The following trip report is copied (and updated) from another page for my 2014 trip to RMNP (my second ever trip to RMNP, before I lived in Colorado). My original 2014 trip report also includes a climb of the Keyhole Route on Longs Peak and Ariana on The Diamond.

I didn't really plan on doing any climbing in the Colorado Rockies this summer, but thundershowers in Wyoming (where I was at the time) and just a whim for new and unplanned adventure drew me down there. Like everywhere in the West it seemed, the area was experiencing a period of rain storms but there looked like there would be some windows for climbing. Despite its impromptu nature, this ended up being a successful trip, involving climbs of three popular RMNP objective: Longs Peak, The Diamond, and The Spearhead. This page provides a trip report for these climbs. I definitely feel I need to come back to the area and climb some more!

This page has a trip report for Sykes' Sickle (5.9+) on The Spearhead. After a rest day after climbing Ariana (5.12, 6p) on the Diamond, I was eager to climb something else in the Park. Eric (who I'd been climbing with in Wyoming prior to this trip) had been off acquiring a Sprinter van in Boulder. Used Sprinter acquired, he drove to RMNP and we met up to do a climb. We decided to climb The Spearhead, a hunk of white granite whose 800-foot northeast face is reputed to have some of the best rock in the Park, featuring flakes, thin cracks, and face climbing. We tossed around various route ideas (the 10b The Barb and the 5.9+ Sykes' Sickle being the primary choices), and finally decided on Sykes Sickle (5.9+). This route is a time-honored classic that goes straight up the middle of the NE Face, breaking through the obvious feature for which it was named. Since the approach is just under three hours of pretty mellow hiking, mostly on trail, we decided to climb the route car-to-car, leaving the trailhead in the morning darkness to give ourselves the best chance of avoiding any afternoon rain/hail when we were on the route. This was a really fun climb, mostly 5.7 climbing (the exposed and varied kind that makes you think) with a spicy 5.9+ exit over the top of the Sickle. Eric nailed the crux!

14 hours car to car
Leave trailhead: 4:20 am
Black Lake: 6:13
Base of climb: 7:05
Start climbing: 7:37
Summit: 2:34
Trailhead: 6:00 pm

Sykes' Sickle is one of the more popular routes in Rocky Mountain National Park. The route ascends the obvious sickle-shaped right-facing dihedral and roof in the upper center of the northeast face of Spearhead.

I first climbed Sykes' Sickle in 2014, on a climbing roadtrip to Wyoming that took a random turn to Colorado for a few days. I thought the route was great.

I climbed Sykes' Sickle again in 2020. I was now living in Boulder, and Rocky Mountain National Park had quickly become my favorite place to climb. I climbed Sykes' Sickle as a party of three with my friends Nate and Cassie. This was one of Cassie's first alpine routes, so Nate and I did the leading while Cassie followed. We climbed efficiently, with the leader tailing a second rope and belaying both followers at once, with the next leader climbing ahead of Cassie and getting all ready to lead the next pitch while Cassie cleaned the gear off of the previous pitch. There was a party of two that started up just after us, and despite the fact that we were a party of three, we were back at the base just as they were starting up the Sickle pitch.

What a fun day in an amazing location. "This is awesome!" as Cassie said several times over the course of the day.

Glacier Gorge Trailhead to base of route: 3 hours 15 minutes
Climb Sykes Sickle: 4 hours 10 minutes
Summit to Glacier Gorge Trailhead: 4 hours
Car-to-car: 11 hours 30 minutes

After another rather wet summer, September had arrived with a splitter forecast—warmer and sunnier than it had been for weeks. For Labor Day weekend, Nate and I snatched this late-season opportunity to spend a few days in the alpine. I secured a bivy permit for Upper Glacier Gorge (need to be climbing a route that is at least four pitches to qualify for a bivy permit), and Nate and I bivied up there for two nights (Friday and Saturday nights) below The Spearhead.

Due to the splitter forecast and an expired national park pass, I cleared up my Friday schedule and decided to head up to Glacier Gorge in the early morning, secure our favorite bivy site, and do a traverse over Arrowhead - McHenrys - Chiefs Head - Spearhead, arriving back at the bviy around the time Nate arrived. On Saturday, Nate and I climbed Sykes' Sickle (5.9+, 7p). On Sunday we climbed what we called "The Barbfisher" (5.11a, 8p)—a link-up of the first 5 pitches of The Barb with the last 2.5 pitches of The Kingfisher. We also enjoyed a couple of sunny afternoons hanging out in this spectacular area.

This page gives a trip report for Sykes' Sickle on The Spearhead. Nate and I had climbed this route before but it is an engaging route worth climbing again.

The following gives pitch-by-pitch photos of Sykes' Sickle, and below that a photo smorgasbord from our three-day, two-night Labor Day weekend hanging out in Upper Glacier Gorge. Enjoy!

Bivy to base of route: 20 minutes
Climb route (base to top): 4 hours 29 minutes
Descent (top to bivy): 40 minutes

It was Labor Day weekend and the forecast was for splitter weather, so Nate and I snatched the opportunity to spend three days and two nights in the spectacular Upper Glacier Gorge. We had secured a bivy permit for Upper Glacier Gorge (need to be climbing a route that is at least 4 pitches to qualify for a bivy permit), and we bivied up there for two nights (Friday and Saturday nights) below The Spearhead. What a spectacular place to hang out for the long weekend.

Upper Glacier Gorge has some of the best bivy locations in RMNP. We stayed at what I decided to call the "Under the Dome" bivy, which is a roomy cavern under a giant boulder. This is one of the coolest spots to bivy in the area, but it is usually filled with snow or ice until late in the summer.