Last Day:Black Lack and Lock Vale

July 22, 2011  Black Lack and Lock Vale

Miles 11.8                    Total miles …………141.4

This morning we hear on the news that the temps today will approach 100 in the Denver area.  The weather forecaster talks briefly about the heat that is oppressing the entire Midwest.  Seems like there have been lots of extreme weather this year.  The cold hanging on so long, late snow falls, rains that will not move out, floods, and now heat wave.  We look out our window by the kitchen table and see deep blue skies and know we are in for a wonderful last day of hiking in this magnificent land. 

The hike that we are going on today is full of splendor and majesty.   The hike up to Black lake gives hikers a great view of Glacier Basin and sitting at the head of the basin is Longs Peak.  While heading up to Mills Lake you get to hike up past Alberta Falls.  And of course since the snow is still with us, the falls are just ripping and spritzing water mist everywhere! We have the falls pretty much to ourselves so we shoot a couple of pictures.  This is a very popular destination for visitors who what to see something, but not have to hike very far.  With the deep blue sky the view is splendid.  I’m sure it will be crawling with people when we get back.

Alberta Falls

We cross a few bridges that have been replaced this year due to snow, ice or tree damage.  Remember these ‘bridges are usually a log that has been laid across the river bed and flattened on one side.  Sometimes the bridges are high class with a railing on them.  I guess the closer you are to a trailhead the more railing you see.  On the other side of the falls the railings are no more.  Also the large rocks in the trail also increase after we get above the falls.  You can tell when the park service feels that the trails do not need to be ‘groomed’ for the one or two mile hikers.  After this point you just have to step on or over the protruding rocks and roots to move on the trail.  But the park service is usually very good about chain sawing any trees that lay across the trail.

The last bridge to Mills Lake is a log that needs replacing, as it has some damage to it.  But if you walk slowly and don’t get the log bouncing you have a good chance of making it across with hearing a CRACK.

Mill's Lake with branch pointing up to Long's Peak

Mill's Lake

Mill’s is a picture perfect example of what you would want in a hike and a mountain view.  The large looming mountains surrounding a lake; Longs Peak standing at the head of the basin, water falls actively running down the sides of the mountain, making their refreshing falling sound.  The majesty is all around.  We stop and have a good gander, take some pictures, pause to see if our eyes can see anyone going up the trough to summit Long’s.  Of course it is too far away and we must be kidding ourselves to think our eyes are that good!

We continue back past Jewel Lake and then continue out towards Black Lake.  We are wondering if we will be able to get up the trail that runs right next to the waterfalls at the back of Black Lake so we can go hike on up to Green Lake.  As we are wondering about the snow that might exist back there, I am reminded that the hike from Jewel to Black is a very rolling hike.  You need to gain some 800 feet in elevation.  I think you gain it by going up 50 feet then down 75 feet, back up 100 feet and so on until you finally have all 800 gained.  This is all while you are in the woods with an occasional view of the cascading creek just off to your right.

There were about 5 snow fields along the way that we needed to negotiate.  At least this time enough people had tromped through the snow so we did not have to stop and look around to find our way to the next melted out section of trail.  We have a laugh and giggle about how much of this trail we forgot as our last trip through was taken at warp speed due to a very active lightening and thunder storm just above our heads.  We should be safe today as there is at this point, still not a cloud in the sky.  Well at least in the limited view of the sky that we have from the trees.  If you need a good laugh go back and re-read our blog about Black and then Blue Lake from last year.  It was a hike that we learned a lot about lightening and the great outdoors…

When we arrive at the falls coming out of Black Lake we are greeted with a large wall of snow covering part of the falls, along with the entire trail leading up to the Lake.  We know the trail well enough to know that we want to venture way to the left of the water falls.  We watch two guys slip and slide their way up the snow.  Kathi and I put on our ice stabilizers and make a new trail further left than the two guys before us.  There is no sense in taking a chance and being as close as those two guys were to the waterfalls.  No problem we walk right up the snow bank.

Black Lake is all melted out; we walk across the large boulders that lead to the back of the lake.  We take a quick peak up towards were we will need to hike to get to Green Lake.  We see snow.

