8/7 - Longs Peak

Last week I made a little list and put it in a frame, it is of all the 14ers in Colorado, with each member of the family and a checkbox for the date in which the peak was climbed.  I will cover them all in my lifetime.  I have only done a few so far, but Longs is on that is staring at me every day from here in Louisville, I can see it from the mesa where I run, I can see it each time I get in the car, it is begging to be bagged.  Shanon was not interested in Longs since it is a class 3 and has some exposure.  So I signed up Owen and Mark to hit it on a weekday to avoid the crowds.  We choose Wednesday the 7th a few weeks prior and just hoped for good weather.  Heading up the night before and camping in Meeker campground at the base.  We started out hike just before 5 AM, watching the sun rise over the peaks was incredible, but the weather forecast had us worried we would not summit at all.

Sunrise

We figured we were not going to chance it and it we did not summit that was okay, a nice hike in RMNP is much better then working any day.  The approach is long starting at 9k' and 7 miles each way, it took us a while to get to the harder stuff, but looking at the peak and the diamond was worth it all.

Diamond

The boulder field before the keyhole was a little tough, this is where many camp before their final approach.  Heading through the keyhole the weather was looking bad to the north of us, but it did look like it was staying to the north.  We saw a few other parties turning around, but we make our own decisions here and just kept a vigilant eye on the clouds during the hike.

Keyhole

After the keyhole is where it really started to get tough and up through the trough accent.  At the top of the trough before the narrows we waited for Mark, we did not think he was going to make it as he was feeling ill due to the altitude.  He said he was done so Owen and I were going to summit without him.  The Narrows were fast and we made it to the top as the sun started to shine and the weather looked much better.  The summit of Longs is huge, maybe two football fields.  And since the weather looked iffy, there was only 2 other people on the summit today, usually there are a bunch.

Summit

We took some time and then were prepared to head back down, when we saw Mark almost up as well.  We waited for him, I was happy he made it as well.  Since the weather was nice we brewed some celebration coffee at 14,255k', and headed down.  The hike down is long but much faster and easier, than the way up.  We got a few drops of rain about .25 miles from the car but that was it.  We finished at about 3pm a long day, but we made it and the weather turned out to hold and be actually pretty nice.  Very proud to have done the peak with Owen and Mark, well done boys.

All pictures on Flickr -
http://www.flickr.com/photos/13519781@N02/sets/72157635030165444/