Mt. Meeker

Route: Flying Dutchman
Posted On: 1/4/2026, By: ksg5199
Info: Long's peak trail from parking lot to chasm lake was bootpacked - snowshoes were unecessary. Chasm lake was frozen and plenty of people were walking and ice skating on it. We looked at Martha's couloir which had hardly any snow and no ice - definitely not in yet. Flying dutchman couloir required a rock/scree scramble to the base of the snow before we put on crampons. Walking up the snow couloir was comfortable and easy terrain to walk up or plunge step down. The ice crux was fat and beautiful! I'd say it was about 40-50ft. On climbers left the ice is lower angle and thinner compared to climbers right. The first ramp is low angle WI2 and the second ramp is steeper but not long. I placed all rock pro and used small/medium nuts, small tricams, and a #1 cam. I had extra cams to build a rock anchor but turns out there is a giant boulder at the top climbers left that skiers sling to rappel down the ice crux. I slung this boulder and belayed my second. There was some rock/snow scrambling up to the loft after finishing the ice pitch. We did not summit Mt. Meeker and descended lamb's slide. Overall, a great route for beginner mountaineers who want to test their ice skills! 

Route: Iron Gates - Loft - Keyhole descent
Posted On: 9/6/2025, By: EvanKBlack
Info: Still in summer conditions. Some very small puddles were iced over early in the morning. Routefinding from leaving the Chasm Lake privy all the way across the Loft and through Keplinger's Couloir up to the Keyhole Route a breeze thanks to a steady if not huge level of foot traffic on the route. 

Route: Loft
Posted On: 8/13/2025, By: sehessler92
Info: The route is in great condition. There’s some water in the gully before the ledges and on the ledges themselves, so take care in those spots. I tried following a GPX file for this route, but it kept telling me I was off-route several times, which was frustrating. Just before reaching the ramp and more technical parts of the route, we stayed to the right and found some easier climbing. Overall, it was an excellent day, windy on the summit, but hot once we got back to the Chasm/Loft route junction 

Route: Iron Gates -> Loft -> Keyhole
Posted On: 7/21/2025, By: backcountrybrodes
Info: Iron Gates are completely dry, Loft has some wet rock right before you meet up with the home stretch so watch your tread there. Keyhole is completely dry, as is the approach trail. 

Route: Iron Gates
Posted On: 7/19/2025, By: Troyister
Info: This is a fun route, especially Meeker Ridge. The scree and rocks up through from Chasm Lake, through the Iron Gates to the ridge was mostly solid a few sections loose and a loose rock here and their but overall what one would expect. The ridge was fun with some good class 3 moves with exposure. The little knife edge wasn't bad if one is comfortable with exposure. Went down the Loft Route between Meeker and Longs. A little challenging finding the ledge (took about 3-5 extra mins), and in summer conditions with running water here and there. Longs Peak Trailhead was packed by 3:15 AM and I parked 1/3 of a mile down the road, but that is what one gets on a Sat in July. No one else was on Meeker while there were 100s of individuals heading to Longs Peak and Chasm lake. Waterfall in full flow, and wildflowers above treeline here an there. 

Route: Southwest Ridge
Posted On: 6/29/2025, By: jjjullesss
Info: What a beautiful day for a hike! We started from the Sandbeach Lake Trailhead at 8:00 AM.
The trail can be a bit tricky to follow due to the vegetation, especially in the forested sections. We highly recommend having a GPS device with pre-loaded tracks to help with navigation.
Once you emerge from the trees, the hike quickly transitions from a standard trail to a steep section where you'll have to navigate over rocks.
We encountered some small, avoidable snow patches before reaching the ridge.
The ridge itself is straightforward and not exposed, offering fantastic views of Longs Peak from the summit.
While incredibly scenic, don't underestimate this hike. It's both lengthy and somewhat technical in sections.
We ended up taking much longer than anticipated because my friend experienced altitude sickness.

