I want to share this gift with the rest of you guys

climber

We did it in about 12 hours, and spent a lot of the day above 3600m. What a day! In the first photo you see our route up Arrowhead, the first peak of the day.

Next is Longs Peak in the center and Spearhead off to the right.

This shot shows McHenrys, the second peak of the day.

Here’s a shot of me heading up the talus toward Arrowhead.

The Access Ramp.

Here is Nathan leaving the top of Arrowhead (12,387 feet), and scrambling up to McHenrys Peak.

Here are some shots on the way up McHenrys.

McHenrys, 13,327 feet

Nathan on Powell Peak’s summit, 13,208-foot

Here we’re making our way over to the Northeast Arete separating Powell and Thatchtop, my favorite part of the day.

Here Nathan is making his way up to the summit of Thatchtop, at 12,668. This was the final peak of the journey.

Here you can see our entire traverse – from the Arrowhead arete on the left- up to McHenrys Peak- to the summit of Powell, and than to the left –  Thatchtop the final peak of the day!

I was getting antsy, until I accepted I just have to deal until it’s completely healed. I’m doing my shoulder exercises, icing it, and stretching as best I can. And while I’m waiting for it to heal, I’ve been enjoying all the other cool stuff you can do in Colorado. Today Nathan and I did The Keyhole hike up on Longs Peak. I have to admit I was peeking over at many of my projects on the Diamond Face, but I may not be well enough to climb them before the season ends and we head back to Norway.

But The Keyhole Route was a great way to spend the day. We started at 7:45 and topped out at 14,259 feet at 11:00. Our car to car time was about 5.5 hours. We were pretty psyched about that – the average is 10 to 15 hours. Then we found out that the record was just set a few weeks ago: car to car in 3:26. Wow!! That’s inspiring!

I want to start this blogging with some photos from our adventure in 2009/2010. Nathan and I were on the road for a year. We started in Colorado and drove north through Penitente Canyon, Yosemite, Bishop and Zion before we went over to New Zealand and Australia for six months. After climbing, surfing, driving through the Outback, getting married and jumping out of airplanes (to make the story short), we got back to US and continued our road trip in Red Rock, Smith, Joshua Tree and Indian Creek. Then we finally got back to our sweet home in Estes Park, CO, and climbed through the summer in Rocky Mountain National Park. I’m going to put lots of more photos from each destination in my gallery, if anyone gets inspired or curious!