Keyhole Winter Attempt

The third weekend in January, Nick, Dan, and myself attempted to climb Long Peak via the Keyhole route. We arrived friday night and hiked three miles in to around treeline.  We woke up at 5:30 and started up the route, passing the Diamond along the way.

 The Diamond

We then reached the keyhole and crossed over into intense winds and a storm rolling in.  The whiteout conditions that quickly developed pushed us to retreat with around a half mile of hiking/scrambling left. As we hiked back we were met with 40 mph gusts and whiteout conditions.

 Dan following along the route.

Looking ahead on the route.

Pangorn Pinnacle

In December of 2012, Min and I decided to go attempt Pangorn Pinnacle after class.  We arrived at the parking lot by 2 pm.  We then hiked in and began climbing in 20 degree temperatures at 3 pm.  As we finished off the fifth pitch, the darkness set in earnest and temperatures of around 10 degrees prompted a retreat with just one pitch left. We rapped off and hiked out reaching the car again by 6:30 thoroughly chilled.

 Hiking towards Pangorn pinnacle (Left side)

Three pitches up and spirits were still high!

Block Break 2

Heyo!

This previous October I got over to Utah for some crack climbing at Indian Creek, some fun on Ancient Arts, and a relaxing day of bouldering at Joe's Valley.

 Getting it on at Indian Creek

 The view from the top of Ancient Arts

 On top of the world!

 Hanging with the boys at Joe's Valley

Nick enjoying a beautiful day by the Angler (V2)

Misdirection at Rocky Mountain

Heyo,

This last weekend I headed up with Brett to get on "Enter the Dragon" at Rocky Mountain National Park. We arrived on Friday night and after a few circles in the dark arrived at Dream lake where we spent the night.  The next morning at 6am it was quite windy and foggy and we cut up too early and ended up on a different route than we anticipated. After steep snow climbing we got into the meat of this potentially new route.

 The route began with a pitch of steep snow and light mixed climbing followed by a pitch of m4, and finishing with a crux pitch of m5 on loose rock.On the third pitch a rock I pulled out careened down and destroyed a cam that was part of our anchor, but luckily missed Brett.

Looking from Dream lake towards Flattop