Continued
Longs Peak Winter Solo,
14,255’
1/25/03
Aron Ralston
Published 8/01/03

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14. A view from the notch at the top of the Trough Couloir looking back down the gully, over the crux chockstone at 13,800', in the center of the photo. There was an increasing depth of snow the higher I got in the couloir—an unusual phenomenon above treeline.

15. The Narrows—this is the traverse at 13,800' across the southwest face to get from the top of the Trough Couloir to the bottom of the Homestretch. It's Class 3 in a few places when it's dry in the summer. Rime and ice made it a little trickier, but nothing like what was waiting for me around the corner.

16. Winds were howling at the notch where I crossed the west ridge, depositing much rime on the pinnacles and towers of the mountain. This area made me think of all those infamous reports of foul weather down in Patagonia and what the infamously snow-pasted peaks of the Fitzroy massif look like in pictures.

17. Into the Homestretch, I decided to head a little more directly for the summit—I followed the red arrows that someone had conveniently painted on the rocks (whereas I should've followed the red-and-yellow bull's-eyes that take you on the actual route instead).

18. Again, the red arrows are my ascent route—up the snow fissures until I reached the face traverse that ended in the 10-foot chimney I'm standing above here (I'm on the summit plateau). The purple arrows are the path my backpack took when I bricked it against the chockstone under my right foot in an attempt to throw it up out of the chimney so I could make the 5.3 moves needed to climb the tight squeeze. You can see the pack at the end of the last purple arrow. On my descent, I had to drop well below the pack's resting spot, down the ice-plated cracks of the Homestretch and then traverse more ice to regain my ascent route, all without crampons. I negotiated the descent with intricate and dangerous step-cutting across the AI2 and M2 terrain. (I slipped at one point and self-arrested with my ice axe screeching down 15 feet of dry slab.)