Route: Loft Posted On: 9/9/2024, By: drummerjohn Info: Did the Longs Grand Slam on 9/8. This includes Meeker, Longs, Pagoda, Storm and Mt Lady Washington. The rock was all dry aside from some water runoff after leaving chasm (all easily avoidable). Excellent conditions right now. |
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Route: Southwest Ridge Posted On: 7/23/2024, By: bsteinmetz21 Info: Went up Meeker via the Iron Gates, across the knife edge, and down the Loft. One of my favorite days in the mountains and an absolutely awesome perspective of Longs. The knife edge was pretty legit, but there are definitely ways to hug the right side of you prefer. The unexpected bonus of the day was getting to glissade about 300 feet near the bottom of the loft route! Started at 7:15am and had cloud cover all day with zero rain or thunderstorm activity. We took our time and spent about 11 hours out there. Highly recommend this route if you're looking for zero crowds (didn't see another person all day after the Chasm junction) and a completely unique view of Longs! The whole route (minus the glissade in the Loft) was dry despite some snow/freezing temperatures recently. AND, the hike up through the Iron Gates was not nearly as miserable as I expected. We hugged the right side and found a lot of class 3-type climbing that was way easier than navigating scree. |
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Route: Iron Gates, Loft Posted On: 5/13/2024, By: justiner Info: Snow on the East Longs Peak Trail starts at the trailhead. Approach to Chasm Lake is relatively easy, with the snow slope below Mt. Lady Washington being quite dug in. Iron Gates is also relatively snow free. Snow of course of the ledges on the ridge leading up to the summit. From the Loft, descending the exit ledges are quite snowy. Fairly substantial amount of snow has built up on the ledges thenmselves, so prepare for traversing on steep snow. Loft itself is in great shape below the exit ledges, snow from Chasm Lake to the Exit Ledges - pretty amazing. Snow isn't yet crunchy styrofoam. Mostly two distinct layers. The top layer is somewhat heavy powder, the layer below seems more consolidated, but feels quite heavy, as if there's more melting than setting up overnight. Lots of pinwheels everywhere. There seems to be evidence of a small slide on the bottom of Dreamweaver. Top of the Loft has a lot of debris from sluff from the very top, above the cliff band. |
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Route: Iron Gates Posted On: 10/21/2023, By: _coloradical Info: Trail is clear all the way to Meeker. The knife edge between Meeker Ridge and Mt. Meeker has very little snow and can be crossed without any issues. The Loft has snow and ice, I did talk to 2 people who came up the Loft and stated that you can easily avoid all ice. Things may change heading into the week, but weather has been great for these Fall Climbs. |
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Route: Southwest Ridge Posted On: 10/5/2023, By: HikesInGeologicTime Info: Snow is a relative non-issue until you curve around to the north-facing side in the futile hope of keeping the route strictly Class 2/2+, then is just unavoidable enough to up the pucker factor on the ledge-y/knife-edge-y ridge leading to the summit. Microspikes stayed in our packs nonetheless, as the concerning section is short, and the mandatory snow crossings are in the easily walkable areas. Makes perfect sense to me why the Loft or Iron Gates might be more popular, as this route is steep, relentless, and overrun with boulders in addition to having a starting elevation nearly 1000 feet lower than the main Longs TH, but it is a nicely southern exposed option if you want to hit this one after conditions have changed to more or less permanent ice/snow/cold. |
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Route: The Loft Posted On: 9/16/2023, By: illusion7il Info: Fun conditions on Mt. Meeker with 1-3 inches of fresh snow. Melting fast but microspikes we're very helpful. |
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Route: Loft Couloir Posted On: 9/1/2023, By: PikaSteve Info: Some unavoidable water on the Loft Couloir exit ramp--I don't know when this becomes an ice concern. Great trail to Chasm Lake. A few class three segments in the couloir and exit ramp, but mostly well traveled (but not alway well-defined or completely connected) paths up to the Loft and within a 100 feet of the summit ridge. Meeker summit ridge was a slabby catwalk/knife edge made more interesting by 30 mile per hour wind gusts. Beautiful blue skies and incredible views of Longs Peak. Only a few flowers remaining and still no sign of fall colors. |
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Route: Iron Gates Posted On: 8/12/2023, By: sarahmariekirk Info: Climbed Meeker today via the Iron Gates and added on Longs via the Loft. Great day up high today despite kinda gnarly weather, and super fun (but quick) climb of Meeker. Ridge is easy and there is very minimal exposure. |
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Route: Loft Couloir Posted On: 6/26/2023, By: jfm3 Info: I climbed "Southeast Longs" and Mt. Meeker via the Loft on June 25. I didn't go over to the true summit of Longs. Still a lot of snow up there. I put on crampons at Chasm Lake and didn't take them off until I was back at the lake on the descent. I saw two people who skied down Lamb's Slide. The snow on the Loft was cold and crunchy. The snow on the ledge that exits the couloir was fairly icy, due to the water ice that is thawing and flowing off the cliffs above. It was more like climbing on a glacier than a snowfield. There is a good track but it's steep and some places are harder to kick steps than others. The snow on the north side of Mt. Meeker is still cold and supportive. There wasn't any ice on the rocks on the summit ridge. |
