I moved to Denver in 2024 and immediately fell in love with the Flatirons. I became enamored by the endless possibilities for linking up multiple formations and the history of all the people who have pushed the limit of what’s possible in this awesome playground. After Mike and I completed the 33 Spring Classics last year in a grueling 21 hours, I couldn’t get the idea of trying to complete all 53 classics in a single push out of my head. I knew I needed to at least put the effort in to see if it was possible. Of course, Mike Palmer, who after the 33 said “I will literally never do this again” was immediately up for the challenge.
The Prep: After the 33, we had a decent understanding of the flatirons and what a challenge like this entails, but even though you are only adding 20 extra routes, many of them are quite daunting. Satan’s Slab, Friday’s Folly, A Very Ament’s Slab, the NF of the Matron, Hatch, Rehatch, and Achean all presented some serious difficulty and both with ascending the routes and getting back down. After much thought, we figured the only way it was possible to complete all 53 in a single outing was to solo everything. Using a rope, even for rappels, is simply too time-consuming. We put a lot of time into learning the cruxes of these routes and ensuring we were comfortable with the risk, especially since you’ll need to execute with a considerable amount of fatigue.
We made our first attempt the weekend before this FKT. We pushed for 21 hours and managed 35 of the 53 classics before heat, dehydration, and fatigue shut us down just before A Very Ament’s Slab. It was a hard failure, but it told us exactly what we needed to know: the link‑up was possible. The strategy needed a bit of refinement, and we needed a bit better conditions.
Rules: We stuck with the previous precedent set by Peter Bakwin, each piece of rock/route just needs to be completed once, up or down. This allows for a lot of creative ways to efficiently link multiple routes on the same formation or formations which are close together.
Style: We wanted to keep this effort self-supported, meaning we carried all of our own supplies and stashed food and water at a couple of locations throughout the link-up. The only potential deviation from this, a friend, Joe Kennedy did join us for the first couple of routes, and his friend George popped up for 2 formations as well, but we didn’t wait for them, use him for pacing or receive any assistance, just shared a couple hours of fun before they peeled off.
The Push
We left NCAR at 11:16 AM on Saturday, a balmy 70 and sunny, with the plan to start with the Regency and work our way North towards Gregory Canyon. We’d loop back towards NCAR, hitting Tomato Rock on the way, to complete the 2nd half of the classics starting with Hillbilly and working South towards the Matron.
It was hot, but things started out smoothly as we ascended the Regency, up and down the two routes on the 5th, up the awful slog that is the 4th (the route that broke us last weekend) and up two of my favorite classics, GMP and Challenger. We bombed down the hill to Morning After followed by a downclimb of Hammerhead, spitting us out on the Royal Arch trail. This brought us to the hardest solo of the day and place where we called it last weekend, W.C. Field's Pinnacle. But this time we cruised A Very Ament's Slab, went up and down Queen Anne's head, and quickly found ourselves at the base of the 3rd. Up the East Face left, down Winky Woo, up Friday's Folly (which might be my favorite solo!) and down the Standard East Face to complete the block in 5hrs 31min.
The next block was the quickest with a speedy lap up Dodge Block, a PR on the Freeway downclimb, up DEF, North Arete, Sunset, back onto the 1st up Baker's Way, down the North Arete and down the Spy. A quick bomb into Gregory Canyon saw us make quick work of the 4 classics in the canyon, and at the 7hr 55min mark we were back on the trail heading towards Skunk Canyon.
A quick pitstop on the way to tick Tomato Rock, our fastest classic at 28 seconds, and we were hiking up the hill to Skunk. This was the section where Mike bonked super hard last weekend, so we were prepared for a slog, but everything went smoothly! Up Hillbilly, down Stairway to Heaven, a very smooth lap up Satan's Slab, down Angel's Way (our longest classic at 35:25), up Achean, up Dreadnaught, up and down Back Porch, and finally down Tip Toe Slab on Front Porch. This brought us over to Dino which is always a treat, down into the gully to the Dino Eggs, we blitzed up Hatch in 6:43, and Rehatch in 8:26. The SE Ridge of Der Frieschutz is a total slog and we somehow missed the summit at first which added a bunch of unnecessary scrambling to tag it, then down Free Shot where at first Mike thought we completely missed the route (we didn’t). Finally, we headed up over the Hand to Fi Fun and Quadratic Equation, finishing the NCAR block at 16hrs 15mins.
