Like so many climbing trips and adventures, this one started with an email. It was from Buster, and attached to the email was a picture of someone following The Flying Dutchman’s (TFD) crux ice section:

While Front Range Colorado has been drifting between crisp autumn days and warm remnants of summer, the high country now bares the frosty harbinger of winter. From my house I can see a select number of mountains from Mt. Evans, to the Indian Peaks, and finally Longs Peak, the northernmost 14er in Colorado. Longs is massive in its own right, but it is a giant amongst the other peaks in Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP). Relative to the larger mountains in the southern scope of my view, Longs appears bone dry, but its North Face, sunken gullies, and culoirs, have begun to sprout the winter crop. Longs goes from summer playground to winter testing ground…just add water. 2 days after the email, Buster was at my house, and we were packing our bags. We drove to the trailhead and slept by the car. My phone woke us up at 355am. We brewed some hot drink and started making tracks at 445am. The moon was about 80% full, making headlamps unnecessary. After an hour we were above treeline and as first light silently rumbled in the eastern sky, we gained our first full view of the Longs/Meeker Peak Cirque. The east side, from Chasm View to The Loft, glowed under the high moon. I looked at the mountain differently than I had the first time when I climbed it via the Notch Culoir. I saw it as something I knew intimately. I looked up at the moon and wondered if those who have walked on the moon can look up from anywhere in the world, and really know what they are looking at.
The first 1000 feet of The Flying Dutchman is a steep snow climb, and the snow was shit. In the mountains there are many types of snow that mean many different things to the mountaineer, and like the Eskimos and other people of the North Country, there are many names for snow. I am not sure what the snow on TFD was called, but it gave way underfoot with the ease of a sugarcube, so the going was laborious. After about 30 minutes we reached the crux, and in fact the only technical section of the route, where 60 degree water/alpine ice glazes over a steep section in the culoir. I halfheartedly mentioned to Buster that we should just solo the thing, since it was only about 50 feet tall, and he quickly agreed before I had time to retract my statement. While one could easily lead this pitch on either the right or left side placing rock pro, Buster charged up the completely iced over center, and I followed suit.