OK so the other day I told y’all about the impetus for our attempt on Long’s Peak, and then I fell asleep. Lemme tell ya how the walk went.

Walking to the top of Long’s Peak takes time, lots of time. The most popular route is called the Keyhole Route, and it is the “easiest” way to go, containing the least “technical” sections and least “exposure” (refer to my previous post for the straight shootin’ definitions of these terms). The downside is that it’s just a damn long trail. Seven miles from trailhead to the summit means you’re looking at a 14 mile walk with some scary stuff at the end, so yeah, it’s going to take time. On top of that, the afternoons often bring strong thunderstorms complete with hail and lightning. The last place you wanna be when one of those dark clouds roll in is up on those rocks, so this is what leads you to a 3AM start time. Some people start even earlier than that.

And so it was 3:00 a.m. when Brenda & I woke up in our tent, shooting for a 3:30 a.m. start time. Camping, as I mentioned previously, still is not something I can get used to, but it’s a necessary evil in this case; waking up one mile into the hike is a good way to get a good start, after all.

With everyone dressed and fitted out with lots of water and food, we embarked on our adventure. By 3:50 a.m. we were on the Long’s Peak trail and headed in the right direction, seeing only what our headlamps could illuminate for us.

A couple hours later, we arrived at the “sky potty”, one of the highest johns in the park. As we headed off on the Long’s Peak Summit Trail from there, the sun began to rise in the east:

We were now well above treeline, the trail resembling more of a moonscape than a forest, and the stark, artificial light from the headlamps only exaggerated that effect. Slowly but surely, the sun painted the sky in a dazzling array of constantly-changing pastels. At this point, we were walking west, but we always knew when a major sky event was happening, because the rocks in front of us would change color and vibrance along with the sky. We were turning around every few minutes to witness a completely different sunrise scene.

Now about 4.5 miles into the hike and above 12,000’, the sun is fully out and shining, and the next big goals are revealed—The Boulder Field, and the route’s namesake, The Keyhole. Things are going well at this point, the hike is relatively easy and we’re making good time. Far off in the distance, the Boulder Field looks flat and The Keyhole is but a speck in the center of the photo below:

We walk along a stream, progressing toward the Keyhole. Long’s Peak—on the left in the photo—is starting to look really impressive. It’s as if it’s taunting us. The thing is massive, and beautiful.

Finally, we arrive at the Boulder Field, a broad expanse of giant rocks. Nothing else to do but keep walking, and now six miles and in and nearly 13,000’ high, we get a good look at the Keyhole:

There is no real trail through the Boulder Field, so you basically just aim for the Keyhole and try not to get into trouble. A very steep section awaits at the end of the Boulder Field that gets you up above the 13,000’ mark, and a great view of the giant hanging rock formation that seemed so small two hours ago.
The scale of this thing is unbelievable. That’s Bryce about to cross through the ‘hole:

We turn around for a quick peek at all the way we’ve come so far…

And now, at 13,200’ above sea level and after six miles of hiking, the hike actually starts.

The Keyhole is the doorway to the other side of the mountain, the final mile of the hike, and four distinct sections that each present their own challenges. The Ledges, The Trough, the Narrows and the Homestretch await. The last six miles took four and a half hours to complete; the final mile will take two more, all by itself.

Leslie had told me all about these sections, and I had read other accounts as well. But I still didn’t get it. The last mile of Long’s Peak has whatever you’re bad at: afraid of heights? The Ledges and The Narrows feature plenty “exposure”, where you’re often walking on 12” wide rock with sheer dropoffs. Have trouble with the steep stuff? The Trough is an unbelievably beautiful bowl of steep, loose rock that seems to have no end, and the Homestretch is a slab of rock that’s short on places to stand.

These sections are so sketchy that sometimes the trail you’re supposed to take elicits a “you’ve gotta be kidding me” reaction. For this reason, they’ve spray painted little targets (called “fried eggs” or “bullseyes” in most trail descriptions) onto the rocks to guide you along. You can see one of the bullseyes between Brenda and Leslie in the pic below:

After the endless scramble up The Trough, we are greeted by a difficult gatekeeper of a rock that marks the entrance to The Narrows:

Your reward for completing The Narrows is called The Homestretch, and I guess in my head I figured this part would be easy, I don’t know why. It wasn’t. The Homestretch is a two tenths of a mile long slab of rock sloped 40 degrees, with chinks in the rock that often are the only hand and footholds available. Looking down, you can see that one slip at the wrong time could lead to a long but fast journey down the mountain, with a shitty ending. It’s scary. I got into a few dead ends on this stretch, and had to traverse some sketchy parts of rock to get to safer and more secure footing. Brenda, Bryce and Leslie looked down at me wondering if I was gonna make it, but at this point there was only 100 yards to go; there was no way I wasn’t.

