THE DIAMOND

The Diamond on the east side of Longs Peak is perhaps the most awesome alpine wall in the United States. I had kicked off my July 2018 road trip to RMNP with a climb of Yellow Wall + Forrest Finish on The Diamond. Two weeks later, and 10 other excellent RMNP climbs in my wake (go to my Colorado main page to access trip reports for these other climbs), I again found myself standing at the base of The Diamond, staring up at over 1000 feet of granite stretching vertically above me. I had planned on starting my drive home the day before, but when the opportunity presented itself to climb this awesome alpine wall one more time, how could I leave?

My partner for the day was Will Starks. He had already climbed The Diamond a couple of times, and knew of the quality of the climbing and was eager to climb another route. The primary objective for the day was the route Pervertical Sanctuary. This route is one of the more popular on The Diamond, climbing first up the left side of The Mitten formation and then up the right side of the Obelisk Pillar, with lots of varied and steep 5.10 crack climbing from fingers to hands to fists. I had climbed Pitches 2 & 3 of Pervertical Sanctuary when I climbed Ariana in 2014 and Will had climbed Pitches 5 & 6 when he climbed Curving Vine about a week previous, but neither one of us had climbed Pervertical Sanctuary in its entirety, so we were both psyched to climb it. 

We figured that Pervertical Sanctuary would go reasonably quick, so we discussed the possibility of climbing Casual Route afterward. Casual Route is the easiest—and hence most popular—route up the Diamond, but still offers challenging climbing and great exposure. We also discussed the possibility of climbing all the way to the top of the wall via the two Yellow Wall pitches above Table Ledge, which is rarely done but means you climb up the entire wall rather than finishing 3/4 of the way up at Table Ledge.

Given the "40% chance of thundershowers after noon" forecast and our ambitious plans for more than just one route, Will and I left the Longs Peak trailhead at 1:35am, shooting to get to the base of The Diamond around sunrise (5:50am). We approached via the Chasm View rappels (I had done both the Chasm View approach and North Chimney approach in the past, and they seemed to take about the same amount of time, with the Chasm View rappels being a bit safer than the North Chimney). When we arrived on Broadway Ledge, there was not a cloud nor another party in sight (two other parties arrived within the hour, but that was all we saw that day, quite a bit different from the 16 parties the last time I climbed the Diamond, probably thanks to the forecast), so we decided to go for our two-route plan. We left our stuff at the base of the wall and headed up Pervertical Sanctuary in t-shirts, with just an extra layer attached to the harness. I led Pitches 1/5/6 and Will led Pitches 2/3/4 (linking Pitches 2/3). Pervertical went quick and offered amazing climbing. It is probably my favorite route on The Diamond so far. The sun was just beginning to leave the wall when we started the rappels from Table Ledge. Small puffy clouds were developing above, but nothing looked ominous yet. 45 minutes later we were down on Broadway Ledge, the only ones left on The Diamond (the other two parties were headed down), scrambling over to the base of Casual Route. This was a rare opportunity to climb Casual Route with no one on it! We soon figured out the reason (or at least a reason) there was no one on it—the route was pretty darn soaked from the previous day's thundershowers (interesting, since Pervertical had been completely dry). Needless to say, the Casual Route ended up being a bit less casual then we had predicted. "This is good training for the alpine," I once commented as I felt chilly water run down the inside of my forearm; moments later realizing that this was alpine, ha. By the time we were halfway up, small mid-afternoon squalls were moving through, with intermittent spits of rain and thunder booming a few miles away. But this was par for the course in Colorado, and we didn't feel in any imminent danger, so we continued upward. Due to the conditions, Casual Route took us longer than expected; plus, we noticed that the Yellow Wall pitches above Table Ledge were pretty wet; so we decided it was the best decision to rappel back down and hike out via Chasm Lake, rather than continuing on to the summit. All in all, a superb day on The Diamond: two routes and 14 pitches on the most awesome alpine wall in the US!

This page gives a trip report from our climb of Pervertical Sanctuary, including a route overlay (top or page), time stats from the climb, and lots of photos. Initially I had the trip report for Casual Route alongside, but when I climbed both of these routes again I ended up splitting the trip report for Casual Route to a separate page (click link). Enjoy! 

Interesting note: I did this entire 22.5-hour push in a fasted state. In fact, I hadn't eaten since noon the day before, so by the time we got back to the car—and I did eat then, I admit I was pretty ravenous once I got started—I hadn't ingested any calories for 36 hours. All I consumed was electrolyte-enhanced water. And I felt just fine. Crazy, huh? Click here to see a "trip report" from a 7-day fast I did later that summer, which also goes into a bit of discussion of my experiences with fasting and the ketogenic diet and their effect on physical performance.

Three years after my first time climbing Pervertical Sanctuary, I am now at the point where I have climbed most of the routes within my wheelhouse on the Diamond. But now comes the enjoyment of repeating some of my favorite routes. 

When I climbed Pervertical Sanctuary with Will Starks in Summer 2018 (Trip Report #1 on this page), it was during a road trip to Colorado that was supposed to be for one week and turned into a month when I discovered it difficult to leave. It was on that trip that I decided to move to Colorado. Now the trailhead for the Diamond is a mere hour from my doorstep in Boulder. And Will had become one of my regular climbing partners. So it was cool to return to climb Pervertical Sanctuary again with Will three years later in July 2021. (A bit of backstory: Our original plan for the day had been Black Dagger, but a deluge of rain the previous evening made us doubt that the route would be dry. So we changed our plan to Pervertical Sanctuary, one of the quicker drying routes on the Diamond. Thanks Will for climbing this route again, even though you had climbed it the previous week.)

The following gives pitch-by-pitch photos and time stats from our day on the Diamond.

When I moved to Boulder in 2019, I made a goal to climb the Diamond at least once per year, and hopfully several times. Summers 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022 had come and gone, and I had easily achieved my goal (in 2020, I climbed the Diamond 6 times!). But it was now the end of August 2023, and I had not yet climbed the Diamond, or even been to the top of Longs Peak this year. For several reasons: My schedule was now a bit more restricted by a new full time job, my main climbing partner had lost interest in the Diamond, Colorado had been uncharacteristically wet, and I had done several climbing trips to Wyoming and Washington. But then the last week of August rolled around with a splitter midweek foreacast and my friend Nate Beckwith (who had been my climbing partner for the first time I had climbed the Diamond in 2014) was interested in squeezing in a Diamond day. A sunny Diamond day is worth taking a day off work!

We decided to climb Pervertical Sanctuary, since a day on a high-quality trade route sounded fun. Plus, I had been scheeming to drop a rope from the top of Pitch 5 of Pervertical Sanctuary onto the upper pitches of The Obelisk, a route which climbs the great white, left-facing dihedral along the left side of the Obelisk Pillar and reportedly has a couple of the best singular pitches on the Diamond. The Obelisk features a steep 11b thin hands crack and a stellar 5-inch 11b offwidth (both a bit above my paygrade, but worth trying to toprope). But getting to these pitches from below requires a committing 5.9 R traverse in from Pervertical or climbing the terrifyingly loose Black Death pitch. 

Nate and I had revelled in this perfect summer day on the Diamond. Although it was a Wednesday, the splitter late summer forecast had inspired a dozen or so parties to take the day off of work. By my count, there  were four parties on Pervertical Sanctuary, six or seven parties on Casual Route, and one party on Black Dagger.

The following gives pitch-by-pitch photos and time stats from our day on the Diamond.