North Face 

I meant to give this route 2 stars, not the bomb rating. It would probably be a 3-star route if not for all the 3rd class vertical meadow climbing.

This climb is not as committing as one might think. Before the crux pitch, when one reaches the ridge, you can simply walk down scree slopes on the west side of the ridge. This is a good thing to keep in mind if thunderstorms threaten early, or you want to bypass the first 9 pitches of the climb for some reason.

Also, the first 9 pitches are quite easy and can be soloed or simulclimbed, depending on your comfort level with this. Be wary of wet rock, however.

Partner Peter Roth and I were looking for a good workout with some easy climbing in the middle and so we focused on Lone Eagle Peak from the Brainard/Long Lake trailhead. Roach has the distance at 20 miles with about 6 k ft of vertical.

Beautiful walk but a marginal climb. As the authors above point out, the first 9 pitches are not much to write home about. The 5.7 crux pitch is enjoyable with good exposure, but honestly a little "spicy" at 11,000ft with a pack. Be careful in the gully at the bottom of this pitch as Peter kicked off several suitcase-sized boulders that appeared well anchored. Helmets were well appreciated as there is an ample supply of loose rock. Don't make the mistake on the walk-off of heading down too early. Continue southeast up and over a small ridge until you can walk straight down to Triangle Lake. The Gully we headed up had a pin and lots of loose rock.

My advice would be to come up to Crater Lake for a couple of nights, climb the 5.7, 5.4 final pitches and then spend the rest of the time exploring the surrounding rock. Lots of first ascent possibilities and probably no shortage of harder crack routes.

We climbed it today, and the route itself is in great shape. However, if approaching from Brainard over Pawnee Pass, allow yourself a couple of extra hours. The west side of Pawnee Pass along Pawnee Lake is still loaded with soft snow, and the trail is quite difficult to follow. After an hour of bushwacking and occasionally post-holing in our approach shoes, we finally crossed the drainage to where there was no deep snow. But alas, a huge avalanche had taken out a 1/2 mile wide swath of fully grown trees! It was incredible! It looked like a warzone - huge trees tossed about like toothpicks and completely obliterating the trail in that section. After navigating through the evergreen chaos, there is hardly any snow all the way down and around to Crater Lake and the base of Lone Eagle. The Mohling Traverse was in excellent shape as well, with only spots of soft snow that were easily navigable in approach shoes. If nothing else, it would definitely be worthwhile to just go and check out the avalanche destruction!

Also, the Long Lake (and Mitchell Lake) parking lots are still closed, so show up early and/or bring a bike! The closure sign says "Closed for the winter season". However, there is no snow to be seen along the road or anywhere in the parking lot, so I really have no idea why they're closed.

My brother Jon and I climbed last Tuesday. First time at Crater Lake - what a place! Hard to believe it's in the Indian Peaks. Had a great climb, though had been raining a lot for a few days and there was a lot of mud and water on the route. We made the mistake of veering left at the top of the 5.5 chimney to climb what we thought was the short wall and grassy bench that Roach describes. Don't do this! Follow the obvious gully all the way up and over rock steps and it will be obvious when you are at the base of the crux pitch. We got into fairly tough climbing and kept going farther and farther left, way out over the West face, before we could cut back on ledges to the gully. At that point we were cliffed out and had to rap about 50' back to the ground, and had wasted about an hour and a half. By the time we got to the crux weather was threatening so we walked off - next time! Will definitely be back.

We climbed Lone Eagle last season and did a couple of variations. Essentially we disregarded the entire ramp system, described by Samet as the first nine pitches, and headed directly up the main buttress slightly east of the upper pitches ( we began climbing to the north west of the ramp system). The climbing was technically moderate (5.6 or 5.7), but may have been the mental crux of the climb, with vegetated, hard to protect seams. The fact that it drizzled on and off may not have helped the situation. After sitting out an afternoon rain shower we continued up the Stettner pitches and did a variation to the summit. Instead of curling east around to the chimney you can either go directly up through an offwidth/awkward seam (5.10 or so), or go east for a short distance to a beautiful and obvious hand crack (5.9 or so) to the top. The hand crack offers an extremely exposed option with some great aesthetic moves. One other note, we did the route from the Monarch Lake trailhead, as a one day affair. After waiting out the typical afternoon thundershower, the endeavour turned into a fairly long adventure. If you don't bivy at the wall be prepared for a full day.

