July 22 - 28

7/22/2013
Mon-AM: 2:33, 5200' ~ Longs Peak
Up the Loft/Beaver/Notch/Stepladder, down Cables. After yesterday's scoping of the downclimb into the Notch with Joel I decided to do the full Skyline Traverse from the Loft and give it a shot. Headed up the ridge from the Loft to the summit of the Beaver is just simple Class 2+ to Class 3 boulder scrambling, but then you get to the summit and the Notch's abrupt and breathtaking abyss. From there, I headed down to the left searching out the descent chimney--it was easy and obvious. After a relatively low-angle 4th Class-ish chimney, the descent eventually cliffs out and there seem to be many options for getting down into the base of the couloir. However, the best looking to me was a traverse to descender's right across a steep, exposed face, but with really solid holds. I think this is the so-called "Gorrell's Traverse". It went fine, and then it was just the Stepladder to summit ridge. Really fun route.

7/23/2013
Tue-AM: 2:38, 5000' ~ Longs Peak
Up Kieners, down Cables. Took it easy today but was still moving well on the mountain. Made the summit at 1:46 (traversing around the top of the Lambs Slide ice to get to Broadway takes an extra 10min more than if I could just kick across the couloir) and then after downclimbing the Cables just cruised easily back down the hill.

7/24/2013
Wed-AM: 2:43, 5000' ~ Longs Peak
Up the Notch Couloir, down Cables. Yesterday I considered climbing the Notch Couloir instead of Kieners, just for a change of scenery, so today I did. While this is typically a snow climb (and would be better as such), it was a fun scramble, too, if a bit loose/gravelly in spots. Once I got to the actual Notch I just took the usual Stepladder finish to the summit. I was a on a hot base to the base of the Notch on Broadway, but then going up the couloir took longer than Kieners normally would. 21st summit of Longs for the year.

7/25/2013
Thu-AM: 1:10, 3000' ~ First Flatiron+Green Mt.
Biked to Chat, cruised a mellow 12:45 scramble on the way to the summit, and ran back down via the front. Cool, humid/drizzly morning, but the rock was dry.

7/26/2013
Fri-AM: 1:02, 1000' ~ Skyline Drive Manti-La Sal Nat'l Forest
Drove to within 90min or so of Salt Lake City yesterday, and then slept in a surprisingly nice spot next to a stream just off the highway. This was an easy out-n-back shake-out jog up a dirt road with a gradual climb on the way out.

7/27/2013
Sat-AM: 5:09, 11,000' ~ Speedgoat 50K
Solid day overall, 2nd place. Didn't quite have enough race course left at the end to catch up to Sage, but was generally happy with my race-day execution and effort. No real low patches (a little bit from mile 15-21), and I thought I closed the last 10mi pretty strongly.

7/28/2013
Sun-AM: 2:41, 5800' ~ Teewinot
Up and down the east face, from Lupine Meadows. Teewinot is the furthest north peak in the Grand Teton massif and the climber's access route provides a very direct grunt to the summit, capped with over 1500' of 4th Class scrambling at the end. I went mellow today, mostly to just get out and get the legs moving. A few hundred feet below the summit I was trending way too far left, but didn't realize my mistake until I ran out of mountain. Ended up having to downclimb ~300' or so to get back on track, but all in all an awesome outing to a super proud summit.

Hours: 18h06min
Vert: 36,000'

Quality week. Lots of fun on Longs Peak earlier in the week, a solid race, and a new Teton summit for me. I should have a report on Speedgoat later in the week.

East face of Teewinot. An inspiring, in-your-face route from the parking lot.

Electric guitar, epic horns, and doo-wopping lady-hipsters. Hard to beat.