Longs Peak

Route: Keyhole Route
Posted On: 7/8/2017, By: alyannkar
Info: Up to the Keyhole, there was hardly any snow. It is probably all melted by now. Ledges were mostly clear. There were two areas with snow but I did not use traction for either during my ascent or descent. The Trough had a lot of snow still. I used microspikes and trekking poles to go up. Many people were skirting around the snow, but the loose rock in the area created a lot of issues with falling rock during this section. There was no snow on the Narrows. The Homestretch was similar to the Trough. I used traction and was glad to have it, especially going down the Homestretch and the Trough. 

Route: Kieners & North Face
Posted On: 7/3/2017, By: pbakwin
Info: Kieners is in great shape. I was able to walk across Chasm Lake, but that probably won't last much longer. Lambs is excellent cramponing. Broadway & Kieners are dry enough. Some snow fields on upper Kieners but easy to avoid. There's still some snow on the North Face traverse above the Cables section, but people had kicked big steps, which was convenient. Cables section is wet (as always!), but ice was mainly gone by 9:30am. Below that was all snow, but getting soft by mid-morning. 

Route: Keyhole Route
Posted On: 7/1/2017, By: Hucksley
Info: Shared pics of each section for your planning pleasure, there were a few guys that made the summit without any traction but I don't know if/how they got down to be frank 😜. Ledges can be done halfway w/o traction (see pics), Narrows is clear of snow, Trough and Homestretch are still in really good shape for axe/crampons, highly recommend bringing them. Snow can be avoided climbers right on Homestretch via rock hopping, but didn't look worth it. Get at it! Holler with questions. 

Route: Keyhole Route
Posted On: 7/1/2017, By: Vertical Wanderer
Info: Due to some crazy weather the night before (freezing rain, 0.5" on new snow) I used my ice axe and I wore crampons from half way accross the ledges to the summit. And yes they were needed! However, had I left a few hours later and allowed the sun to melt the half inch of ice off the bare rocks, I would have only needed them for the Trough and parts of the Homestretch. With warm clear weather, I think someone could manage with microspikes and maybe an ice axe thanks to the steps kicked in the snowy portions.

I left the trailhead at 4:15 and summitted at 8:45... from the keyhole up was slow going! 

Route: Keyhole Route
Posted On: 6/27/2017, By: ddeckys
Info: The narrows were completely clear of snow which provided for easy hiking through that part. I was originally not going to bring crampons until I read some condition reports and decided to just in case, thankfully I did. There is still plenty of snow and ice on fairly steep sections of the hike, and I would say the summit is unreachable at this point in the season without ether crampons or micro spikes and an ice axe. 

Route: Loft Route
Posted On: 6/25/2017, By: kushrocks
Info: For anyone looking to head up Longs high on the Keyhole and Loft route there is still a lot of snow over some of the steeper sections. I highly recommend crampons and an ice axe at least for the next few weeks. Some guy went up the keyhole in microspikes and said it was not a good idea as there was still snow on the narrows. There is still plenty of snow in the loft as well as the home stretch. 

Route: Keyhole Route
Posted On: 6/22/2017, By: Micaiah
Info: Started at 2:15 AM
Very little snow up to boulder field. Used no traction.
2 snow sections on ledges. Used crampons and ice ace.
Trough - continuous snow. I post holed the bottom half. It was firm enough to hold me the top half.
Narrows - clear of snow.
Home stretch - continuous firm snow. Near the top, snow only accepted the 2 front points of my crampons. Summited 8:45 am.

Not a microspike climb yet. Sorry folks. Front pointing required 

Route: Keyhole Route
Posted On: 6/16/2017, By: LaMoo7
Info: Started around 630AM. Route was pretty much clear of snow until after the Boulder field. I was shocked how hard packed the snow was on the trough and final pitcth, especially since I didn't hit that area until 11ish. I was comfortable with crampons and poles. Snow was solid, didn't feel sketchy at all to me. 

Route: Keyhole Route
Posted On: 6/4/2017, By: goldenite
Info: Started around 4:30, continuous snow from around 10.5K with some exposed rock throughout. Still lots of snow on the back side and crampons/axe necessary. Pictures are of the boulder field, after the keyhole, trough, and homestretch. 