The bomb down to Bear Canyon trail is seriously never ending and my knees were screaming at this point, the only thing keeping me in it mentally being the fact that we only had 12 classics to go. We slogged it up to Seal which went smoothly, then over to Fern Canyon where we dispatched Pellaea, Onoclea, and downclimbed Fiddlehead. The sunrise gave us a nice boost as we cruised Diagonals up the enormous Slab in 30:25, followed by the two routes at South Shanahan before the real schwacking began. We kinda nailed the schwack to Tiny Tower and same over the Fatiron, only losing a few minutes here and there and me getting annihilated by tree branches. The sun was in full force at this point, and I was running quite low on fluids, but we charged up the East Face of the Fatiron, our last big slog of the push, and soon found ourselves at the base of the Maiden. We took our time since this is a very real solo and we were very fatigued at this point, but everything went smoothly and we only had one formation to go! Similarly, the North Face of the Matron is a very serious solo 24 hours into a big day, so we took it nice and slow making sure to nail everything on our way to the summit. We snapped a quick summit selfie before downclimbing the East Face to complete the Roach's 53 Classics in a push! Last block done at 25:38:00
Psych was at an all-time high while feet and legs were at an all-time low for the ~4 miles back to NCAR, but Knute, Soren and Joe met us for pizza and beers in the parking lot!
What an insane challenge! Hard to know what to say afterwards, but here's to big days with great friends pushing our bodies to the limit!
Route List
- The Regency – El Camino Royale: 9:41
- 5th Flatiron – East Face North: 14:40
- 5th Flatiron – East Face South (downclimb): 14:28
- 4th Flatiron – East Face: 28:44
- Challenger – East Face: 5:25
- Green Mountain Pinnacle – Takin’ Care of Business: 2:34
- Morning After – East Face: 8:22
- Hammerhead – Yodeling Moves (downclimb): 10:49
- W.C. Field’s Pinnacle – A Very Aments Slab: 8:12
- Queen Anne’s Head – East Face: 11:20
- 3rd Flatiron – East Face South Side: 18:08
- 3rd Flatiron – Winky Woo (downclimb): 9:04
- 3rd Flatiron – Friday’s Folly: 9:06
- 3rd Flatiron – East Face Standard (downclimb): 21:46
- 2nd Flatiron – Dodge Block: 11:55
- 2nd Flatiron – Freeway (downclimb) 13:10
- 1st Flatiron – Direct East Face: 16:11
- 1st Flatiron – North Arete: 7:52
- Sunset Flatironette – Chase the Sun: 7:18
- 1st Flatiron – Baker’s Way: 5:30
- The Spy – East Ridge (downclimb): 7:10
- T-Zero – West Face: 1:19
- 1st Pinnacle – Southeast Face: 3:45
- West Bench – The Slot: 3:09
- 2nd Pinnacle – South Face: 6:06
- Tomato Rock: 0:28
- Hill Billy Rock – East Face South: 8:51
- Stairway to Heaven (downclimb): 30:05
- Satan’s Slab – East Face/Purgatory: 31:36
- Angel’s Way (downclimb): 35:25
- Achean Pronouncement – East Face: 18:57
- Dreadnaught – Primal Rib: 13:46
- Backporch – East Face: 8:36
- Frontporch – Tiptoe Slab (downclimb): 12:57
- Dinosaur Rock – East Face: 5:05
- Southern Dinosaur Egg – Hatch: 6:43
- Northern Dinosaur Egg – Rehatch: 8:26
- Der Freischutz – South Ridge: 17:49
- Der Freischutz – Free Shot (downclimb): 11:28
- Fi – Fi Fun: 6:48
- Fo – Quadratic Equation: 9:41
- Seal Rock – East Face South: 15:31
- Pellaea – East Face: 13:52
- Onoclea – East Face: 9:32
- Fiddlehead – East Face (downclimb): 18:25
- The Slab – Diagonals: 30:35
- Central Shanahan – South Face: 5:34
- Central Shanahan – Southeast Ridge (downclimb): 25:47
- Tiny Tower – East Face: 6:45
- The Fatiron – East Face: 27:04
- The Maiden – North Face: 16:24
- The Matron – North Face: 11:59
- The Matron – East Ridge (downclimb): 30:19