I have not written a TR before. I am writing this as a thanks to the many people whose TR's I've read for beta and amusement
Last weekend a partner and I set out to climb the dunn-westbay (V .10 c3-) on the diamond of Longs peak. We made good progress getting through the physical crux, which would be schlepping wall gear up to chasm view (>6 miles and 4000 vertical at altitude). However we bailed after 300feet of climbing due to my partners recurrent old ankle injury flaring up. He couldn't stand in aiders without excruciating pain, but offered to follow everything. I was being a wuss and did not want to lead all of the remaining pitches (supposedly two c3 three c2 one c1 and .7). The descent was uneventful, but long and miserable. My partner told me to stash the wall gear and come back next weekend. I should have listened.
The following day it wasn't more than a few hours before I decided that I would go back onto the route the following weekend. I recruited Artley, my partner on the casual route three weeks ago, and convinced him that climbing the diamond in big wall style would be fun. Nevermind that he had absolutely zero aid experience.
We left Boulder at 2pm on Friday, picked up our permit, packed and hiked up to chasm view, making the trek in an exhausting 3 1/2 hours. The following morning we woke up at 4, packed the bags, and began the chasm view raps in the dark.
The sunrise from broadway looked something like this...
Artley was the free climbing rope gun so he got to lead pitches 1-3, and also I had previously climbing them last weekend. This 300ft pillar goes nicely as two pitches (.8 and .10).
This is Artley rocking up the 180ft .10 dihedral pitch.
This is a look up at the rest of the route. p4 follows a short dihedral to a blocky section before traversing the large flake. The route follows the crack to the top. The pitch is rated c3 but is short and not that bad, and links easily with p5 (c2).
The thin splitter as seen from above...
Right about this time Artley realizes that I forgot to pack his normal shoes into the haulbag and left them on broadway. Being the burly dude that his is he continues the climb in free shoes without socks without complaint.
The weather had cooperated all day, but now the afternoon thunderstorms rolled in. We had enough time to set up the fly and ledge to wait it out for a bit. Nothing too serious, just some light rain/thunder before it cleared again.
I led the next supposed crux pitch, which was a tasty thin splitter but quite mellow with cam hooks, hb offsets and the fear of more distant thunder clouds.
We hit our progress mark and set up the bivy to enjoy the view...
before more thunderstorming put us back inside our little shelter in the sky
artley contemplating something...
The rain from the thunderstorm eventually stopped, but we never realized it because our bivy was underneath a seep from above. I slept with fears of climbing 400 ft of wet crack the following day. Luckily my fears were unfounded.
Here is me linking pitches up to table ledge (more like table roof).
The fear of distant clouds returns three more pitches (C2, c1, .7) from the top.
it is nice climbing a route where your ropes can hang and barely even touch the wall.
We pulled onto the top of the route around 12:30p. We were greeted with an old moldy belay seat, some random tat and ~10 old stashed water bottles. People please hike your trash out, there is no reason to stash water on an alpine wall, or any for that matter. We brought down the emptied water bottles, but the moldy belay seat seemed like too much to carry (which in hindsight I should have at least tried).
We made a big mistake on the descent. We split up. Artley went to retrieve his shoes from broadway. I schlepped the haul bag with ledge down to the boulderfield and chasm junction. The problem was that another thunderstorm came along. I hiked down to chasm junction in 2 hours and then huddled under the ledge fly waiting out the thunderstorm for about an hour waiting for artley. Soon enough my thoughts drifted to assuming that the worst had happened to artley. I decided to ditch the haulbag and run up to chasm lake in hopes of being able to see him descending. Once i got to chasm lake, the clouds cleared enough for me to see everything below broadway to the lake. I couldn't see anyone, but I waited another 30 minutes. Just as I was about to attempt a phone call I spotted a figure off in the distant talus moving quickly. Luckily nothing bad happend to Artley and he managed to do the 3 chasm raps, retrieve his shoes, a dropped cam, find the 4 crack of delight raps, which he had never done, in a white out and hike out to meet me at chasm lake. Lesson learned...don't split up in the mountains to save minor effort and time unless absolutely necessary.
We finished our descent and got back to the car at 7pm. The big wall top out feeling didn't really hit until we got some mexican food in Estes.
beta
with 60m rope link pitches 2-3 to top of pillar, 3 pitches from top of pillar to table ledge, 2 pitches to top of wall, 1 short easy free pitch to unroping point.
gear that was useful:
1 big cam (4 camalot)
offset aliens (make pin scars more friendly)
hb brass and smaller alloy offsets (placed every pitch, 2 sets of #3-6 brass would be nice)
grapling hook
cam hooks (thin and medium)
ballnuts (didn't place these but there are placements on nearly every aid pitch)
helmet for falling ice and rock:)
Hammering is completely unnecessary, better to replace that weight with beer
The anchors are plenty adequate, with at least 1 bomber bolt or crack at every belay in addition to some mank.
hauling is easy after the free pitches, the bag will hang free until the top.
this is an alpine route, there is very loose rock on some pitches. The fall line for rock is directly into the north chimney, so try to avoid
any rock fall early in the morning so as not to kill other climbers
Acknowledgments:
Artley, for learning how to jug a rope on pitch 4 ~1000 ft above mills-glacier...
Tom, for motivating me to get back on the route
Those burly souls who have tried(succeeded?) to free climb the route
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