Route: The Trough from Glacier Gorge
Posted On: 5/29/2017, By: Kevin Baker
Info: Full on winter conditions. Even with a hard freeze, The Trough was a wallow fest after sunhit as we started too late. The bottom of the couloir currently receives sun by 9am. There is now a bootpack to the top of the Trough, which has as much snow as I have seen in it. Very little rocks poking out. We turned around at the chockstone being late with uncertain weather. The Narrows is a lot snowier than is typical this time of year. 

Route: Keyhole Route
Posted On: 5/11/2017, By: khale
Info: Consistent snow from trailhead to Keyhole. Trail obvious until fork to Chasm Lake. Packed our own trail from there, ~1-2” of fresh snow from night before. Used microspikes for majority of that lower stretch, as snow was fairly soft due to warmer temperatures/cloud insulation. Switched to crampons just past the Keyhole, halfway through the Ledges. Snow on the Ledges also soft, some graupel spills as we kicked into the wall – still pretty stable with crampons/axe. Snow on the Trough, Narrows and Home Stretch was similar, soft but stable – Trough and Home Stretch were very solid, traveling went quickly. The snow on the Narrows was steep, but traversing went safely. Bluebird day on the summit. We were a group of 2 climbers. Round trip took us 11 hours and 15 minutes. We began our hike at 2:30AM and reached the summit at 9:15AM. With threats of thunderstorms this time of year, we had a hard turnaround time of 10AM. Weather held up for most of our descent. Trip report to come – please contact if any questions in the meantime. 

Route: Trough from Glacier Gorge TH
Posted On: 5/7/2017, By: bmcqueen
Info: Well packed trail from Glacier Gorge to Mills Lake. From there, it's ok up to Black Lake - no flotation required, but a bit softer. We put snowshoes on from Black Lake to the base of the Trough where we switched to crampons. We put a nice booter in all the way up the Trough - pretty soft snow from lack of freezes the past couple nights, but it was stable. Narrows is snow covered as is Home Stretch, but not a problem with crampons and axe. 

Route: Trough
Posted On: 4/23/2017, By: justiner
Info: Lots of snow in the Trough! Prepare though: to wallow, as it's not very consolidated. Lots of wet slide activity on nearly every aspect with snow on it, including the Trough.

At the top of the Trough, Ledges to the North looked pretty snowy, with a large snowfield with obvious wet slide activity. Narrows also had snow/ice, but not as much snow when compared to Trough (chocked full of) or the Ledges (quite a bit of). We stopped at the Narrows, so I don't have a report on Homestretch. I'd suppose a fair bit of snow though. 

Route: From afar
Posted On: 4/15/2017, By: d_baker
Info: I saw Longs today. See picture.

In other news.....

Since there's not an "Other" option in the list of peaks in the drop down menu (that I saw anyway), and this peak is a 12er, I chose Longs as the "peak."
Anyway, I climbed Dragon's Tail couloir today on Flattop Mountain.
Conditions were pretty good and the climbing was kind of busy but fun.
At base of climb by 6:40ish.
Took r. branch at the split and the cornice is passable to the right of it, or Cooper describes an alternative line to the left of the cornice area, which looked fine as an exit option.
The cornice is not very menacing looking. 40+ degrees (estimate) near this exit.

Snow was firm through most of climb. Carried a whippet to use along with my axe, and it felt good to have it.

Carried snow shoes, but never needed them for the approach or descent (which was down Flattop Mtn Trail). 

Route: Loft Route
Posted On: 4/13/2017, By: unclegar
Info: This is the same date as the previous CR but I though I'd add some pics. I went up to Chasm Jct in the late afternoon and found the trail to be packed but with posthole potential so I wore snowshoes the entire trip. I typically take the ranger trail below treeline so I did have to break a lot of the trail with snow anywhere from 8 inch to 12+ inches and it was pretty wet and heavy. Once on the main trail it was mostly packed with posthole potential. The winter cutoff from the "lightning warning bridge" was in a similar condition but more traveled. I'm still glad I had snowshoes. Once above treeline it was a combination of about 12 inch breakthrough with snowshoes and being able to walk on top of the snow. It was getting colder since it was around 6 pm so that probably helped. The wind was howling above treeline as usual. I would put it at more like 40 mph and did see the spindrift blocking MLW as well as the person in the previous CR. There was more snow than about 2 weeks ago above treeline so it may be improving especially if we get some more weather which I don't think we have in the last week. Pics of 1)winter cutoff 2)the big hill at the end of the cutoff before the Battle Mtn sign 3)conditions once above treeline 4)loft couloir.