¡Pantalones Caliente!

Chris's Big Day on Dreamweaver

It's been a heck of a month between Eric's visit with various climbing and hiking, the Grand Canyon Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim run, a week of climbing, backpacking, and attempted peak bagging in all sorts of sub-optimal conditions with Mike. Quite frankly, I'm exhausted! Then Chris proposes a four-person attempt on Dreamweaver, an ultra-classic mixed alpine line on Mt. Meeker that's been on my list for years now. Exhaustion or no, how could I say no?

I tried Dreamweaver one before but turned around less than half way up due to alarmingly soft snow and a bit of mild AMS on the approach. Unfortunately, it is a route with a fairly narrow window of good conditions and word on the street was that things were "go". So it was either go for it now or wait until next season. I've wanted to step up from my growing resume of pure-snow climbs to something with a mild mixed rock-plus-ice component. What the hell; I'll sleep when I'm dead. ;-)

We were on the trail by 3:30 and made great time up to treeline. Despite the pain of getting up at oh-dark-thirty, everyone was stoked for the climb. Mike and Marella had never been up the east side of Longs and marvelled over the approach scenery (and they hadn't even seen Chasm Cirque and the Diamond yet!). "Did you bring your camera?" I asked Chris. After a contemplative pause, he whipped off his pack and started tearing through it. "Crap! No! It's lying on the ground beside the car!"

After debating the safety of a $400 camera at a busy trailhead versus timing on the route, Chris took off at speed for the car while Mike, Marella and I carried his pack the rest of the way to the base of the route. I wasn't optimistic about making it up the route at this point, but figured we could salvage the rest of the day by poking around in Chasm Cirque, maybe climbing Lamb's Slide or something.

The snow traverse above Peacock Pool was damaged by a huge rock slide!

Chasm Cirque on the approach. Dreamweaver ascends to the left of the prominent Flying Buttress fin.

The snow slope above Peacock Pool was slick and rock-hard and the boot track had been largely obliterated by a recent rockfall (car-sized boulders sitting in 20' craters!). Mike spent a while hacking out steps through the damaged part while I shuttled packs back and forth. We got to the ranger cabin at about 6. Five minutes later, we saw Chris come flying down the trail at a dead run, grab the axe I'd left for him at the near side of the ice field, and keep going at speed. He arrived out of breath less than 2 hours after turning back. Turns out the camera had been in the car the whole time, not outside, so the whole extra trip was unnecessary. Earlier, he'd volunteered to lead the whole couloir. "You still up for this?" I asked. "Sure. Let's do it," he replied.

Dreamweaver is narrow enough that it's hard to avoid debris knocked loose from above. That plus my soft-snow experience last time made us want to have the pole position this time around. We could see a party above us already roped up and moving slowly. On the plus side, we could use their boot track, but we'd be in their line of fire all day.

I lead the way up the first 500' of snow climbing. It was cold and windy and the snow conditions varied from wind-packed crust on top of powder to crustless powder. At the top of the easy stuff, we broke out the ropes and second tools. Even after his extracurricular side trip, Chris was still volunteering to lead the technical stuff and I was happy to play Tail-End Charlie. Reportedly Dreamweaver has four technical cruxes where the couloir narrows to a few feet in width and climbs over a rock step.

The first crux was entirely snow covered and we cruised through it with no problem into the 15'-wide corridor I'd spent a lot of time in last time through. Chris got to work on crux #2, a 10' high set of rocks covered in a thin coating of ice. It took a while, but he finally cleared it and belayed up Mike, Marella, and I. Mike and Marella had never climbed ice before, but got the hang of it after a bit of thrashing. I followed and found that it wasn't easy at all with not enough ice for axes to be useful, but not enough bare rock for good hand holds. Having struggled on top rope, it must have been a very stout lead. "I'm going to have to wait a while for my testicles to descend after that," said Chris.

Nominally half-way up, we reached a broad, low angle balcony and stomped up it to the top of the Flying Buttress. The wind picked up again and Chris lead the way over a rocky hump and through a left-handed dogleg whereupon the couloir narrowed again. Crux #3 was dead ahead and we waited for a few minutes for the pair above us to clear it. The view downward was impressive to say the least.

Looks familiar; the relatively wide lower couloir from just below the second crux.

New territory! Mike, Marella, and I wait for the third crux to clear in the upper couloir. Spectacular setting despite the incoming missiles from above.

Once the pitch had cleared, Chris moved up into the narrow section (3 feet wide at most) and started the lead. This one had more ice on it and he seemed to have less trouble than he did with #2. I moved into the narrow section as Marella worked on #3 and immediately began to receive fire. The stuff from my party was mostly soft and slow-moving, but the occasional chunks of ice from the team above came like missiles. Dodging was tough since they tended to pinball back and forth on the walls. Every time a volley started, I'd just duck and cover and usually escape unscathed. Still, I caught at least one in the helmet and my head rang like a bell and a baseball sized chunk on the forearm which hurt. A lot!

The couloir wasted no time in getting narrow again above crux #3 and headed arrow-straight for the fourth and final crux by way of a small "cruxlette" ice bulge. This is so cool! Crux #4 was either easier than #3, or else we were getting the hang of easy mixed climbing. We soon found ourselves on the wide upper slopes of Mt. Meeker with snow and air as far as the eye could see. We climbed the final few hundred feet of soft snow to the summit ridge, coiled the ropes, and set out for some much-deserved summit time. The party ahead of us turned out to be a pair of CU students and we chatted for a while and admired the extensive views. In particular, Longs from this direction was really amazing. Seen edge-on, the Diamond is disturbingly vertical.

We had two descent options: the Loft or the NE Ridge. Typically the Loft is used since it is easier and faster than anything else from the summit. But snow conditions were getting pretty soft, so we were a little anxious about setting off a slide. Plus, I was simply tired of snow at this point and wanted some nice, solid rock for a change. The NE Ridge traversed some nifty-looking knife-edge to the eastern summit of Meeker, then skirted the edge of a fantastic cliff before dropping down a gentle ridge to the Chasm Cirque and the main trail.

Yours truly pulling through the fourth and final ice step. The Flying Buttress looks a lot smaller from above!

Mike and Marella traversing the scary knife edge between the two summits of Meeker. Longs Peak and the Loft in the distance.

The traverse turned out to be a good deal harrier than we'd expected. Chris and I ended up doing low-5th class traverse moves unprotected around a huge block before finding a going ledge system on the other side. Had we not already been tired from exertion and lack of sleep, the rest of the knife-edge would have been jolly fun. As it was, we were glad to make it to the lower, east summit in one peice.

Roach and Roach describe the NE Ridge as "nifty" and "class 2". I have to take issue with both of these descriptions, however. We faced seemingly miles of the worst massive, loose, sharp talus scrambling I've ever seen. It never ended and it never got easy. In fact, it was only about a mile, but we dropped 1800' in that distance and took almost 2 hours. Everyone agreed it was the worst talus we'd ever encountered and that we would rather undergo various treatments outlawed by the Geneva Convention than do that again.

Finally back down at Chasm Meadows, we fueled up, fended off the resident marmot, and started the four mile hike out. Descent on the East Longs Peak Trail is never pleasent and this time was no exception. We finally reached the car (Chris for the second time today), a little after 5 and headed to Ed's Cantina for the usual post-climb debauch.

Now, for some rest and domesticity... at least for a few days. So far, I have nothing planned for June.

The Wilderness Journal

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