I regret the lack of photos to tie in to this part of the story, but I guess that says something about the mood and difficulty of these final sections; I really needed my hands on the rocks, and couldn’t spare them for camera holding at this point!

A few more careful steps, and we were at the summit:

After a mountaintop lunch and some wandering around, I signed the register and we all posed for one more pic at the very edge of The Homestretch. What’s going though my head at this point is “this is going to suck way more going down than it did going up.”

The descent down the Homestretch was indeed scarier than the ascent, but we simply took our time and crabbed our way down the thing. Along the Narrows was a no-brainer but we turned the corner and shimmied down the gatekeeper rock to witness the Trough in all its glory, and some thunderstorms in the distance. Thinking how unpleasant the Ledges would be if soaking wet, we tried to pick up the pace and really hustle down the Trough, but the fact is it’s a long way down:

We got through the Keyhole and down the Boulder Field without incident and I thought to myself “phew, the hard part’s over”, but the fact remained that there was over five miles of walking left to do! We took a break while Lelsie treated some stream water for us (water is the key to not getting altitude sickness, I’m convinced), I inhaled another Cliff Bar and off we went.

Back along the stream and down towards the Sky Potty we walked, admiring some new scenery despite the out-and-back course; much of this area lay under cover of darkness when we passed it in the morning.

A deeply resonant rumble of thunder belched out from the south side of Long’s Peak, and we all looked at each other nervously. All around us was blue sky, but we imagined a large storm just on the other side. Would it march north and get us? Who knows. Nothing to do about it but keep going.

As we got below treeline I breathed another sigh of relief, feeling slightly more protected should a storm come in. Eventually we reached our campsite at Goblin’s Forest, and it was time to pack up and get outta Dodge. I wasn’t looking forward to carrrying all the extra weight of our camping gear for the last mile, but it actually wasn’t too bad. At this point I’m running on adrenaline, with the end in sight!

With a quarter mile to go, I saw something out of the corner of my eye and turned to look. Turns out a deer was standing about six feet from me, just off the trail. He would have been happy to let me walk right on by, but my stopping spooked him a bit and he ran back about ten feet. Brenda, Bryce and Leslie caught up to me and I simply pointed at the deer. We all stood there staring at each other until the deer got tired of that and stalked off.

Finally, around 5:30 p.m., we arrived at the Ranger Station and our car. We’d just completed 13 hours of walking, with challenges and amazing views all along the way. It felt good. As I pulled my boots off I thought “well, that’s that, I don’t have to do that ever again”, but I’m already thinking about the next time. Hiking has (clearly) become an addiction for both Brenda and me, and it’s these big peaks that really do it for us now. The views are incredible and the effort is fun. The sense of accomplishment you feel when you look up at something like Long’s Peak and think to yourself “yeah, I was up there”, is really hard to put into words.

Another great day in Colorado! I love it here.

What started as a mild curiosity turned into a fascination, and then, a goal: Long’s Peak. It’s got a catchy name, it sounds distant and imposing, and it is. It’s tall, it’s beautiful, it’s scary looking at times, and get this: Brenda & I summited the damned thing this past Tuesday.

Standing 14,255 feet tall, Long’s Peak is the tallest mountain in Rocky Mountain National Park and a very popular destination for hikers, but it’s not the easiest “fourteener” to summit. Every recent year, some 15,000 people attempt to make the summit and about 9,000 succeed. Usually weather is the culprit for failed summit attempts, but many simply turn back after reaching one of the five obstacles that await the hapless hiker after six or so miles of hiking; places called The Boulder Field, The Ledges, The Trough, The Narrows, and The Homestretch. I should have realized that if a little patch of trail gets its own friggin’ name, then it’s probably got something to it.

This all started when Brenda & I were buying our home in Boulder, CO, and we and our home inspector got to talking about Colorado in general and hiking in particular. “Oh yeah, you’ll love it out here,” he said… “the hiking is great; you’ll have to go up to Estes Park and hike in Rocky Mountain National Park… a big one is Long’s Peak; the views are great and it’s a great hike… because of the afternoon thunderstorms you have to be off the mountain early in the day… most people start early (I’m still thinking 6:00AM is early) so they start at two or three in the morning, with headlamps… the views are incredible…”—Headlamps?!? These people hike in the dark? What the hell is wrong with these people? Where in the hell have we moved to, I thought. I looked for pods in our garage, but didn’t find any.

