(Report C&P-ed from Strava)
Been thinking about this route, that encompasses more than the Glacier Gorge, since LAF recon outings in the park in summer 2022. It seems like such a worthy tour of the heart of RMNP that, after some other plans shifted and with some decent accumulated time up high, I decided to make it my "last gasp" of the summer season, as I'll be heading to the East Coast for most of September next week. Last gasp indeed; I knew this would be a hard day but I could tell from the start that I personally was in for a rough day.
I decided to go clockwise because hiking up Half Mtn at the start sounded better than bushwacking down it at the end when one could just run down the trail if going CW, and I planned to take the NW gully up Longs from the Keyhole route, and also determined that I'd prefer to go up that than down. Rallied up to Estes on Wed PM and got to sleep late; bolted awake at 3:45am and drove up to the GG lot to find plenty of spots still open at 4:15. Did coffee and bfast up there while I waited for the sun to come up, while fretting about the very blustery conditions outside—felt like fall blowing in.
Even after 2mi of mostly runnable trail, Half Mtn felt like a rude warm-up. My pack—with 2L of water and 2400cal, rain jacket and gloves—just felt inordinately heavy. I chugged along through the deadfall and eventually summited in 1:12 already questioning the rest of the day's agenda. Storm felt similarly grindy, as it also had when Kate and I did the first half of this outing on our final LAF recon, though this time I remembered to stay below the ridge, and I reached the top in 2:28. Wind was ripping from the West through the summit of Storm.
Linking over to the Keyhole felt efficient through here and I was soon in the NW gully—cold and breezy! Quite a bit of ice on the techiest bits too. V relieved to pull over the ridge into windless sun. I was still feeling worked and hadn't yet committed to the full outing by the time I summited Longs in 3:38 elapsed. Mentally, I'd compartmentalized the route in two pieces, before and after McHenrys as there isn't a great bailpoint after the summit of McHs (I was not confident I could routefind to repeat an Arrowhead egress.) From Longs, decided I should do Pagoda as I could always cut down from the Pag-CH saddle back into the GG. Botched the cut over to Pag a bit, forgot just how far you have to drop off the Homestretch, so had to DC a short cliff. Fortunately, remembered the W Ridge bypass well and that section went smoothly. Tagged Pagoda in 4:31.
On Pagoda, I decided that I might as well do CH, made it there in 5:25. At this point, though my energy levels hadn't really improved I finally committed to the rest of the outing, telling myself that I had just one more hard mountain with technical terrain, McHs, before more cruiser tundra/talus and significantly less vert. More importantly, I just wanted to see the day through and realize a longterm goal. You don't always get to pick your days.
From CH, the initial descent is a short garbage chute before you start winding skiers right/NE to hug the side of Stoneman Pass. Boxed in by McHs and CH, with Longs looming, this section feels quite remote. Made it to the summit in 6:31. I was a bit nervous about descending off McHs into the notch, but after mtn proj research, finding the 5.easy descent gully on the S/SW side of the ridge felt intuitive. Def 5th class, I faced in for a handful of sections, but it all went fine and I enjoyed this section. Soon I was heading up the loose third class gully to Powell. Tagged Powell in 7:07.
The rest of the peaks went quickly from Powell, though I did detour a bit east before Taylor to jam my flask full of snow. Taylor: 7:46; Otis: 8:19. On Powell, I'd told myself that if I could tag Hallet in under 9hr then I'd still have a chance of going sub-10. Reached Hallet in 8:45 and did my best to stumble quickly down the remaining ~5.5mi—ankles & feet were feeling v tender and my right knee was starting to complain about all the off-trail travel. Happy to make it back to the GG lot in 9:49:05.
Based on FKT.coms records, if honored in the CW direction, this effort would replace Carolyn Pino's 2020 CCW (11:21:48) run as the new women's standard. More importantly though, I felt immensely satisfied to cap off the summer alpine season with a big long solo effort, on a personally tough day, in, perhaps, my favorite place in Colorado.