Strava activity: https://www.strava.com/activities/14947867178 

Route: Southwest Ridge
Posted On: 6/22/2025, By: Outbounder
Info: Most of this route is snow free aside from a large snowfield remaining in the Dragon's Egg bowl. This can be avoided by sticking to the right. I'd recommend waterproof boots, as the meadow is wet and marshy. Hunter's creek is high right now and a great place to filter. The climb up is pretty straight forward. Most of the rock is pretty solid if you hang to the right, though test everything, as I found a few very loose, large rocks. My black Cambel Bak water bottle fell out of my pack in the right side of the boulder field. If you find it, if you could pack it out I'd appreciate it, I feel awful for littering. 

Route: Loft & Iron Gtaes
Posted On: 6/19/2025, By: jeffmpls
Info: Some snow lingers on the upper portion of the Loft & from the Loft to Meeker summit. From Meeker to Meeker Ridge, snow free and Iron Gates down to the basin are also clear. 

Route: Flying Dutchman
Posted On: 6/16/2025, By: desertdog
Info: We went up the Flying Dutchman down the Loft. Used a rope on the FD crux (crappy ice and loose rock) and the pitch above. We were pleasantly surprised, that given how warm it’s been, the snow in the Flying Dutchman was in great shape. The Loft is still holding a fair amount of snow. Great day of climbing. 

Route: Iron Gates
Posted On: 6/13/2025, By: Ryan987
Info: Summer conditions minus the snow crossing to chasm lake (but didn't need spikes). Super fun route! 

Route: Dragon's Egg
Posted On: 5/27/2025, By: aksean22
Info: From the Sandbeach Lake TH. Trail is dry for the first 3.5 miles, patchy snow starts just before the Hunters Creek turnoff. I made it another 0.5 miles in trailrunners before giving up and switching to skins. Mostly continuous and supportable snow the rest of the way. I skinned to about 12,500' and booted the rest. I was able to ski off the summit by dropping North towards the Loft before traversing back to the south into the couloir. Coverage was pretty good up high, but getting pretty thin in the middle. There was maybe 4" of new snow but it was super wet and already starting to melt off. I skied the first 1500' continuously, walked 200' around a waterfall, then skis on to the bottom. Lots of rollers up high and kicked off a few wetslides down low. It's getting really thin, would not recommend. 14 miles, 5900' round trip. 

Route: Iron Gates/Meeker Ridge
Posted On: 12/21/2024, By: _coloradical
Info: The trail up to Chasm Junction is packed in nice. We were surprised to see the trail to Chasm Lake wasnt packed in, we put in the first tracks around 9 AM and 2 other groups were behind us and packed it in a little more.

The approach to Iron Gates has minimal snow and it can be bypassed. Once you pass through the gates, all the rock is 100% dry. Once we gained the ridge at 13k, we could see small patches of snow lingering in the south side of the ridge - all can be bypassed. The knife edge that connects Meeker to Meeker Ridge is dry. Strong headwinds forced us off the ridge, but theres a nice ledge system on the north side that allows you to bypass the entire knife edge with a couple easy 4th class moves.

Beautiful day out today, breezy and gusty in the morning but rather obnoxious winds in the afternoon. Forecast calls for a windy next couple of days, so monitor forecasts if you go out.

Will post photos a little later. 

Route: Iron Gates
Posted On: 12/8/2024, By: daway8
Info: Standard packed snow trail to treeline then fairly windswept until just past Chasm Lake junction where's there's a lot of snow piled up, but there were 30+ people ice skating on Chasm Lake today so there's a pretty good boot pack across steep snowfields - not much snow above on MLW to worry about, it's just the slopes below the trail that are loaded, but lots of anchors in the way of bushes, large rocks, etc. I put on microspikes here for added security across a brief firm section. Iron Gates almost totally dry, as was the ridge going over Meeker Ridge and Meeker - Knife Edge was dry. Looked like Loft route was holding a fair amount of snow/ice including especially at the steep sections near the top. Meeker-Longs saddle pretty windswept. Went over and started a little ways up Longs. The couloirs are holding a little more snow - just enough to be annoying but not enough for any avy danger yet. But I started late and was moving slow so aborted about 1k below Longs and went back over the Meekers since Loft route below the saddle looked a bit sketch. Will upload some photos. 

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. 

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.