Climb Longs Peak! Solo ascent of the Cables Route on the North Face

Well, good morning. Hi, I'm Lisa with the Adventure Channel here at the Longs Peak Trailhead. It is a bustling early August day at the trailhead. Lots of people, people parked all the way down the road. A lot's been full for a while. Yeah, I'm gonna head up Longs today. I'm thinking about if the cables route, the North Face, is dry. I might go solo that, but we'll see when we get there. I always reserve judgment on what route I might take when I'm alone until I get up there and see what current conditions are and how I'm feeling. So, hope you're having a good day and come along with me and let's check it out because it's another beautiful day on Longs. I always use this sign to note my progress up the trail, the Goblins Forest campsite, which is 1.2 miles up the trail. So, yeah, that way I can see how I'm doing with regard to time and my pace for the day and all of that. It's pretty smoky out there. There's a couple of fires in western Colorado, but actually the skies look pretty clear over the peak. It's gonna be a good day. Oh boy, you see that? Those are our contentions. What that signals to me, that's a warning sign that the season is soon to change, which means summer is waning and fall is approaching. That's the tundra's way of letting us know that. I could use a little more summer personally, but we get what we get up here in the high country. I'm walking across the boulder field right now, heading toward the north face of Longs and it's so pretty. Feeling good. The route looks in good condition. It might even be dry, which is somewhat of a rarity, but you can definitely catch it if you're watching. If you're watching how much rain has fallen and what the temperatures have been at night. So I had a pretty good suspicion that it could be dry and from here it looks like it is, but you never know till you get up there. So yeah, let's go check it out. You can see the keyhole there, the Dove Snowfield there, the north face of Longs here, the diamond here, the top of the beaver there, and I'm going up the north face there. Boy, these arctic gentians are out in force. I've seen a lot of them. They're so pretty. I'm here at Chasm View and there's this really cool hole that goes through. I'm going to show you over the abyss. Looking down on Mills Glacier there, you've got Lambslide, which is that finger of snow going up. You've got the upper diamond right here. Yeah, pretty cool. We're going this way, up the north face. There's the hole. So cool. I'm here at the base of the technical section of the cables route, which is rated 5.4. I'll give you a good visual looking up it. This is the first little section. I've got some people rappelling down. I did bring my rock shoes, but I think I should be okay just in my approach shoes. We'll see. I can Kinda sorta on the north face. What a day, huh? Yeah, what a day. Have a great day. They're rappelling from the eye bolts that used to hold the cable for the namesake cables route. That used to be a hand line for people to be able to come up the north face without ropes. And then look at the ice. It's so beautiful. Had to step in just a touch of wetness there, but not ice, so that's good. Look at this moss. Come check this out. So pretty. So wet. So moist. Here's the rest of the technical section of the cables where I'm going. I am standing at the technical crux of the cables route. I think they call this section 5-4 on the Yosemite decimal system. And in the summer it's pretty reasonable. In the winter it can get kind of hot. And then all you've got left is this little slab section up to the eye bolt. And then here I'm at the eye bolt. Awesome. And I'm going to show you down the route. There's my feet, there's the crux, and there is the technical section. Looking over to Mount Lady, Washington down to you can see just a little bit of Chasm Lake and Peacock Pool. And then all I've got left is the Upper North Face. Here's the eye bolt. Yeah. So that was the technical section. It was pretty cruiser today. There was that one little bit of ice, but I didn't even have to touch it with my feet or my hands, so it was no big deal. You never know what you're gonna get up here. A guy I saw said that on Sunday the ice was two inches thick. Today it's pretty thin, so it's been pretty warm up here since that ice formed and now it's good to go. But you never know until you come. Awesome. So here as you get above the technical section there are more eye bolts, but they're not that useful because there's so much loose rubble that if you use them you just pull rocks down when you pull the rope. You don't really need them because this is easy terrain. Sometimes I wanted to use the very upper one that I'll show you, but I can never find it in the winter. It's always so buried I can't dig it out. So I only use the one I showed you a little bit lower when I'm using a rope on this. It's so calm there's no wind. So incredible. So here I am at the upper eye bolt that I told you I can never find in the winter. It's pasted behind this little block. Hard to find and there's so much snow here. When I'm looking for it, I tried to dig it out, but I can't do it. There's that little third-class scramble above the technical section and now I'm built a bunch of cairns up here since last time I was up here in the summer. I think they're a little unnecessary. There's a lot of them. The route's pretty obvious and if you're up here, if you can climb technically enough to get up here, you should be able to navigate this second and third class Upper North Face. But maybe they did it for reasons I don't know, like maybe for guiding or whatever. So, but they're here now. Want to see