Bongalong (600’, 5.5 A1) was established by Jerry Brown and Rod Smythe in 1966. Knowing how obscure the lower left side of the east face of Longs Peak is, and that this route was established before the free-climbing era, I thought it might be low-hanging fruit for a first free ascent. Jake Miller and I decided to give it a go in August.

The route begins one-third of the way up lower Lambs Slide, just left of Alexander’s Chimney. The description suggested the crux aid section was an offwidth, so we headed up with Big Bros and wide cams. I led the first pitch ground-up, climbing through the former aid section at a modest 5.8; it turned out the “offwidth” was just a mossy hand crack through a roof. (We removed some homemade hexes through this section.) Jake led the next pitch, which turned out to be quite mellow as well, and when he reached the end of the rope we just simul-climbed all the way to Broadway Ledge.

In all, Bongalong is about 600’ with nothing harder than 5.8—pretty casual, especially for a first free ascent on Longs.

Jason Haas