The journey began at around 9 pm on Friday night. I arrived to a 2/3 full lot the night before the hike. I grabbed my spot, prepared my stuff for summit day, and went to sleep. My 4 and change hours of sleep were feeling pretty great when my alarm sounded at 2:30. I made sure to check all of my gear: Helmet, waters, headlamp, medkit, inReach, layers, rain jacket, and food. Just before 3:00 I started my journey that would end up turning out much longer and more difficult than I had anticipated. In my head, I was thinking that doing the Grand Slam would be pretty doable, so I focused on that as I started up the trail. Just before 4:30, I made it to Chasm Junction where I saw some headlamps in the distance of some people presumably doing the loft. I took a quick break to admire the stars, and it was cool to see all of the headlamps going up granite pass. Unfortunately, time was of the essence, so I had to keep moving. A bit before 5, I made it into the loft couloir, but I had forgotten about ship's prow and was very confused when I saw it. Nonetheless, I pushed forward, relatively confidant that I was in the right spot. Just a few minutes after I started hiking up the couloir, the first gust of wind hit me. And then another, and another, and another. The wind was ripping through the couloir, and I took a bit of cover behind some boulders. I slowly kept pushing up, but route finding in the dark was a bit difficult. There was a lot of loose chossy rock that I tried to avoid by going to the right and going up some talus until I paused at first light around 5:45.

The view was amazing to take in, but I needed to get to the top of the loft, so I kept going. It got steeper and steeper, slowing my pace down a bit, until I decided to cross the stream early, as I didn't see a better place up ahead to do so. I then continued pretty far left, which was my first major route finding mistake of the day. The scrambling that isn't supposed to exceed class 3 went class 4 pretty fast, and I ended up on some low class 5 terrain that I had to downclimb when stuff above it was to risky to do without ropes. Nonetheless, I kept pushing forward, finding a better spot to ascend to the ramp out of the couloir.

From here I kept hiking a short way to the loft.

From there, I took a quick stop to appreciate the amazing view and eat some food before heading up Meeker. Once I started up Meeker, it was pretty fast to the summit ridge which consisted of some knifey and narrow slabs until the summit block. The summit block was initially a confusing moment, as it is a big rock with no obvious way up, so I looped around towards Meeker Ridge to check out the other side, unfortunately to no avail. I then decided to return to the side of the summit block closest to Longs to check again if it was possible to go up that side. This time I saw that the rock was low enough that I could reasonably get enough grip with my approach shoes to pull myself up, using my feet and hands. Once on the summit block, I stood up to soak in the amazing view and get my summit photos until the wind returned, forcing me to sit down on the block and hop off. The walk back to the loft was pretty chill, and I saw a couple of guys along the way going to bag Meeker. After that, I started to head to Longs, where I made another route finding mistake. I went down the wrong gulley, which I believe was considerably more difficult and put me past Clark's Arrow. The correct gulley is the first lower one, NOT the one near the cairn that points you back up a bit. I wish I could say it was smooth sailing from there, but part way up the Keplinger's section, one of my legs started to cramp up a bit. I took this as a sign to drink some more water, have some of my limited electrolytes, and take a quick break. After my legs started to feel better, I kept going up and met some fun guys who had come from Meeker as well (they are different guys from the ones I saw while descending Meeker).

Once I made it to the base of the Homestretch, I saw the conga line that many people have mentioned about when doing the Keyhole Route. Nonetheless, I kept going and made it to the peak in a couple of minutes. The summit was massive and flat, with great 360 degree views of everything from Wild Basin to Glacier Gorge, to Chasm Lake, and the Mummy Range. I then saw the guys from Keplinger's who mentioned that they were attempting to do the Grand Slam, as I was, so I hoped to see them somewhere around Pagoda. After spending some time at the summit of Longs, I started to head down to the Longs-Pagoda saddle. Descending the homestretch was deceivingly difficult, as the rock was super slippery from the thousands of climbers who have done the Homestretch. After getting to the bottom of the Homestretch, my legs were cramping up a bit more, so I sat down and had a bit more water. While sitting there, I was approached by a friendly guy who saw that I was a bit below the standard route, and he asked me where I was heading. When I told him my goal, he offered me some water, stating that he had plenty extra for times like these. After meeting this nice guy, I decided to make it to the saddle and decide what would be reasonable to do next. I followed the general route that I remembered looking at, and was happy as I saw a cairn on my way to the cliff band. While I was heading down, a few people were trying to yell at me, not knowing that there was a route here, which ended up being quite funny. I aimed middle-right, which turned out to be pretty spot on, as I knew that the top of the descent gulley had some dark rock. I spotted an opening in the dark rock, which I assumed to be the right entrance, but as I got closer, I noticed that there were some class 5 looking vertical walls that I did not want to downclimb, but I also noticed that there was another entrance to my right with recognizable looking moves from some pictures I was looking at. That section also looked much easier and safer, right around class 3. Once I was down the technical portion of the gulley, I noticed that it might cliff out below me, but there was a ledge to my right that had a cairn on it, confirming my route choice, and leading me towards some of the keys of the Keyboard of the Winds. When I got to the keys, I saw the 2 guys from Keplinger's again, and they talked about their route choice. They had climbed all but one of the keys, and they soloed the cliff band before tagging Pagoda and meeting up with me. By this point, it was getting a bit late, and my legs were feeling it, so I decided that it would be in my best interests to head back to the keyhole with them and not fully complete the slam. By this point another guy doing a different version of the slam showed up and confirmed the route back that I had in mind with a GPX file that showed a route between the 2 keys closest to the cliff band to the trough, which we took back up to the ledges. While traversing to the Trough, we went from ledge to ledge, mostly avoiding sketch slabby rock. From there, the view of Glacier Gorge was impeccable, and it was a nice addition to the route.

Once we made it to the Trough and then the Ledges, my phone died, but the rest of the hike was on trail, so I didn't worry about it too much. I talus hopped from the Keyhole to the Boulder Field to the trail, and I took a nice break at a rock near Battle Mountain. While sitting on this rock, I met a group of guys from DU who had never hiked a 14er before. We started chatting, and I talked about how this was an impressive 14er for them to do as their first. They were nice guys, so I joined them down to their campsite, where they met up with their friend who was not able to make it all the way up. During the last mile and change, the guys who had finished the slam passed me during one of my water breaks, and it was cool to see that they had finished it. After that, I made it back to my car with a nice long day of type 2 and 3 fun. Now that I know the route better, I might try it again with a friend and hope for better results, but all in all, it was a fun day with fun people on the trail.