounds and hotels were full. With Emily’s insistence that camping in the Lumpy Ridge trailhead parking lot would be fine (the sign said no overnight parking without a backcountry permit, but the backcountry permit office was closed), just after we hit the sack around 10pm, a nice park ranger politely asked us to leave, as camping in your car is not allowed at any trailhead in the park. Bummer. So with the ranger’s suggestion, we headed up near the Longs Peak area to camp at a historic church lot in the national forest. It worked out for the best though, because the Longs Peak area campground is first come first served, and we were able to stop by around 8am, reserve a camp spot for the next couple days, which would serve as a base camp for the Long’s Peak hike/climb, which we planned to do the following day (Monday).

So for our first day, we went back down to Estes Park to climb in Lumpy Ridge. We got on a climb there and were able to do one pitch before the trademark afternoon thunderstorms rolled in over Longs Peak, and looked like they were heading our way. We bailed after the first pitch, along with a group of climbers above us. We hiked back out with an occasional rain spurt knowing we made the right decision. After seeing Longs get engulfed in the storm, we hoped our luck in storm-free summitting the next day would hold. After a quick solar shower behind a rock next to the parking lot, we hung out in downtown Estes Park and got ready for our climb up Longs Peak via the Kiener’s Route. 

Pete strolled over to the ranger station to check out the climbing register, and found that over the weekend, about 250 groups of 2 or more had climbed the more popular and laidback Keyhole route but only 2 parties had been on our climb. Good decision. We attempted to get a few hours of sleep before waking up at 1:45am to get an early start.

The best part about this route is that it had everything: hiking, a snow-filled couloir, exposed high altitude traverses and climbing, and a scramble to a great summit. The 4.2 mile hike to the base of the couloir seemed surprisingly short, and we arrived right at sunrise, the sun casting a pink hue over the Diamond face of Longs. 

After another hour and a half, we reached the base of the col, put on the crampons, and started kick-stepping for another 90 minutes. Any attempt to head directly up the 45+ degree slope ended in self-arrests, so we zig-zagged up the 1000ft navigating some slush but mostly ice-covered snow. We reached the traverse along a narrow ledge to the base of the vertical climbing, called Broadway, and roped up halfway though it to make ourselves feel better about the 1500ft drop to the floor below.

There were 2 roped pitches after Broadway, followed by maybe 1000+ feet of 3rd-4th class (and supposedly some 5^th class, but we didn’t notice it) scrambling along the ridge of the Diamond. After the roped pitches, the clouds started to accumulate and loom above, so we raced to beat the storms to the top. An hour of scrambling, and we were finally at the 14,256ft summit, enjoying a perfectly calm summer day. The dark clouds just dissipated. We spent about 30 minutes at the top chatting with the other hikers that came up the Keyhole route and enjoying the company of the gutsy little marmots. 

We descended via the shorter North Face with a couple of rappels to the seemingly unending boulderfield and hiked the 6 miles back to the campground. The hike/climb up to the top seemed great, but the descent was surprisingly hard on us, not for any discernible reasons.

It was a really fun, last serious climb of our trip, and it beat us into the floor. We both came back with sore backs, knee problems, turned ankles, blisters and sore feet. Not really sure why we were so beaten, but the past month has been pretty cushy. Thanks to everyone who put us up (and put up with us!).

We’ve got 4 more days here, so we’re heading to Eldorado canyon to climb on Thursday and Friday before Emily heads to Vancouver for her conference and Pete drives to Maryville, IL and Nashville to see the fam. I suppose we’ll have to visit some of the many breweries in the area to fill in the gaps…