(training) Trip Report — Longs Peak and Lamb Slide
As part of this month’s training program, Rob and I decided earlier this week it’d be good fun (and even better training) to spend back-to-back long days at Rocky Mountain National Park (or “the park,” as the locals call it) to train endurance, altitude, and, assuming the right conditions, some snow climbing. Having not been above 10,000ft. beforehand, I was keen on going up high and seeing how I would react to altitude. Even better, with the forecast showing 90+ temperatures in Boulder, we were keen to get some altitude and a break from the hot weather. We set on doing the Keyhole route on Longs Peak, and then either a route up Mt. Meeker or go up lambslide.
Given the unusually favorable forecast (0% chance of t-storms), we decided to start with a civilized 5am departure time on Thursday, making it on the trailhead (elevation: 9,407ft.) at 6:07am. As an aside, it turns out that the place to meet up in Boulder before you head out to the mountains is a strip club’s parking lot, with the club appropriately named the Bustop. The trail to the keyhole route is not difficult, but boy is it long and tedious (~5–6 miles to “start” of the route). We settled on a good pace, careful not to go too fast to give me some time to figure out my reactions to the altitude. Thankfully, Rob and I both subscribe to having disciplined breaks on the hour, which makes the hikes way more enjoyable, and your body last a ton longer. After the uneventful (but incredibly long) hike, we made it to the famed Keyhole (~12,800 ft. or so). I did quite well, and other than a minor fog-like sensation, I was feeling great.
Coming on the other side, I did start getting a bit short of breath, and we also realized the route was essentially covered in snow. While this offered an unexpected training bonus, it did mean we’d have to go a bit slower than anticipated. Rob set the pace for the two 40–45 degree snow slopes, which, given conditions, we did in a single push. I couldn’t have asked for better training, but it was tough. You are just using huffing it up and don’t have time to rest, drink, or eat. Having already gone up Baker’s North Ridge, though, I felt totally comfortable and in control on the snow.
We summitted right at noon and a hair under six hours (14,255 ft.). Other than the unavoidable slower breath, I felt quite comfortable at altitude. After the obligatory picture and a snack break, we started the descent. I took the lead on the descend, and it was slow going at first, managing variable conditions and the slope angle. Snow is such a fickle medium that you just have to be careful — especially on the way down. The snow wasn’t soft enough to plunge-step (also, we were wearing crampons), so we just re-traced our tracks, and then came back out the keyhole. After that, it was basically a suckfest of retracing our steps on the long and slow and boring trail under the scorching sun with no wind. This is one of those things that is not scary, nor difficult, but just annoying. Back to the car around 5pm, for a total of ~11 hours. In total, we did about 15 miles, 6,600 of vertical, and we were carrying packs.
I think Rob and I had both been expecting to be done in a shorter amount of time, and I certainly started beating myself a bit about it. On the other hand, I gained 4,000 ft. over my previous high point and did well, we had encountered annoying snow conditions that slowed down our descent, and, lastly, I think we both knew this was only day one of two. Still, I went to sleep with a deep dissatisfaction about not having done the route faster, rather than enjoying some of the things we did well.
In any event, we decided that, with an equally favorable forecast, there was no reason to wake up earlier than needed, and we’d rather climb in the shade. We settled on an even more-civilized, Chamonix-style, 8:30am rendevouz at an Italian espresso outpost near the strip club.
We met for coffee bright and early and had an incredible conversation about what it means to take on alpinism and how you just can’t short-circuit the process (it’ll likely be the subject of its own post in the coming days). It was also encouraging to hear Rob say that our time, even not considering that it was my first time that high, was quite good given conditions. More conversation followed, and then we went off to the park.
Unfortunately, Mt. Meeker shares most of the approach with Longs Peak, so we had to take the same awfully long and boring trail. The trailhead was a complete zoo, it being a sunny summer Friday. We sorted gear (including a full rope in case we wanted to do some alpine rock), and off we went keeping our minds open regarding potential objectives. I thought we were going more slowly, but we actually kept up and improved upon our pace from Day One. We did lose most of the speed gains by taking a long empanada and stretching break, courtesy of Rob (who has developed a taste for Argentine empanadas as approach food following his trips to Patagonia — if it works it works. Also, yum on the onion and cheese empanada I had).
After getting off the Longs Peak trail, we hiked another 45–60 minutes to get to our staging area near a lake which name escapes me right now. Unfortunately, the route we wanted to do up Meeker (Dreamweaver) had melted for the season, so we settled on going up Lamb Slide, a sustained, 45–50-degree snow slope that gains ~1,500 of vertical. Rob kindly offered instead to just hang out and do some lower-level climbing, but I figured we may as well go for what we came for. We left our trail shoes at a boulder-covered bivvy that goes by “the Hilton” and has the benefit of having a tiny bit of cord that you can use to hang your stuff away from the Marmots. With the clouds threatening in the distance and the obvious risk of rockfall, we decided to do the climb in a single push, and headed off at 3:00pm with a goal of getting to the top by 4pm.
Boy, what a fun adventure! We picked up the pace on the approach, and once on the climb, we quickly adjusted from switch-backing to directly going up to avoid the rockfall route and take advantage of the snow conditions. Not counting two 5–10 second breaks, we did the climb non-stop, and got to the top at 3:45pm (~13,200 feet or 4,000 meters). The clouds had continued to move in our direction, so we took a quick “fuck you” break, and were descending again at 3:50pm. I felt a lot better on this descend, and were down the technical part by 4:15 pm and at the start of the climb a few minutes after that. I felt great the entire time, and, while hard, I was so happy and pleased to have performed at this level while at altitude. Rob then shared that he had purposefully set a fast pace to test my endurance and see if I could handle it, and we agreed it’d been a complete success.
After a longish break, we went back to the Hilton, recovered our shoes, and headed back down to the trailhead. The way back was a lot better than the day before as we were now walking in the late afternoon and with the benefit of cloud cover. We set a good pace, but mostly spent the way down chatting about life and things. At the end, we did run into what looked like a pretty bad accident, with a number of rangers, SAR folks, and paramedics attending to it. We didn’t find out what happened, but it was a sobering reminder that, when in the mountains, things can and will happen. I hope the folks involved perform a quick and healthy recovery.
All in all, we did about 11,000 feet of vertical, ~25–26 miles, and ~20 hours.
Some quick takeaways:
- This was a very successful two-day period. First time above 10,000ft., back-to-back big days, nice weather, and great routes.
- I managed the altitude well. No symptoms (other than the occasional case of light brain fog), and, especially the second day, managed to perform.
- Always switchback in snow as long as possible. It was interesting seeing Rob do switchbacks in really low-angled terrain, until he explained how much more efficient it is than just trying to go up. Obviously, exceptions abound, but man does it make a difference.
- Disciplined breaks are great on the approach. When climbing, the best bet is smallest breaks, or, frankly, grab a quick bite off something in your pocket while belaying, at a stance, etc.
