Nearing the Vertical

I want to climb mountains. And that goes beyond running.

The time I spent in Chamonix in August drove that point home. Despite the incredible advances in equipment and techniques over the past thirty years, some mountains cannot be climbed in running gear alone. Even the shift of mindset that has allowed people to climb peaks like Mont Blanc in running shoes with no gear can only extend so far. The peaks of Chamonix are so fantastically vertical that nothing less than rock shoes and a rock climbing focus can surmount many of them. Runners can only go so far, until the vertical takes over.

Les Grandes Jorasses. On my last day in France I jogged up near where this photo was taken, which included several miles on glacier. But that's about as far as you can get running. Look at that thing!

The general mindset in the climbing world has migrated steadily over the past half-century towards alpine style, which means light and fast climbing up big mountains that historically have taken many days and large amounts of supplies to climb. Ueli Steck is a good example of this ethos. He just spent the spring climbing 8000 meter peaks in the Himalaya in single pushes that generally took less than one day. All this on peaks that were first summited by parties containing ten or twenty climbers and hundreds of porters carrying thousands of pounds of gear. Similarly, Alex Honnold's free solos up some of the most frightening rock faces in the world illustrate the new extent of "light and fast". Yet no matter how slow you are, running has always been light and fast. A pair of shoes, some clothes and a water bottle are really all that are necessary to move long distances in the mountains. The climbers that push the boundaries of alpine style utilize a mindset very similar to running, whether they know or not, in that they work as simply and efficiently as possible. In a sense, they are climbing in a running style. People have come from the other end too - running in a climbing style. Alex Lowe and Rolando Garibotti's times on the Grand Traverse in the Tetons are mind-bending. That's a route with major technical difficulties the entire way and a 5.8 crux up the north ridge of the Grand Teton. Jared Campbell has also done much in this style, such as his super-fast climb up the West Slabs of Mt. Olympus in Salt Lake. The list of examples goes on.

The face above the shadowed gully. Jared literally ran up it

So with this in mind, this morning I drove up to Rocky Mountain National Park to the tunes of Ellie Goulding to try the Glacier Gorge Traverse. The route connects most of the major peaks in the park, beginning at the Bear Lake parking lot and climbing up Flattop Mt, then on to Hallet Peak, Otis, Taylor, Powell, McHenry's, Chief's Head, Pagoda, Longs, and Storm Peak. The whole route is something like 20 miles and roundabouts 10,000 ft. of uphill, but what attracted me was the technical nature of the route. Much of the route maintains difficult class four climbing, and several sections boast climbing difficulties up to 5.7, particularly the west ridge of Pagoda Peak. Such a combination of intermediate-difficulty alpine climbing with huge exposure in a remote setting is ideal for my tastes. Of course, when compared with the examples listed above, this traverse is about as serious as jogging along the top of a tall fence. But the aesthetics of the route are perfect, and a good introduction to more serious climbing in the future.

So while standing on top of McHenry's peak last weekend with Ryan Burch and Nick Clark I resolved to do the traverse as soon as possible. Thursday was the first option, but consistent poor weather from Wednesday through Friday thwarted that attempt. Watching the weather report, today (Sunday) was supposed to be beautiful, so I switched my plan accordingly. Unfortunately, Saturday turned out to be rainy all along the Front Range, and the reports from the Run Rabbit Run 50 in Steamboat Springs contained lots of words like "rain", "snow and "hypothermia". For those of you who don't have their maps out, Rocky Mountain NP would be right in the damn middle of the the Front Range and Steamboat. But hell! Sunday's weather was supposed to be nice!

And it was nice. But winter had beat me there.

The wind was fierce and constant, and my face and legs were quickly red and burnt from microscopic bits of snow and ice in the air. These photos are only from the climb up Flattop Mt - which is as far as I got. The last two miles of trail were a continual layer of ice with intermittent deep snow on top. The temperature was low enough to freeze the surface of the water in my handheld. And you know what? I loved every second of it. The mountains in the NP are merciless, but they exhibit the raw beauty of high mountains and all to which they are exposed. Most striking today was the glowing golden granite of the steepest faces juxtaposed with the new dusting of snow.

The ridge off Hallet Peak, with the flanks of peaks that comprise the Glacier Gorge Traverse

Hallet Peak, with Longs Peak looking over in the background

I turned around without hesitation at the top. The conditions were sufficiently wintry to convince even the hardiest of runners that an exposed 20 mile technical traverse almost completely above 12,000 was a poor idea. At least not in running gear. Perhaps with some minimal gear and a few more clothes... But such are the limits of running.

I still haven't given up that the route can be done this year. Colorado has notorious weather swings, so the park may well experience summer weather long enough over the next few weeks to put the traverse back in condition. Until then, I'll be researching lightweight ice tools online.