Longs Peak- D7

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July 25, 2026

The Diamond is a large imposing feature on the east face of Longs Peak, often highly regarded for the highest quality alpine rock in Colorado. I was happy to get my first experience on The Diamond by climbing D7, a classic route by any standard. D7 featured several hundred feet of high quality well-protected granite crack climbing and a few sporty moves at its crux. 

Due to the forecast for afternoon thunderstorms, Brent and I started hiking in at 2:30am. In typical fashion for Longs Peak Trailhead, the main parking area was overflowing by the time we arrived, requiring us to park almost half a mile down the road. 

Routes climbed

Name	Grade (YDS)	# Pitches	Quality (1-5)	Type
D7	5.11c	6	5	trad

Peaks/Towers climbed

Peak	Elevation	Topographic Prominence	Summit Coordinates (lat/lon)
Longs Peak	14,257 ft	2,947 ft	40.25502, -105.61510

Gear

- 60m rope
- cams: quad 0.4, doubles 0.2-0.75, singles 1, 2
- small-medium nuts
- 16 alpine draws

Total Stats

11 miles

5,200 ft gain/loss

Approach

We followed the well-travelled Longs Peak Trail up west for about 4.6 miles to Chasm Lake, then rock-hopped around the north side of the lake to its western end before continuing up the main drainage on a mix of climber scree trails and boulder hopping.

rock hopping around Chasm Lake

As the sky brightened, we were able to make out the dark shadow of the North Chimney, located almost directly below the center of The Diamond. We tiptoed up a short section of snow, then started up a tongue of granite which extended out from the chimney, following this into the chimney proper. Once inside the chimney, some care was required to prevent knocking over several loose rocks sitting on ledges and having them hit other climbers below. Eventually as the main chimney grew narrow and steep, we branched off right, making a couple low 5th class moves before accessing a narrow catwalk ledge which we followed back left past the top of the chimney and onto Broadway Ledge. 

Looking up North Chimney

catwalk ledge at the top of North Chimney

looking across Broadway

It was not immediately obvious where D7 began, and we spent about 10 minutes futzing around trying to find it. Eventually we figured that we should continue left along Broadway, arriving at a spot just past the lowest point where Broadway meets The Diamond. The first pitch was easily visible as a left-facing corner with several pins in it. We clambered up a short section of class 4 ledges to reach an alcove at the base of this corner. 

The first three pitches could be linked into two pitches (as Steph Abegg did). We kept it at three pitches, mainly due to my confusion at finding the "crossover ledge" on pitch 3.

Pitch 1 (5.9, 130 ft)

I started up the left-facing corner, clipping frequent pins and placing cams here and there. The pins were way more frequent than I had anticipated. Some of them were less than a foot apart, but I still would clip both due to my general mistrust of those old museum pieces. Eventually I ran out of slings and set up a semi-hanging belay just above a decent ledge. In hindsight, I should've just belayed lower on the more comfortable ledge. 

looking down pitch 1

Pitch 2 (5.9, 120 ft)

This felt more of the same as the last pitch, continuing up an obvious series of corners and cracks with a surprising number of jugs around the cracks. I belayed below a wide section up ahead. 

looking up pitch 2

looking down pitch 2

Pitch 3 (5.10b, 120 ft)

I squirmed up the wide section, throwing in a couple arm bars but was mostly able to utilize smaller holds inside the crack. Wide gear was not needed for this short section as there were ample spots to place small gear in addition to the endless pins. Afterwards, the crack closed up and became a series of pods before becoming more bouldery. A few easy and very fun bouldery sequences (with a holy crapload of fixed pins) brought me to a belay stance where Crossover Ledge (from the right) intersected D7. This spot could be identified by the 1-2 ft wide catwalk ledge coming in from the right, as well as the copious amount of slings and other fixed gear sitting on it. 

looking up pitch 3

looking down pitch 3

Pitch 4 (5.10c, 120 ft)

Even though pitches 1-3 were of good high quality rock, pitches 4-6 really kicked the quality and movement even higher. From the belay, two crack systems could be seen diverging above. The left system was the "D7 variation." The right system was a shallow corner which turned into more of a crack on a face higher up. I took this, pulling on extremely enjoyable and crispy fingerlocks interspersed with bouldery moves. Near the top of this pitch was a brief wider section with a large bush growing in it. Sometimes (not today) this bush would contain vibrant pink flowers, leading some people to dub it "the flower pitch." I belayed at a stance just above this bush, below an obvious pair of twin cracks above. 

looking up pitch 4

Brent climbing through the "flower" bush

Pitch 5 (5.11c, 100 ft)

A single hand crack led up to twin cracks, both of which eventually pinched shut for about 10 ft. A bouldery crux was encountered here to get to a spot above where the crack opened back up. I belayed on the next comfy ledge, but realized later that this was a bit premature and I should've belayed on the next large ledge about 30 ft up. 

looking up pitch 5

Brent following pitch 5

Pitch 6 (5.11a, 150 ft)

A splitter crack led up directly off the belay, followed by a pumpy thin mini-roof. After the roof, things eased up substantially as the crack widened. I set up an intermediate belay here since I was short on gear and unsure how much further it was to Table Ledge. Turns out, not much. I knew that the first overgrown grassy ledge I reached was not Table Ledge, and I continued past it, climbing over an additional short bouldery band of rock to reach Table Ledge proper and a pair of modern bolts with chains. 

Brent following the first half of pitch 6

Descent 

I belayed up Brent, and we met up with another party who had just ascended from The Casual Route, with both routes culminating at this bolted anchor. Four of us unroped and scrambled up Kiener's Route to Longs Peak summit. From the bolts, we turned left and walked along the flat Table Ledge for about 100 ft before turning right as soon as it looked class 4, and scrambled up some ledges and into a large gully. This gully soon deposited us on the summit plateau of Longs. 

looking across Table Ledge to the intersection with Kiener's

summit of Longs

It was supposedly unusual to have the summit of Longs to ourselves, but on this day we did. We enjoyed the summit area for about 10 minutes before descending via the Cable Route (class 5.4) which included a 30m rappel down it's crux section. There were several large eye bolts here and we simply picked one of the lower ones to rap off of. 

Once below the Cable Route, it was a mellow jaunt back to the car along mostly trails. The simplest no-brainer way would be to take the standard Longs Peak Trail back down, but the other party seemed enamored with a series of shortcuts which were used for FKT attempts of Longs. We followed them down these, noting that most of the shortcuts were popular enough to have already become trails of their own.