Lone Eagle Peak changed my life forever. After running in from Monarch, with climbing gear, 80 oz. of water between my partner and I and very little else, we had a brief lunch at the base, and began scrambling to the top. Our ascent of the approach pitches we're done mostly solo and very fast. At the grassy ledge below the summit headwall we ro-sham-boed for the lead and I won (sort of). Although Roach's book states clearly that one must spend some time studying the rock before firing off, I took a variation far left of the intended, easy 5.7 route, tunnel-visioned on a piton thirty feet up above a flake. I made a placement about fifteen feet above my belay using a twenty year-old Chouinard Camalot. Leading confidently above on the clean face, the climbing felt no harder than 5.9. Still fixed on clipping that piton, I stepped up and gripped the top of the flake just below the pin. The size of a big screen TV, this piece of granite pulled away from the wall a few inches with me on it. Instinct took over, and for better or worse, I let go. The flake stayed and I fell, more than sixty feet, on one old cam, into the chasm below and right of my belayer. I impacted blunt talus on rope stretch, and was shot into the wall by the recoil of the taut cord. I screamed there for a moment, conscious with adrenaline and unable to assess the extent of my injuries. With fear-born strength, I scrambled up the gully, twenty-five feet to the grassy ledge, and my terrified and surprised friend. I had severely sprained both ankles, gashes on my shins down to the muscle, bruised ribs, bruised elbow, and severely bruised tailbone. Ed Graef, the man whose grip saved my life, set up every rescue rappel to the ground while I laid on each meadowy perch, unsure of survival. It took us three hours to get down. The epic only began there. After taping my ankles and finding some walking sticks, we trudged out until darkness. We took the wrong trail in the dark, unfamiliar with our surroundings due to our aggressive hike in. My whipper occurred at 1:30 on a Sunday afternoon, in late September 2001, and we reached the car at 10:30 the next morning. I've never been back to Lone Eagle; never been to the top. If you've read all of this, I hope you found a lesson, if not helpful beta, in there somewhere.

Brian,

Jed Williamson, editor of Accidents in North American Mountaineering & former president of the AAC is interested in getting more details from you regarding this accident. He hopes to get information out there to help others learn from the mistakes of fellow climbers. Can you contact him & provide more details? (jedwmsn@sover.net)

A true mountaineer's mountain. I wouldn't give the route 3 stars because of all the hiking you do on the peak itself. It seems like we practically hiked up the 1st 5 pitches with the exception of a few roped simu-climbed sections. The beta on the site is good. I'd like to clarify 1 point for those of us who get disoriented easily. Before you start P11, the above states to move the belay 75' South, move the belay 75' left to the 5.4 chimney. The top of P10 is a chimney with an overhang. This is NOT the 5.4 chimney. As far as the descent, we took solo flight part of the way and then we hiked down to a point where we expected to be able to keep walking off. We were just to the left of the gully. My partner and I were able to rap the entire route. We reinforced the weaker rap stations, with the exception of the 1st rap which consisted of a pink piece of webbing slung around a boulder with 2 rap rings. The webbing is crackling a bit due to weathering so I'd suggest you back that one up. There was some interesting, I guess you could call them artifacts, up there on one of the raps, I believe the 3rd from the bottom. Remnants of hemp rope was still in tact. I've been shut down on this peak 2 previous times due to weather. It was nice to finally summit. Beautiful, beautiful peak!

Ah, hello Tracy! I see you have come here first to add your comments about our route last Sunday. I was going to add the same comments about the mistaken chimney. To elaborate, know that the harder chimney has one rusted ring piton just below the roof.

Also, on pitch 1, you can tell you are on the original starting slab if you see a rusted piton about 15ft. up.

Matt Samet's beta was pretty useful for us. I lost my copy of it to the wind on the summit. Perhaps some other soul will pick it up and obey what is written. I had the best time doing the 5.7 pitch. To find the correct twin cracks, you need to almost walk off the ledge to the right and into a narrow slot. Below you is an even more massive, grass-covered ledge several hundred square meters in size. Your twin cracks have lots of flakes and laybacks and ledges to rest on. I found two pitons on my way up, but I started on the left crack and traversed right near the top. I used all of my slings up and ended up using a nut as a sling on one of the pitons. Very fun.

Great route. Should probably be done in Lederhosen and hob-nailed boots, if you have them. Only route I've ever been on where you get to belay in a meadow of columbines in full bloom. Apart from 3 or 4 clean pitches, climbing itself is mostly so-so, which in no way detracts from the route, which is why I give it 4 stars anyway. Just make sure you're expecting more of a mountaineering experience and less of a clean technical climbing experience and maybe you'll agree with my rating. Or not. Anyway, I liked it. One neat thing about it is that the mountain looks intimidating yet has major lines of weakness that aren't easy to see from the ground. Make sure to calculate in some time to reverse the Solo Flight route from the summit, especially if you haven't been on it before.

I've never been on this mountain without "epic'ing". It is a classic route for the mountaineer. The actual climbing when you get to it is good, but relatively short for the size of the route. I think the crux can easily become the descent. The cairns are misleading, and there is a lot of 5th class situation you can easily find yourself in. This is heavily complicated once the sun goes down. Studying the descent is far more important than studying the route up. This is a serious mountain, keep that in mind and have fun.

The route is GREAT FUN in a fantastic setting and mostly real easy but, the cairns on the descent are definitely misleading. We carefully followed a good series of cairns to an obvious notch near a corner of the ridge where it goes from N/S to SE/NW. It was clearly marked with a stack of large rocks at a steep descent to the south. It does go around the west then north down the scree and talus but, it is very loose near the start. I was on 5.2-5.3 when I was hit by a good sized rock fall on my shoulder and ankle. I'd recommend taking the time to do Solo Flight to learn the descent before doing the North Face. Enjoy!

I climbed this route yesterday and found it to be overall very enjoyable. The rock is certainly loose in places, but compared to other ranges, is actually quite solid. I made the mistake of climbing the incorrect 5.4 chimney on p11 that Tracy refers to earlier. After seeing the old fixed pin, I thought for sure I was on route, but it didn't take long to realize this overhang was certainly harder than 5.4. After hanging out in that chimney for eons, I finally aided it with a #13 stopper. The summit is spectacular and well worth the effort! Spectacular scenery!