Well, let me tell ya what’s happened. Since that day, Brenda & I have moved into our little condo in Boulder and have started hiking the many local trails that are within miles of our home, some leading to peaks that afford views of the Rocky Mountains that are simply breathtaking. I mean it; these views are fucking breathtaking. Like, you go “holy shit” when you look, and then think to yourself that not only is this an amazing thing to see, but that you’ve got yourself to this amazing place.

Green Mountain, Bear Peak and South Boulder Peak followed in short order after moving here. Our eyes turned westward, toward the higher peaks; as luck would have it our friends Bryce and Leslie were into the hiking scene too. Talk of doing Long’s started while Brenda was down in Santa Fe; Leslie had done it last year and was ready for another attempt this year, and regaled me with tales of the hike while we did Bear Peak a couple months ago (this was the same hike where I sniffed a tree, which Bryce counted as a personal triumph and remains a bit of material worthy of a blog post, but I digress).

And so it was with motivation from two friends and my own stupid fascination with the peak of Long’s that Brenda & I began to train for the higher altitudes, with the goal of summiting on Long’s Peak this week. First, we did St. Vrain’s Mountain, then we did Mount Audubon. Lastly Brenda & I did Mount Elbert together, the highest mountain in Colorado. I thought we were prepared. We were, sorta.

See, the problem is the word “exposure”, and maybe the term “Class 3 climbing”. You read in the books and on the websites that Long’s “can be dangerous”, and that “there is exposure” on the hike. Let me clarify these terms for you all, in the best New Yorkey way I can:

“can be dangerous” means: IS fucking dangerous.
“exposure” means: you can die on this section, easily; bad fucking luck is all you need.
“Class 3 climbing” means: you will be clutching little fucking chinks in the rock, clawing your sad ass to a safer place, cursing motherfucking gravity and all the previous goddamned authors of a Long’s Peak ascent the whole fucking time.

This was hard, and not because I had to camp again for the first time in 14 years (it still sucks ass, despite the advances in sleeping bags and the advent of Thermarests). It was hard because it was still far (we camped at Goblin’s Forest campground, a mile or so from the trailhead, but still miles and miles and miles from the summit), and it held untold surprises, despite all the stories I had heard leading up to the hike.

A step-by-step account is in order, but for now it is time to go to bed, sorry.

Listen up; I wanna tell ya about my friend from work. His name’s Galen, and he just finished second in the Pike’s Peak Marathon, and I’m really kinda flyin’ high on his accomplishment. Yeah that’s right, Pike’s Peak Marathon. A full marathon, all 26.2 miles of it, only you run to the top of a fourteener and back down to the bottom. Roll that one around in your head a while and I’ll wait.

I ran competitively in high school and never ran more than ten miles in a stretch, but I’ve thought a lot about the marathon as my uncle used to be rather fast at them in the 70’s, and I have always been impressed when friends and family suck it up and run that far. But this, this “trail running” business, takes the marathon and turns it up to eleven. Think about it: you start in Manitou Springs, CO, and run to the top of a friggin’ 14,110’ high peak, turn around and run your ass back down to the Springs. Roughly 8,000’ of elevation gain, plenty of time spent in the thin air above treeline, and of course the 26.2 miles of running. That’s one hell of an effort, and a hell of a race.

Galen & I shared an office for several months last winter, as he was beginning his training for this race, and I’ve been asking a hell of a lot of questions about his progress all along; I’ve become fascinated with the race. It was to be a tough event this year, as it was designated the World Championship event for trail running, which attracted a larger-than-usual international field. On top of that, Matt Carpenter—the course recordholder and owner of the second-highest ever recorded VO2max in history—was running the race again, after skipping it the last couple years to run in some ultradistance races (in which he eliminated all competition and set course records for those races too). Galen won the Pike’s Peak Marathon two years ago, and finished second by a nose last year. I could sense he wanted number one again. So, I got up at 5AM this morning and drove to the summit of Pike’s Peak so I could see him in action. It was the least I could do.

I arrived at the summit around 9AM, put on two extra layers, grabbed my camera and headed for the course. I ran into Galen’s dad, Buzz, who is quite the character. Race officials were getting word from down the mountain, Matt this, Matt that. Sounded like Matt was having another great day on the Peak. I asked the guy with the radio what number came through the last checkpoint after Matt, and “two” was his reply. Galen’s number. Yeah!!

Settling in on a spot just below the summit, I watched Matt Carpenter emerge and methodically trot up the trail, turn around, and head on down. I waited for my friend. Buzz started pointing and shouting, and there he was, shuffling up the switchbacks.

