Longs Peak Southeast Loop
Date: 06-23-2024
Partner: Solo
Trailhead: Longs Peak
Summits:
* Glacier Ridge
* Ships Prow
* Southeast Longs
* Meeker
* Meeker Ridge
Distance: 11.6m
Elevation Gain: 5500ft
Duration: 9hrs 50min
GPX
Longs Peak is probably the most impressive zone in all of Colorado. There is so much to do and lots of rad people doing it. On this trip I saw climbers in the Notch Coulir, Dreamweaver and on the Iron Finger.
This is a fun loop on the southeast side of Longs but does not actually include Longs itself.
I took a 30 meter Petzl Rad Line, some webbing and a quicklink to rappel off of Glacier Ridge's 5.2.
Glacier's summit pitch is fairly short and the 30m was more than enough.
All other peaks in this report were class 3 or easier.
The terrain from Meeker Ridge down and through the Iron Gates was somewhat tedious, but the views and bluebird day had my head in other places. A fun loop in a world class setting.
Glacier Ridge 14ers.com Page
Ships Prow 14ers.com Page
Meeker 14ers.com Page
Meeker Ridge 14ers.com Page
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11.6m - 5500ft - 9hrs 50min
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Sunrise on approach
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The views begin to open up
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The Diamond and The Notch in morning light. The Notch divides Long's summit from The Longs SE summit
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I took the Loft route(left)
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I was able to avoid any steep snow by staying to climber's left of the snow
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The Glacier Ridge and Ships Prow towers are behind and above these
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Glacier Ridge (high left) and Ships Prow (just to the right of that)
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Glacier Ridge Tower. The Ships Prow is just behind it. They look like one feature from this angle
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Hmmm.... looks stouter than 5.2. Might have to look around for the route
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After poking around a bit I decided to climb the east pitch of Glacier Ridge from between it and the Ships Prow
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This is what I climbed
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Glacier Ridge summit selfie with the Diamond. A pretty spectacular perch!
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Loving my new Rad Line / Scream setup
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The next objective was the Ships Prow. After more poking around I found this class 3 route on the east side of it's summit
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Glacier Ridge (with webbing on summit) and Longs from the summit of the Ships Prow
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Ships Prow summit selfie
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Next stop Long Peak Southeast
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A climber in the Notch Couloir from the Longs Southeast summit
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Next stop Meeker(R) and Meeker Ridge(L) from Longs SE
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Looking back to Longs and Longs SE from Meeker
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A view east from Meeker to the next stop Meeker Ridge
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Looking back to Meeker midway across the traverse
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A view from the top of the Iron Gates. If you look closely you can see climbers on the top of the Iron Finger (yellow).
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Climbers rappelling the Iron Finger (5.12c) - Rad!
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A two pitch rappel
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Looking back to the Iron Gates
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Flying Butress and the entrance to Dreamweaver Couloir to it's left
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The descent from Meeker Ridge and down through the Iron Gates was somewhat tedious. Happy to be back on more pleasant terrain
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The last few views of the awesomeness before heading back to the TH
