This route is on the left side of the West Face in a concave section of the wall. (To the right of Dialogue on Zen.) Approach via the Keyhole route but turn left and scramble up a 3rd class gully shortly before you get to the Trough. The slabby start is non-distinct and has many options. The third pitch is wonderful. Look at the beta photo to see where this route goes.

P1. Climb discontinuous cracks on low angle rock to reach the base of a left-facing dihedral.

P2. Follows this dihedral to a belay below a small roof.

P3. Turn the roof and follow the beautiful clean dihedral to the top of the wall.

Some easy scrambling gets you to the summit. Descend via the North Face or the Keyhole Route.

Koren's Rain Dance

Scaremaster

Van Diver's West Wall

Keyhole Spire

Detter's Line

West Slot

Dialogue on Zen

We had a hard time discerning the actual route even with descriptions from both guidebooks, which were vague. We have no idea if we took the correct route, but what we did for the most part followed the path of least resistence and felt like 5.7 climbing.

The first pitch is supposed to start at a 4 inch crack, which we found, but the crack itself didn't last for very long and then turned into a system of flakes and shallow dihedrals and ended at a stance overlooking the "trough" on the right after about 180 feet of climbing (not the "Trough" on the Keyhole Route, but what Rossiter's route description decribes as a "trough" up the rock face, which Gillett describes as a "concave face"). Our second pitch went up a shallow, RFD on the left side of the trough, and we belayed at a small stance where the dihedral becomes larger and the angle steepens to nearly vertical. This pitch ended up being less than 100 feet, because I wasn't sure where the third pitch went as well as if there would be a better belay stance above me. From here, we eventually decided to traverse right into righthand side of the trough, climb up a short ways, then traverse right to the LFD on the other side of the trough. From here, we followed a nice hand and fist sized crack (with plentiful face holds) straight up (approximately 60 feet?) to where it made sense to traverse left on face holds back to the other side of the trough, then up through flakes and shallow, RFDs to a good belay stance on a small grassy ledge at the base of a prominent, large, RFD. Our 4th pitch went up about 40 feet of vertical terrain to where the angle eases off and the features become blocky and the climbing becomes more scrambly, although you'll still find plenty of 5th class moves. This pitch stretched the rope to almost 200 feet and ended a few feet below the actual Keyhole Ridge, which is an easy scramble to the summit.

Climb into the major left-facing corner (5th Class).

Pitch 1 - climb poor rock with poor pro to a small stance (5.9).

Pitch 2 - climb out left to a nice hand and fist crack (5.9).

Pitch 3 - climb a chimney (5.7) to join Keyhole Ridge.

This is a very nice route right up the center of Long's Peak's West Face.  It is a 5th Class alternative to the popular Keyhole Route and skips the yucky Trough section, as well as the Narrows and Homestretch, by taking a very direct line from the base of the Trough to the summit plateau. It keeps to a very moderate line (5.2) while being surrounded by harder terrain.  To find the route, follow the

Keyhole Route

until you enter the Trough. Looking up the West Face (to the left of the Trough), you will see an obvious, triangular buttress. Scramble up the left side of this buttress - Class 3 at first and then more like Class 4. Near the top of the left side of the buttress, start trending slightly left to intersect an obvious crack system that leads to a small but obvious broken tower on the ridge above.  Continue up this crack system (5th Class, but easy and secure) all the way to the ridge. You need to be careful of loose rocks on this route - you don't want to bombard the hordes in the Trough. It's worth noting that this part of the face has a slight tilt to the south and is in the sun after about 11:00 AM.

Justin Simoni on Van Diver's West Wall. Note the top of the triangular buttress just over his right shoulder.

Justin Simoni on Van Diver's West Wall.

This shot on Instagram

shows the upper part of the face with the little broken tower on top of the ridge.

Climb the right-facing corner system on the west face of the spire for two pitches.

Rappel to the east from a rock horn.

Climb the chimney, cracks, and corners just right of a major, right-facing corner system for three pitches. This is fun climbing and good quality rock.

Climb the left-leaning slot for two pitches.

Description

Protection

Routes in West Face