At the beginning of the summer, Sarah and I set a goal of what peaks we wanted to climb in 2008. At the very top of the list was Long's Peak. Long's is the 15th tallest peak in Colorado, and many people think it is one of the hardest to climb. One because it's a class 3 climb, and also because it's 15 miles and over 5000 ft of elevation gain. Since this weekend was fore casted to be 70 degrees, we thought we'd give it a go before winter really sets in.
We left our house at 4am so that we could be on the trail by 6am. We knew it was going to be a big day and wanted to get going as soon as possible. We ended up getting on the trail by 5:50am and plodded our way up the mountain by headlamp. The first two and a half miles are pretty smooth trail and take you up above the treeline.
After we broke the treeline, we started to get our first glimpse of sunlight to warm our cold bodies. That and we enjoyed a beautiful sunrise. The trail continues on to for a few miles until you reach the "Boulder Field". Just as the name implies, its a massive field of millions of boulders. As you make your way across it you end up hopping from boulder to boulder, trying to keep your balance and not break anything.
At the far end of the boulder field is what is known as the Keyhole, because it looks like, well, a keyhole. The keyhole is the starting point of the best part of the hike, in my opinion. After climbing through the keyhole, you traverse across the back side of the mountain on a skinny ledge. Off to your right is a very steep drop for thousands of feet. This type of exposure is what makes climbing mountains fun. The views are incredible.
After traversing quite a ways, you come to a steep couloir. The right side of the couloir was all ice and snow, but the left side was exposed rock and boulders. Since I purchased crampons this summer, I was able to walk straight up the ice. Sarah hasn't picked up a set yet, so she hung to the left side and scrambled up the rocks. After climbing back down this section and almost falling to her death, she's decided that she should purchase a pair pretty soon. After you climb through the top of the couloir, you traverse some more along another ledge until you reach this slick rock wall.
This is the last push to the top and was quite fun to climb, although coming back down was pretty scary.
The view from the summit was amazing, and we probably hung out for about 20 minutes before deciding to head back down. Neither of us really got tired until after we got back down through the boulder field. At that point we still had 2.5 hours of hiking left, but we were both exhausted from a lack of sleep. Physically it wasn't too hard, but having awaken at 3:30am was killing us. We ended up getting back to the car exactly 10 hours after we left and promptly drove out for sushi (hiking always makes us crave raw fish).
I think Long's Peak is one of my favorite 14ers that I've done so far. The first half of the hike is nothing spectacular, but once you cross through the keyhole, it's one of the coolest hikes in Colorado. If I were to do it again I would backpack it and camp two nights in the boulder field. that would allow more time to enjoy the views on the back side of the mountain and allow a night of rest before hiking that last 5 miles.
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