Pete and I left a busy Longs Peak trailhead at 4:15a and had to notice that at least two other parties (of 5 and 3) had left up to a hour before us with the same objective: the Flying Dutchman Couloir. With a path illuminated by headlamp we strolled up the trail slowly gaining elevation and staying pretty much right on our time schedule. Sunrise came just as were were passing through treeline.
At Chasm junction the Meeker to Longs panorama greeted us. The Dreamweaver couloir was obvious, as was the trough leading to the Loft between the two peaks. Less obvious was the Flying Dutchman, which only certain segments were revealed to us.
Foolishly, we’d carried our snowshoes up this far, but had never needed them since many prior feet had trampled down the snow. The extra weight was cached under a rock and behind some bushes for later retrieval and we continued towards Chasm Lake.
At the lake the view of the Diamond on Longs Peak was nearly overwhelming. We had to traverse around the lake and seek out our more shy route.
With a large head start, I’d figured the other groups would be partway up the couloir by now but I was surprised to see all 8 people gathered at the base still adjusting crampons and getting ready for the climb. At first I hoped we could quickly shoot by them, but in the short time it took us to gear up both groups started upwards.
In a wide couloir I may not have worried too much about the other groups, but partway up the Flying Dutchman was a short technical crux that I knew everyone would rope up for. I didn’t want to be behind these two groups and waiting at that bottleneck. So with Pete trailing I pushed myself up the route and soon came up behind the last member of the 5 person group who turned out to be a CMC climb. They politely let me pass.
The 3 person group was also nice and let me by and I found out one of the climbers was from Indiana and was moving well despite being here for only a couple days.
With Pete and I in the lead I decided to be nice by hurrying to the crux and building an anchor so we could quickly climb and get out of the way of the others. Pete arrived and I took the rope from him while he worriedly eyed the crux ahead. He’d never done any ice climbing before.
The first 15 feet of the climb turned out to be great alpine ice – perfect sticks with my ice tools brought confidence as I lead upwards. I tried to place an ice screw but found the ice was too soft for that. Instead a perfect crack for a .75 cam presented itself to my left. Then I ran out the rest of the 30 meter rope to find a large block with a sling from a prior party. I backed it up by slinging another block then clipped in. Pete soon began to climb up after warning the other groups that he was going to be slow since this was his first time on ice. Despite being nervous, he climbed really well and was soon onto the steeper snow and little bit of mixed terrain to join me.
Down below I heard the leader of the next group start, then back off the climb. They were discussing what to do when I offered to drop down our rope and give them a top rope belay to climb up. They accepted and Pete warmed up while I belayed the first person from the other team up to my stance.
Pete and I then started up the rest of the couloir, aiming for some rocks above to take a quick break.
Pete took a turn leading through the steep snow until we topped out on a ridge leading to the Ship’s Prow. A right hand variation looked a little more direct to the Loft, but had a large cornice so we were happy with our route choice.
After taking a break we took off our crampons and headed up to the Loft and then eastwards towards Mount Meeker. Behind us, the view of Longs Peak was very impressive.
An easy scramble took us to the summit where we then had to find a route on top of the summit block.
A gray cloud that had been hovering over the summit soon disappeared and we headed along a sharp ridgeline to the east summit of Mount Meeker under clearing skies.
One section was an enjoyably exposed knife edge reminiscent of Capitol Peak.
From the east summit the difficulties eased to class 2, but the views of Longs Peak and the huge cliffs down to our left were amazing. Eventually we reached the gap in the cliffs that was known as the Iron Gates where we could scramble down to loop back below Chasm Lake.
We collected our snowshoes back at Chasm junction then started down the trail reliving a wonderful day. Even a thunderstorm’s steady rain on the last half mile to the trail head couldn’t dampen our spirits.
Adam!! That sunrise pic is awesome, AWESOME!!