No, not those 7 summits. But seven of the high peaks in the heart of Rocky Mountain National Park!
McHenry's Peak front and center, with Longs Peak behind on the left.
This was one of the most spectacular days I have spent in the mountains, period. Alan and I, in accordance with our Leadville training, wanted to spend all day on our feet, get up to a high average elevation, and get a ton of elevation gain in. Well, we got it! Our route would take us up the Flattop Mountain Trail, and end with us running down the North Longs Peak Trail back to Bear Lake. In between we would summit seven mountains, Flattop, Hallett, Otis, Taylor, Powell, McHenry’s, and Longs Peak.
We started off feeling pretty sluggish and it took us a whopping 1:55 to summit Flattop (we would end up climbing the entire trough route on Longs in less time). It was a beautiful morning and we were just out enjoying a nice hike soaking in the sunrise and our spectacular surroundings. It was a pretty uneventful hike over to Hallett, one I have made upwards of 40 times and will do many many more in the future. We soaked in the summit views and were soon heading down Hallett’s summit cone toward Otis Peak. Another uneventful climb up to the summit where, again, we took in our amazing surroundings. The view of the Sharkstooth is pretty amazing from here!
Then it was onto Taylor Peak, and our first summit of the day to reach over 13,000 feet. This is a long, 1200 foot climb over steepening tundra. We were feeling good here though, as we had had plenty of time to warn up, and made in climb in 37 minutes! The views from this summit are spectacular as well, as are the couloirs just to the south of the summit. Next was the longer than remembered walk over to the summit of Powell Peak. This entire stretch is spectacular with views to your left, down 1500 foot sheer cliffs, while to your right is gently sloping rolling tundra leading down to the upper reaches of the North Inlet drainage. After some more gawking at the landscape, we finally did reach the summit of Powell. Yet another summit in the midst of some of the most stunning scenery in Rocky Mountain National Park. It was here we got our first view of the next summit’s challenges, climbing through McHenry’s Notch.
We had some route finding issues on the descent into the notch… not because it was hard to find the route, but because we didn’t research anything before heading out. So we scrambled along the cliffs trying to get straight to the notch, when we should have dropped down the prominent gully leading south southeast from Powells summit, and traversed a series of small (3 – 10 foot high) cliff band that spit you out just below the notch. If we had known, it would have been quick and pretty easy. Consequently, we flirted with some very dangerous and challenging terrain. But no harm done and now we were on track once we figured it out. We were soon enjoying the views from the notch! The climb out is considered technical 5.3 climbing. But we didn’t find it terribly challenging. We both had running shoes on and I am terrified of anything technical, as I lost my nerve for climbing a few years ago, and I found it to be enjoyable. There are more than enough holds for both hands and feet, all the holds are positive (you can grab the holds – not just use pressure), and it’s only about 40 feet of 5.3 climbing, the rest is still steep with some 5.3 moves, but not as exposed and even more hand/foot holds. There was, for me anyway, only one spot that got my adrenalin going and that bothered me at all (the part Alan is climbing in the video) and it was short lived and easier to climb than it looked. Note that this is still 5th class climbing, and in no way am I trivializing the terrain… this is some very rugged, and extremely remote, mountain terrain.
Once through the notch, we were soon scrambling up the final steps of McHenry’s Peak, our 6th summit of the day! We spent a few minutes sucking back some fuel and some water and were soon picking our way down the broken cliffs of the mountain toward Stone Man Pass. It was here we were going to decide what to do next. Go up to Chiefs Head and Mt Alice, or head down into Glacier Gorge and climb Pagoda and Longs. Needing water, we chose to head into Upper Glacier Gorge and hit Pagoda and Longs, filtering on the way. We had both forgotten how rugged the terrain is from the summit of McHenry’s down into Glacier Gorge (including Stone Man). This took forever, so we lost gobs of time. There is just no fast way to get through this terrain safely. By the time we made it down and filtered water we knew we wouldn’t have time to climb both, so we opted to head up the Trough Route of Longs to at least the Ledges (one of the classic sections of the Keyhole Route), and decide whether to summit or not at that point, time depending. So up we went!
This is some steep terrain over a mix of loose nasty scree and steep slabs. We surprised ourselves and made it to the Ledges in right at an hour. That’s just over 2000 feet of climbing! However, it would take us 45 minutes to climb the next 900 feet to the summit! We decide we had enough time to summit and went for it. But we could tell a big difference from being at 12,000 feet to being at over 14,000 feet, so our climbing skillz took a punch in the face. We just pushed along and, through a constant huffing and puffing, made it to the summit in pretty good time! It took us just under 1:50 to climb from the base of the Trough (near Green Lake in Upper Glacier Gorge) to the summit. And this after a long day of climbing! So we were very excited!
We took it nice and easy on the way down toward the keyhole in the midst of sprinkles while hoping the heavy rain would hold off until we were below the boulerfield. We got our wish and didn’t really get rained on until we were dropping out of the boulderfield and onto the North Longs Peak Trail for our run back into Glacier Gorge. We were able to keep a nice steady pace on the descent and made it back down in an hour and a half with some filter and bathroom breaks. We were very glad to be back in the car, as we were wet, tired, and ready to be sitting down!
This was an absolutely spectacular day in the hills! It took us 23+ miles through some of the most challenging terrain the park has to offer, and we got in 10,000 feet of vertical gain (2/3rds of Leadville). We didn’t do it very quickly though. Our slow start, route finding errors in McHenry’s Notch (30+ minutes), and the ruggedness of the entirety of McHenry’s Peak and Stone Man Pass cost us a lot of time… but the time we were on our feet was time very well spent. It took us a total of 13:49 to travel the 23+ miles.
This route was so good that even in the midst of the pain, we were plotting a return trip to complete an entire circumnavigation of Glacier Gorge! We’ll have to see if that works out!
Enjoy the pics!
Michael
