Reading your article “An Easier Way to Allen,” [July/August 2015] stimulated memories of how I climbed Allen to complete becoming a Forty-Sixer in June 1960.
I and my climbing partner did not use any of the customarily described routes to Allen then or now. Here is how I recall what we did.
In 1959, we were sitting on the summit rock on Redfield. Of course, one can see the whole valley between Redfield and Allen from there. We decided to bushwhack the connecting ridge between Skylight and Allen. We noted that blowdown seemed to be less just off the north side of this ridge.
So the next year we climbed Skylight and descended the south side to this ridge and took the route we had planned from Redfield, skirting the north side of Little Nippletop, and passed over the little peak of McDonnel and through the col to Allen.
It worked just as we had planned, and I became a Forty-Sixer on Allen.
I have noted over the years that I have never seen any reference to this approach to Allen. That’s why your article caught my attention.
Of course, in the fifty-five years since then, conditions may have changed, but the connecting ridge from Skylight to Allen is still there!
Lyle Raymond (46er No. 182), Groton, NY
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