Alexander's Chimney

This climb is not on the Diamond, but is on the Lower East Wall in between

Stettner's Ledges

and the Lamb's Slide. I believe it's most frequently climbed as an ice climb. However, due to the lack of beta that I could find on this route, I don't think it's climbed too often in any season anymore. We climbed it along with Upper

Kiener's

and this is definitely recommended, hence the Grade III rating. Other possible options are descending the Lamb's Slide, or rapping the

Crack of Delight

or North Chimney. This is an extremely committing climb, a lot of the rock is wet and makes the 5.5 feel like 5.8, especially if you are climbing in boots. It took us 18 hours to car to car.

Approach: from the Long's Peak Trailhead, hike to Chasm Lake, skirt the lake on the north side and make your way up and to the left to the base of the Lamb's Slide. To get to the base of the chimney you can ascend Lamb's Slide for about 300 feet and traverse right onto the broken rock band directly to the base of the chimney. You can also climb to the base of the rock band to minimize the amount of snow encountered.This snow band is about 100 feet high and 30 degrees, it was bulletproof ice when we climbed it. I took a nice 20 foot slide on it. Bring at least one pair of crampons and ice axe for your team. Lead up the snow and ice, trail a rope and pull the rest of your team up. It took 4 of us 3 hours to negotiate this slope without crampons or ice axe. Scramble up the broken rock band on 4th class rock, pick the line of least resistance and go as high as possible until you are on the highest ledge near the base of the chimney. There is a good belay here.

The climb (our way):

Pitch 1: 40 feet, 5.0 or 5.6. Climb up the wet chimney, 5.0, or try to find a 5.6 crack to the right. We climbed a small 5.6 crack with no feet, just to the right of the chimney and belayed about 40 feet up at some fixed gear on the right side of the chimney as we weren't sure where the route went from here.

Pitch 2: 120 feet, wet 5.5. In the chimney, there are two left-facing dihedrals, maybe one of these is 5.6 variation that Roach describes; however, they didn't look too promising for climbing in boots, low angled and slabby. We opted to climb directly up the wet chimney. Use stemming technique to get up this chimney, when the wall gets really steep and wet look back for footholds on the sides of the wall. This is tricky, wet, freaky climbing for sure. 5.5 in the chimney sounds about right, but it felt much harder. Climb up until you are about 20 feet below a HUGE chockstone, and belay here.

Pitch 3: 150 feet, 4th class. "Alexander's Traverse" Do an ascending 4th class traverse on a good ledge. Protect the second on this traverse as a stumble would be difficult to recover from. Climb for about 150 feet until the ledge ends beneath the "Dog Ear Flakes", and you are below obvious, left-facing dihedrals. Belay here.

Pitch 4: 200 feet, 5.5. Climb whichever dihedral looks best to you, in retrospect the best dihedral is probably the furthest left. Go up a dihedral for 40 feet, 5.5, then traverse left into the Yellow Bowl. Do not go too high on this pitch, if you can go left go left not up! We ran out the full 60m of rope on this pitch. Establish a belay in the Yellow Bowl. Without a 60m rope, you could break this up into two pitches, the dihedral and then the traverse.

Pitch 5: 80 feet, 5.4. Climb the far left hand side of the Yellow Bowl up to the Broadway Ledge. This was a fun pitch.

Here the route joins the

Kiener's Route

. Some quick details:

Traverse across Broadway Ledge to the base of Notch, climb up about 30 feet then get on the rock and climb

Kiener's

chimney. Make a quick turn to the right up a narrow slot, traverse north along some ledges, and angle up and to the left on the path of least resistance. We simul-climbed most of this section, establishing a quick belay here or there for some tricky sections of 5.4. Ascend the Devil's Staircase up about 700 feet, make a 4th class step around the Diamond face. There is a little bit of exposure here, around 2000 feet. If the weather is holding, scramble 200 feet to the summit; or else, descend the

Cable Route

. One double rope or two single rope raps off the old eye bolts escape the difficulties. Hike to the Boulderfield, and take the Keyhole Route back to the trailhead.

What a committing climb, a full day of old school mountaineering. I'm not sure I would do it again, but it was certainly worth doing once, if not only to imagine what it must have been like up there in 1922 on the first ascent. Do not leave the moxie at home.

The mixed/ice climb and its associated photos are

here

.

Standard RMNP Alpine Rack, the pitches are very long, so don't skimp. Also, cams work very well as most of the cracks are uniform and smooth. We brought a dozen slings, 6 draws, 12 cams .1-#3, and set of nuts and hexes. Bring an ice axe and crampons, one set should suffice for your team. We did not and sure wish we did.