Long's Peak

14,255 feet

As usual, click on a picture to see it in detail.

So far, this has been the only 14er that took 2 attempts for me. Primarily because I took too much gear the first time. The picture on the left shows all the stuff I took the first time: (clockwise from top left) backpack, ice axe, rope. over 3 liters of water, map, headlamp, food, crampons, climbing gear (a few each of cams, hexs, nuts, and slings), harness, 1st aide kit (w/ sunblock), spare clothes, heavy mittens, wool hat, helmet, boots to wear on the hike, and climbing shoes. Probably close to 35 or 40 lbs of stuff, about 30 of which I didn't even use. The second time, I didn't take anywhere near as much stuff - just food, water, ice axe and a backpack. However, I also went a different way. Makes a big difference!

Sorry about underexposed photos of the start shown above (probably not even worth looking at the larger versions), but that's what kind of photo's you get with a disposable camara at the break of dawn. July 5, 1998, I started out from the Long's Peak parking lot at Rocky Mountain National Park, with 2 friends from work Dan Klein (the guy with all the army gear), and Sean Geiger. Dan and I were going to go up the north face of Long's, while Sean was going to the top via the keyhole route, which is more or less just a hike. The north face is now considered a (easy) technical climbing route,since the park service took down the steel cable used for a hand rail (the ranger station has some great old photos), which made the north face the route of choice back in the 50's, 60's and early 70's. I think Dan had something like 50 pounds in his pack, compared to my 40ish pound pack, while Sean carried only a couple of liters of water and a wind breaker in his fanny pack.

This photo of Dan and I (Dan's on the right) was taken by Sean, right before he pushed on ahead of us. He was worried about making it to the top before any weather blew in. It was definetly the right choice. Dan and I would have slowed him down way too much. Dan and I eventually made to the Boulder field before turning around (about 4 miles each way), which would be off to the right a little from the background of this photo.

The next time out, I had a little more success. Sitting around the apartment on the following Saturday night, around midnight, I thought to myself. You know what? I'm not all that tired. If I leave right now, I could be at the Long's Peak parking lot by 2:00am and be at the top by 10am! (Feel free to call me an idiot at this point.) So I loaded up some water and food into the backpack, grabbed the ice axe, hopped in the Honda Civic, and headed for higher ground. Around 1:30 AM, I began to feel a little tired as I drove through the sleepy town of Estes Park. Fortunately the flash lights of the policeman behind me kept me up. Turns out I was doing 35 in a 25, but to my amazement, the cop let me go when he found out I was headed for the Peak. This was the moment that I formulated my theory that you can speed (up to about 15-20 MPH over the limit) anywhere in the United States without getting a ticket, as long as it is near 2:00 AM, you're sober, and you didn't crash into anything (I still haven't been proven wrong yet).

After reaching the parking lot, up I go through the trees in the moonlight. I reached tree line around dawn, and soon after, decided to take a quick 5 minutes nap, sheltered from the wind by a big boulder. I woke up a few minutes later when another hiker passed by, a hiked with them past the boulder field, through the keyhole and up most of the notch on the southwest side of the peak. This photo shows the norhth face of the previous attempt, as seen from the boulder field, at about 1pm, while the similar photo above was taken from a similar location, but at about 6 or 7 am.

Success!

After 8 hours or so of hiking, I rested on the football field sized summit, and chatted it up with the other hikers and climbers. There were some German guys there that had been traveling around America for a couple of months in the car they bought (turns out to be cheaper than renting one that long), and were kind enough to take that summit photo for me. Four more hours back down, and dehdryated despite the 3 liters I drank on the way, and the liter I had before I started, I decided to sit and rest a bit, and down another liter. After about 40 minutes, I was ready to drive the Honda as far as a Taco Bell for some refreshment before the 1.5 hour drive back to Boulder. Toughest trip yet I think. 14+ miles of kick your butt and show you that your no match for mother nature hikin'. Next time I vowed to get a water filter...

Note: All these photo's were taken with a disposable camera and scanned in during development. This time around, I got them all put on a Kodak "Photo CD" which gives you much higher resolution images in a variety of sizes.