Previous to 2024, I had only summited Longs in the summer months (June, July, August, September). But in February 2024, I had done my first winter ascent of Longs, when Lisa Foster invited me along on an ascent of the
Cables Route. It was of an ah-ha moment for me: I love my new life in Colorado, but I had been missing the snow mountaineering—crampons, ice axes, steep snow, mixed conditions, glacier travel, crevasses, bergshrunds—I had done so much of in the North Cascades; climbing Longs in non-summer conditions was a great way to put these skills—except for the glacier-related stuff—to good use. Following the February ascent, I had summited Longs once in March (with Lisa) and twice in April (once with Lisa, once solo). It was now nearing the end of May and conditions on Longs were perfect for another Spring ascent. Why not keep my streak going? I'd already done the
Keyhole Route,
Cables Route, and
The Trough over the preceeding few months, so I decided to reach the summit via
The Loft + Clark's Arrow.Clark's Arrow is an excellent 3rd class route to the summit of Longs Peak. It is far less travelled than
The Keyhole Route. I had been on sections of the route a couple of times in the summer (on the "
Estes Skyline High Route" in July 2020 we used it as a descent route and when ascending Longs via
The Beaver in August 2022, I had scoped out
Gorrell's Traverse via
Clark's Arrow). But this was the first time I did
The Loft + Clark's Arrow as my main ascent route. The route was still quite snowy, but the snow was in excellent condition for cramponning. I had brought snowshoes, but never needed them (I left them along with a victory Pepsi at the base of the snowslope up to the Loft and collected them on my way out).
Just like all of my ascents so far in 2024, I arrived on a sunny and calm summit and had the entire summit to myself.
The following page gives a route overlay and photos from my first May ascent of Longs Peak.
