Long's Peak Attempt--Keyhole Route (14,259 ft.)

In order to celebrate the end to my first round of training, my classmate, Jon, and I decided to summit Long's Peak. Long's is one of Colorado's numerous 14-ers or 14,000 ft peaks--and it was the closest to us, sitting high up in the western horizon visible anywhere east or north of Boulder.

In order to summit and return to below treeline before 12-2 pm you have to start hiking around 4 am. Not knowing what we'd find or how hard the 7 mile hike straight up would be, we left Boulder around 1 am and started breathing and walking methodically around 2 am.

At about 5 am the eastern sky started to glow pink and the faceless rocky trail began to appear, along with a massive amount of earth which we were attempting to climb. By the time we saw the sun we were slowly approaching the boulder field which lay in between us and the keyhole notch we'd soon clamber over to get to the back side of the mountain.

The mountain was soon ablaze with alpenglow. I later realized this would truly be the highlight of this trek, and not touching the summit. At dawn we began to orient ourselves and take in the astounding scale of beauty we'd walked among for hours in the dark.

Here we saw the massive eastern face of Long's reflecting the dawn. Now as we hopped along the house sized boulders we aimed for the keyhole (pictured below) as we passed through terrain only to be described as pure fun.

At the keyhole the hike became more technical and a bit frightening. Near the notch the hiking gave way to climbing. The view from that point (somewhere in between 13-13,700ft was shocking. We had a eagle's view of the rocky mountain national park to the north and the frozen lakes and peaks quietly resting behind Long's.

]The giant's shadow.

The "narrows"--the trail, not just the steep western slope of the mountain. Here is where we were inclined to listen to prudence and turn around. From this point we hiked on as long as we could until the trail became laden with ice--spelling doom. We saw a few hiker's with winter climbing gearheading back and they said they were unable to get much farther than we had. The season for an ice-free Long's should start around mid-July until the first snow storms in September, we'd started around mid-June. Our hike, while not extending to the top, was still so full of wonder.

Long's from about 10, 500 ft. It is the tallest peak on the right.

The climb back was basically a delusional experience having started so early and having already had such a vast experience. Seeing so many hikers getting started on dayhikes in the area began to play with my sense of time and I was truly confused when I turned on my car to find the time to be only 10:20 am. After 14 miles and about 10, 000 ft of gain and loss we drove home and slept away the rest of the day.