North Face / Cables Route

Regardless of what the hordes of hikers may think, this is the easiest route to the summit of Longs Peak in late summer. One 160' pitch of 5.4-5.5 is the only difficulty, and an easy snow field leads to it. Approach via the Longs Peak trail and the Boulderfield.

The rest of the season this makes a fine alpine route. Winter ascents are a serious undertaking, and I've heard many stories of epics. I climbed the route in mid-June in a light snow year, and found alpine ice to 50 degrees on the lower snowfield and a great little narrow ribbon of rotten ice to climb in the dihedral, along with some fun mixed climbing to exit it onto the upper snowfield. (Maybe if we'd started hiking before noon the ice would have been better.) Just bring a rope to rap the route, don't make the mistake my partner and I made, and have to suffer the Keyhole grovel in late afternoon sloppy snow conditions.

A light rock rack, including some cams to 2" can be used. A couple of screws can be helpful some seasons, too. There's eyebolts along the dihedral to belay and rap from - I remember two, one at 80', one at the top.