“Galen!!, WHOOOOOOOOOO!!” Galen had said I’d have to be loud if I expected him to spot me up there, since he’d be out of it and wouldn’t see me unless he knew where to look. He saw me. Flashed me a thumbs up and motored on by, steady as you please. I was so excited for him. After he disappeared back down the mountain, I enjoyed the view from the top of my second fourteener (doesn’t really count since I drove up there, but the views were still just as good) for a few minutes and then ran to the car for the trip down to the finish.

Down in Manitou Springs, I met up with my buddy Zack from work and we grabbed a chunk of curb at the final turn just in time to see Matt Carpenter win yet another Pike’s Peak Marathon. Galen appeared about nine minutes later, for a solid second place showing, which is basically first place among humans, since I’m convinced Matt Carpenter is a mountain cyborg. Galen destroyed his personal best time by like fifteen minutes, and destroyed the rest of the field as well; the third place finisher was about ten minutes behind Galen. I’m so proud of Galen; his race went exactly as planned and his nine months of hard work really paid off.

Way to go, Galen!

The pic below actually shows Galen on the descent. Can you see him? Thirteen miles to go, while his dad (green jacket) looks on. Amazing.

Today Brenda & I hiked to the top of Mount Elbert, the tallest mountain in the state of Colorado. At 14,433’ above sea level, it’s second only to California’s Mount Whitney (by about sixty feet) for tallest mountain in the lower 48 states. Today, we stood on the top of Colorado, and it was a hell of a feeling. Our first “fourteener”. Yeah!

Now, Elbert is considered an “easy” fourteener. And it is, I guess. The thing is massive, so the approach ends up being fairly shallow the whole way. But you’re still walking six miles across and 4,000’ up, and then get to reverse and repeat the process to get back to the car. We were quite pleased with our performance, regardless of the “easy” rep Elbert enjoys. We passed several people on our way to the summit, and got the whole ordeal completed in 7.5 hours, including spending 40 minutes up there just looking around.

At the summit I had to chuckle, as I looked across the valley at Leadville, CO. Just a couple miles south of town is Lake County Airport, the highest public airport in the lower 48. And here we were, looking down on it! Pretty amazing. A few planes flew by while were were near and on the summit, and it was kinda cool to be looking directly at them, or looking down on them. In the photo below, you can make out the town of Leadville in the center and the long runway at the airport just to the south of town.

The clouds started building and we decided to get the hell outta Dodge a little before 11AM. The general idea is to be off the mountain by early afternoon, lest you get roasted by a nice bolt of Colorado mountain lightning. Below treeline, there were loads of charred trees and pulverized stumps to serve as reminders of what happens up there when the afternoon thunderstorms unleash their energy. After heading back to the (really nice) B&B we stayed at for a quick shower, we headed home. As we drove along RT24 we watched Mount Elbert get quite a soaking from an afternoon rainstorm, but thankfully no lightning; we knew full well that there were still a bunch of people on that hill, as we had passed them on their way up just hours ago.

All in all, it was a great weekend and a great hike, and I think we’re as ready as we can be for our attempt on Long’s Peak. Stay tuned.

Saturday, Brenda & I —along with our friends Bryce and Leslie—hiked to the top of St. Vrain’s Mountain, a 12,000+ summit. It was amazing, the views great and the thin-air experience interesting. All in all, it was a good start in our training regimen…

This all started with an email from my friend Bryce a couple weeks ago. The subject line read “Long’s”, and the message read “you in?”; the rest of the message was a forwarded email from Leslie who was talking about the campsite reservations she was making for an attempt on the Long’s Peak summit in August. Ever since then, vague discussions about trying to hike to the summit of Colorado’s most popular fourteener have evolved into an actual plan to hit Long’s this August.

Hiking is an activity that Brenda & I have discovered is well suited to us; we love the exercise, the views, the challenge, the variety and the companionship. We’ve been exploring the local peaks ever since we both got here, but the higher peaks and their attendant views have interested the both of us, and luckily we have met some people out here that are into the hiking scene as well. Long’s is not exactly the easiest peak to summit, but it’s a popular one and since our friends were already planning this trip and had been to the summit before, it was a great opportunity to tag along.

Doing Long’s will involve camping and a 3AM departure for the summit; it should be interesting. In the meantime Brenda & I just need to get used to altitude, and so Saturday we huffed to the top of St. Vrain’s Mountain:

The view was ok, don’t you think?

More challenges await, and we plan to step up the altitudes and gradients in the coming weeks to get ready for the big ascent. I’ll keep the exact date a secret for now, but it’s in August. We already bought headlamps for the pre-dawn ascent; We’re going.