one? There's lots of them, dozens of them, and I'd never seen that before. I'd seen a few, but not this many on the Upper North Face. So, a word of caution about this route. The cables were taken out in, I believe, 1974. And before that, a lot of people who didn't know how to use ropes or climb technical rock with gear and all that were able to come up here. But now, with the cables removed, the eye bolts are very helpful for protection if you want to clip them and then clip your rope into it. But they're not that useful for handholds or anything like that. So, I wanted to give you a word of warning about this route. This route is rated, I believe, 5.4, which is a step up from that other route I put on the channel, the Northwest Gully, which I call 5.2. Some people call 4th class. So, I don't recommend soloing this route unless you're a very capable and competent technical rock climber. So, I just wanted to put that out there. Just because I'm soloing it, I've done this route a lot, up and down, on a rope, off a rope, soloing it with lots of partners, with one other partner. So, I've done this route a lot. I know it well. I know what to look for. So, I'm comfortable doing it without a rope. But I don't want to cause anybody else to come up here unprepared, thinking it's easier than it is, and come up here and get in trouble. Because you definitely can get in trouble, especially if you get off route or if you're not prepared for this type of slab climbing at the grade of 5.4. So, yeah, I just wanted to put that out there so everybody stays safe, because I care. Alright, thanks so much guys. Be smart. Be thinking about your abilities before you go attempt something like this, okay? And you can always hire a guide. There's some great guides in the Estes Valley. Colorado Mountain School employs a number of them. They're wonderful. And they'll get you up here nice and safely. Or bring a friend and a rope and the knowledge to know how to use that equipment. And then you can enjoy it too. Here's another gigantic cairn. I just got to the top and I saw my friend Peter Bachlan right here. How's it going, Peter? Another Lisa Foster flyby on Longs Peak. He just said another Lisa Foster flyby on Longs Peak. We kind of see each other a lot up here in the summer. Do you come up in the winter much? Not really. Okay. I was wondering why I see you all the time in the summer but not much in the winter. I mean, I like nice weather and good conditions. Yes, yes. They're very nice. I agree. And this is Heather. This is her finisher for the Colorado 14ers. Congratulations. Well done. Proud. They came up Keener's route. Soloed it. And now they're on the top. One of the Summit Mermits. Being a little braver today. Maybe not. Where you going, buddy? Bunch of people up here on the top. All right. August 6th, 2025. On top of my favorite 14er. I came up the Cable's route, as you know. Just in my boots. Soloed it. It was great. A little bit of ice on it but nothing too bad. And now I'm on the top. I saw a buddy of mine who I see up here frequently in the summer. He does different routes and I do different routes and we kind of intersect a lot. And his friend who was finishing her Colorado 14er Summits. And there's a lot of other people up here too. People coming up. Congratulating one another. Congratulations. Thank you so so much. Congratulations guys. Thank you. You okay? Going over here to this side of the summit to look down the homestretch. See if there's a conga line of people. Oh not really. Just one person that I see. If I'm counting correctly off my memory, I think this is my 258th summit of Longs Peak. And my 68th month in a row because this is August. So yeah. It's wonderful to be up here on Longs Peak. I'm so blessed to be able to do this as much as I do. I really love it. Oh I'm really glad you came with me. I'm gonna, I think I'm gonna down climb the North Face as well because the conditions were really favorable for that for me. So yeah. Just gonna enjoy this view. Looking behind me at Mount Meeker. See that? Now behind me at the great expanse of Summit Plateau at Longs Peak. There's Mount Meeker there. You can see the two summits. The West Summit and the East Summit. Twin Sisters Mountain out there. Estes Park out there. And a bunch of people enjoying the summit on a fine August day. Yeah. Heading down the North Face now. The Upper North Face. The Upper North Face and you can see the trail? The Upper North Face goes so fast in the summer that I overshot this. But here is where we go down. So I had to come back up. I'm putting the GoPro on my helmet so you can see what it's like to go down the North Face. Here's the upper eye bolt and here's where we go down. Okay and right down there can you see those eye bolts right there? That's the technical section below See that? Here comes Peter and Heather. The track is cold. Not too bad. No, this is among the driest I've ever seen. I know, right? Peter just said this is among the driest he's ever seen this route and he's done it a lot in the summer. Oh, there's the ice. See, I don't think it is. It's really thin. Here's an eye bolt. Peter and Heather making their way down. The ice right here. If you touch that with your foot you go careening off. out through the boulder field, hit the trail, and go home. So I just wanted to say thank you so much for watching. Thank you for your likes, your comments, your comments are awesome. They're fun to read. And thank you so much for subscribing. The more people I get subscribed, the more content I can bring. So yeah, go ahead and hit that button and enjoy the video and I'll see you next time. Thanks for joining me for another climb of Longs Peak, my favorite mountain. All right, see ya.