Freed Roger wrote:I wish ZebulonPike was here.
Can you get up that route to Longs without ropes?
I have a hankering to spend some time in the San Juans. have you been there?
Longs is a remarkable and enchanting mountain for its variety of routes. They range from relatively simple hiking (with exposure) to a sheer rock wall nearly 1,000 ft in height. There are some great scrambling options, as well as technical ascent of a vertical couloir after an airy traverse (known as Broadway)
There are 3 routes on Longs that one can do without ropes:
1)
Keyhole: standard route used by most; walking trail for 6 miles, then through the Keyhole (cleft in NW ridge) into a brave new world of ledges, some mild scrambles, traversing the Narrows, and ascending the slabby tilted face on the Homestretch. In dry, fair weather, it's fine.
2)
Loft: the Keyhole and Loft share the same trailhead, but the routes split after a few miles. The Loft route heads around the southern massif, crossing the chasm and then heading up a rocky couloir to some headwall cliffs, below which a made-to-order exit ramp takes you around the cliffs to a flat, football-field sized saddle between Longs and Mt Meeker (nearly a 14er). You descend the back side of the Loft into Keplinger's Couloir, a serpentine cleft in Longs' southern flank that is filled with car-sized boulders. You ascend Keplingers and join the Keyhole's Homestretch for the final 100 ft to the summit.
I ascended Longs via the Loft with 2 other guys. We saw one other person until we hit the Homestretch, which had a queue of people who had come up the Keyhole route. That is typical of Longs.
3)
Knights Couloir: This is an offshoot of the Keyhole route I hope to do. A bit past the Keyhole, on Longs' west flank, is a spiraling couloir with a sentinel rock formation that resembles a chess knight. There is one technical class 4/5 move that probably requires protection (it is usually wet), but getting through here puts you on the upper portion of the Keyhole Ridge (the lower portion is technical) with a relatively easy but picturesque scramble to the summit.
Other routes on Longs by name: Diamond Face, Cables, Broadway/Kieners, Keplingers, Camel.
I have not climbed in the San Juans, but they look awesome--different from the Front Range and Sawatch. Uncompahgre, Sneffels and Wetterhorn look like great class 3 hikes. And Chicago basin is epic.
