At 1:45 p.m. on Wednesday, August 3, 1960, Californians David Rearick and Robert Kamps made history by becoming the first people to top out on the prominent East face of Longs Peak known as “the diamond” after spending a grueling three days on the wall.
For decades prior, the diamond captivated climbers from around the world who wanted to scale a big wall at elevation. All climbing done on the diamond is done above 13,000 feet and tops out over 14,000. In some places, the wall isn’t just vertical but it even overhangs.
The Diamond was one of the last remaining tough challenges for climbers in the U.S. But the wall was ultimately unclimbable because it was labeled “off limits” by the National Park Service (NPS). As a result, it was the most famous unclimbed wall in the country at that time.
In 1954, the first proposal was made to climb the diamond by a party of climbers from Boulder, but that was shot down immediately by the NPS.
It wasn’t until several years later that a request made by the party of Kamps and Rearick to climb the wall would be accepted.
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