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Route: Dreamweaver Posted On: 6/21/2023, By: desertdog Info: Perfect conditions, Snow plus two short sections of ice. We were surprised given the warm up, but we had clear skies the night before then a cloudy morning, so it was quite cold. We descended the Loft which was snow covered with a trench. |
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Route: Dragon’s Egg Couloir Posted On: 5/7/2023, By: Wildernessjane Info: Hauled skis about 2-1/2 miles in. Made it up to the Dragons Egg and turned around due to poor visibility and thin coverage higher up. If weather had been better we probably would have continued, though the skiing would have been subpar. |
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Route: Loft Posted On: 9/15/2022, By: bsiegs Info: Similar to most recent CR. Still summer conditions the whole way |
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Route: Loft Posted On: 9/9/2022, By: supranihilest Info: The loft route is in great shape. Trail to the Chasm Lake area is easy to follow, even in the dark. The couloir isn't as steep as it looks from a distance. Lots of loose rock all the way up it, make sure not to kick rocks down. Basically a river running down the center of the couloir. All water is avoidable though. Plenty of Class 2+ up the couloir, a small amount of Class 3. Final pitch up Meeker from the Loft is about the same. |
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Route: Southwest Ridge Posted On: 7/18/2022, By: bkcheck Info: Summer conditions the whole way up. The climbers trail mentioned by others does span the entire stretch between Sandbeach Lake trail and Meeker Meadows, but it disappears often. Try looking for fallen trees that have had sections of branches cleared off. A few marshy sections by the meadow but they could be avoided with some creativity. |
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Route: Meeker Ridge Posted On: 6/25/2022, By: dpage Info: Summer conditions from Meeker Ridge across the knife edge to the summit. |
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Route: Southwest Ridge Posted On: 6/22/2022, By: jfm3 Info: I climbed Apache Peak on June 20 and got a good look at the south side of Mt. Meeker. There appears to be some snow at the bottom of the Dragon Egg Couloir. Otherwise, it looks mostly dry up to the top. |
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Route: East Ridge Posted On: 6/16/2022, By: Christensenje Info: From Longs trailhead: Snow almost fully gone up the summit. Just after the knife edge however, on the final scramble, a little work around on the final section was needed due to some snow still hanging on. Turned it more into class 4 to 5.2 climbing. Can't imagine that little bit of snow will hold on much longer but it was enough to cause a detour when only having trail runners and a vest. Wanted to descend the loft, but will need crampons/ice axe a little longer for that guy. |
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Route: Dragon Egg Couloir Posted On: 5/11/2022, By: macg91 Info: The south face of Meeker is pretty bare of snow. First couple photos show the Dragon Egg Couloir taken from near the Dragon Egg itself. As far as skiing goes, the looker's right branch is completely out; there's enough snow that one could link some turns lookers' left, but would have to down-climb some of the rockier sections. We did get to enjoy about 1500' of great corn skiing from the Dragon Egg itself back down to the trail. However the surface freeze was only a few inches thick and below that was wet, unconsolidated snow. With warmer temps the next few days, I doubt it'll last long. Sandbeach Lake Trail is dry for the first 1.5 miles, followed by patchy snow and then continuous snow. The snow was fairly supportive in the early morning but flotation was definitely needed by afternoon. |
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Route: Dreamweaver Posted On: 5/9/2022, By: ReggieBop Info: Lots of snow to begin the coulior. Snow conditions are lovely on the first section, until the rock "step" Mixed climbing required, but no ice to climb. Dry tooling required clearing off a couple inches of sugary snow to find safe ice tool holds. 50mph winds weren't necessarily pleasant, but a super fun route. Take care when on the descent, traverse the rock band until you reach the mid/lower portion of the loft for a wonderful long glissade. My partner and I both soloed the route, had a lovely day |
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Route: SE Ridge/Horse Creek Posted On: 2/27/2022, By: colin j Info: Great weather today on Meeker, practically no wind. Knife edge was holding some sugar snow and I bailed after reaching Meeker Ridge. To those who have crossed this in winter conditions you are much braver than I. Most of the ridge is wind scoured above treeline, though the last 500' or so to Meeker Ridge holds lots of sugar snow and was very slow going; I did underestimate how long this would take. Otherwise good skin track to near Lookout-Meeker saddle and trench is in to treeline. If you plan to use the Horse Creek/Lookout trailhead Boulder County 113N is decently travelled about 0.4 miles from the highway to a port-a-potty and a pullout with room for 3 or 4 vehicles; do not attempt to drive further unless you like getting stuck. |
