Trip Report: First go at the Diamond.

Thanks for the good energy guys. We summited, took far too long, had an incredible adventure/ordeal, only partly explained by being fourth in line on the route. That killed a few hours early, but we weren't very fast after the first two parties bailed. Hiking up to the Chasm raps, traffic jams early, slowish climbing, and then needing to top out (rather than rap from Table Ledge) in order to descend the North face back to our packs made it a long day indeed. We were very lucky yesterday's weather was perfect. Since my Saturday started with the alarm at 12:30am and ended at 3 this morning when I got home, more of the story will have to come after a nap. :)

Nice job, sometimes just being stubborn is the only way to go.

what happened shawn?!!?

Yikes, 3 am you got home Shawn!?! Happy that you guys made it, and very happy the weather held. It was a ZOO up there yesterday. We counted at least 12 people going up the N. Chimney. I guess it's not too surprising when there are THAT many people on Long's, you will see people you know - saw Micah, Shawn, and we met other MP'ers Ross and Sunny there.

Wow, sounds serious; The Casual Route.... not so casual! Glad you're down safe! Looking forward to your TR. It's wierd, ever since I met some of you MPers in person, I worry about you guys a little more, and some MP peeps have been popping up in some of my climbing dreams; we'll be on some route in the middle of nowhere, then all of a sudden we bump into people like you, Kat, Lee and Buff on the route, or Josh Thompson will fly right past us, laughing, and soloing at super fast speeds. Hope your climb was more of an adventure, than a nightmare!

Glad to hear you were successful, I knew someone with your character could pull it off. Here is a little story about my first time.

About 15 years ago I went up there with Jimmy Chin, who I had met the through the partner finder book at a local climbing shop. We climbed the first time together the day before at Lumpy. He had wanted to climb the Diamond for a while and was fresh from a trip to Yosemite. I had only been climbing for a year, and had only packed for our cragging day at Lumpy. He had some extra bivy gear and convinced me that it would be no big deal. We bought the Clay Wadman poster topo of the Diamond and some food, got a permit and left the trailhead at 7:00pm.

Hiking in for the first time with only the beta on the poster we started going around the left side of the lake. Fortunately a ranger was staying up at the cabin and came out and let us know we were going the wrong way. Anyways we found the cave bivy around midnight and attempted to sleep. The next morning we got up at what I thought was an early hour (5:00am) and started up the North Chimney. We got off route about 1/2 way up on runout slabs on the right side of the chimney. Finally got up to Broadway, and started the route carrying a backpack containing 3 liters of water, 2 pairs of hiking boots, and an extra 11mm rope. We got past the traverse pitch on the Casual route when we got hit with the first hailstorm. Jimmy convinced me we couldn't bail and even though all the other parties on the face were getting out of there we plodded on.

Two more storms and much aiding(on my part at least, first time for everything) later we got to Table ledge and started rappelling at 7:00pm. The old fuzzy ropes we had were torture to pull, full of water and HEAVY. After getting off the established rap we ended up at a 3 micro stopper hanging station and made a final rap to the far left side of Broadway. I guess it was still early season and there was a bunch of snow and ice on Broadway and we were sketched. Fortunately there were some climbers sleeping at the Broadway bivy and one of them was nice enough to fix a rope over to where we were. So now we had the fun task of finding the Crack of Delight rappels in the dark, did I mention we only had 1 headlamp?

Several hours later we finally pulled the final rope at the glacier around 1:00am if I recall. As Jimmy was totally altitude sick and I guess I was as well. I remember the stars spinning around in the sky, and I almost stepped into Chasm Lake at one point. So we ended up bivying again and hiking out the next day.

So that was my first experience on the Diamond, a 2.5 day ordeal. I swore that I would never go up there again, but about 5 years later I broke that promise. Now it is one of my favorite places in the world to climb.

A group of us from the springs were hanging out on the Red Wall yesterday, enjoyed watching the show over on the Diamond. What a perfect day, weatherwise!

Were you guys on Directissima? I'm sure you heard and saw the giant rock bombs, holy cow that was scary.

Kat A wrote:Were you guys on Directissima? I'm sure you heard and saw the giant rock bombs, holy cow that was scary.

Nope, a guy was rope soloing Directissma when we got there. So all four of us did the Red instead. Seemed to be a awful lot of rockfall down the North Chimney and right side of the Diamond, but what else is new? Going up that Chimney was always the scariest part when I did routes on the Diamond. Always seemed like playing Russian Roulette.

Were you the party yelling about a stuck rope down on the snowfield?

wow...seems like everyone who was on the diamond yesterday is an mp'er.

Our party bailed off the dunn-westbay from the top of pitch three, due to a bad reoccuring ankle injury. We enjoyed the view (beer) however from the bivy ledge for a few hours before coming down. There were 2 parties on red wall, two on directissma (one solo), 2 parties on casual route (shawn, alex and two other guys), and 2 parties that bailed off the casual route, that we could see from our vantage point. More parties were also on pervertical, forrest finish, and D7.

The congo line was really on the keyhole route though. I counted more than 20 headlamps in the boulderfield at 4:30am ish. The lack of sleep and utter exhaustion made me think for a few moments that the headlamps were cars on a road...

Shawn, you must have rapped chasm view way early in the morning. We were at the raps before sunrise, and started rapping soon after.

Edited to add: Hey alex if you are still in Boulder can I get my helmet from you sometime this week? pm me through the site.

Nice job........no doubt that after a nap you'll be looking at the Diamond topos for your next route!

hey man i was about to PM you! sorry i couldnt get it to you before you guys left. PM sent

Shawn Mitchell wrote:Since my Saturday started with the alarm at 12:30am and ended at 3 this morning when I got home, more of the story will have to come after a nap. :)

congrats shawn!

Kat A wrote:It was a ZOO up there yesterday. We counted at least 12 people going up the N. Chimney. I guess it's not too surprising when there are THAT many people on Long's, you will see people you know - saw Micah, Shawn, and we met other MP'ers Ross and Sunny there.

Kateri Kateri, on Pervertical Sanctuary,
How did your Off-Width go?
With Hex-Cowbells and runouts like hell,
OR did Matt with the big cams show?

View from the Spearhead bivy: a virtually non-stop stream of people, some still heading up late in the day. Friday night was quite a show of headlamps heading down, and some descended The Trough (ugh!). Saturday and Sunday morning repeated the non-stop flow of lights . . . there's something oddly fascinating about watching the masses on the Keyhole.

Well done Shawn!

I was blown away by how many people were up there Saturday. Looking in either direction at 4AM was a solid stream of headlamps. It was like looking down on the interstate from an airplane.

I have some random shots of folks on various routes that I'll try to post up tomorrrow.

Some landscape and critter shots here (some are from Mount Evans the next day):

gallery.jamesbeissel.com/Sa…

good shots, Jim.

We opted for our own little headlamp adventure up the 3rd last eve. It was quite enjoyable, had the route to ourselves.

Way to go, Shawn!

In my experience, if it is wet for a few weeks and the weather forecast for the next day is excellent, expect massive crowds on the Diamond. I climbed it on a Thursday like this (back in '92!), and had a similar experience as Shawn. While we did make it, the stress from the crowding was kind of a bummer.

Amazing shots James. Much more interesting than climbers IMO.