Long’s Peak, Hidden Diamond and Glenwood Springs Canyon. Robert Anderson and I discovered the previously unnoticed Hidden Diamond on the Diamond in August. We climbed the route in 1 ¼ days, using about 80 feet of aid. Two weeks later I returned with Peter Athens and free climbed all the individual moves, in one day, car to car (V, 5.11). Hidden Diamond is perhaps the most elusive free climb on the face. The large, detached flake on pitch 4 is actually fairly solid. On the limestone walls of Glenwood Springs Canyon above the new highway construction of Interstate 70, Layton Kor and I climbed two first ascents, also in August. Kor’s plans to go to the Dolomites during the summer had fallen through; he figured that Glenwood Canyon would be the next best thing. First we climbed The Prison Wall (III, 5.8), the large, separate buttress just upstream from The International Buttress. Loose rock and difficult route finding (two of the canyon’s trademarks) characterized the climb. The next day we climbed the obvious grey water streak opposite the Hanging Lake parking area on 1-70. Many Bands (III, 5.9) was a fun, high-angle face climb littered with sharp buckets, and ending with an exciting roof. We climbed all of the individual bands of limestone to the very top of the canyon “just so we can say we climbed the whole thing.” Future ascents will probably rappel off from the top of the third pitch.

Ed Webster