But is it lunch time, so we sit on a lovely rock and eat ½ a lunch while enjoying the cirque of Black Lake.  We pull out the topo and identify all of the surrounding mountains peaks before taking a closer look at the hike up towards Green.

Upon closer look we decide to go further up would be silly as the trail is right on the bank of the rushing creek and it is all snow filled, but the creek is running full.  There is no guessing if the snow bridge will hold or not.  We decide to take advantage of the blue sky day and hike back to Mills Lake then up to Loch Vale.   The weather is perfect and it is the last day.

Black Lake

When we get back to the stepping boulders that lead out of Black Lake we meet up with a group of 7 ladies.  They are all members of the Colorado Hiking Club.  They go hiking every Thursday or Friday whichever works best for the most people.  We take turns taking pictures of each others groups.  Then we head on out as a group of 9.  Since Kathi and I had our ice stabilizers we were able to kick some very nice switchback steps into the snow for the other ladies.  They enjoyed that very much and were very grateful. 

We came to a point where the trail is a small bottleneck scramble down a very large wet slippery boulder.  Our group of 9 is waiting for a group of 2 to come up. We are suddenly over taken by a rude man who just barges through our group of 9 to get to the bottle neck spot. He skips to the front of the line even though everyone else is playing nice. As a teacher of over 500 elementary kids, I just love natural consequences for poor choices.  It makes my job much easier… Skipper Man slipped and landed very hard on his rear end!  It looked to me like he will be visiting the chiropractor to adjust his tailbone.  The 2 people on the bottom of the bottle neck gave Skipper Man a 9.8 on the landing.  Our group just gave him a wave as he picked himself up and watched him scamper off into the wooded trail.  His rear end was all wet and I am sure after he got deeper back into the wooded trail he must have stopped to rub his rear…that had to hurt!

Kathi and I stopped back at Mills Lake out on a huge rock that was right on the shore.  Here we had the other half of our lunch.  Kathi took a cat nap and I futzed with my boots and put away my ice stabilizers which were hanging off of the outside of my pack.  I’m not much for a nap in the middle of the day.  The sky is still blue and no clouds in sight.  We never lounge like this but it is the last day and we are trying to soak in enough beauty to last for another year.

After a good amount of napping and lounging, Kathi is ready to resume the trip up to the Loch.  The loch trail is only .8 of a mile away from the junction, but first you have to hike down to the junction and then hike up the .8 while gaining in elevation to the loch.  Along the way we pass two very large groups of teenagers who must be part of some summer camp adventure.  There were two hikers about twenty feet behind the two groups.  They said we will be able to enjoy the lake now as it must have been rollicking with the over exuberance of teenagers.  I think good thing Kathi took that cat nap or we would not have enjoyed the teenage rollicking on our sit and soak up the beauty of our last day in the mountains. 

Arriving at the Loch we have to once again go up and over a very large snow field.  I can’t imagine how long it will take for that to melt out even with the heat wave.  I’m thinking the snow had to be twenty feet deep yet in this snow field.  We sit on a rock that has a great view of Andrews Glacier and Timberline Falls.  Timberline Falls and Andrews Glacier are favorite places of ours, but the snow will not allow safe travel to either place.  We sit and soak up the view.  There is a fly fisherman working the small inlet to our left. It is the first time ever, for all of the fisherman we have seen cast their line in hopes of catching a fish in these mountain lakes, to actually catch one.  We saw him land it, but he never held it up for us.  We asked how big it was and he said about a 12 incher.  He said it was his fourth catch of the day. 

Loch Vale with Andrews Glacier in the back. Trail back there is still fence post snow.

Loch Vale with Timberline Falls in the background also closed due to snow

Ahh, what a vacation!  Some people go to the beach and lie around, some drive the USA and see the sites of Route 66, some travel to Europe, and I suppose some people do not vacation. Kathi and I walk the hills, mountains, and valley’s looking at the beauty, smelling the freshness, and touching Earths greatness.  We said our good byes and turned our back on a magnificent view to head back down the mountain, back to the cabin, and back to our home.

Truck parked in front of our cabin

Another two weeks of adventure is over.  We have seen much and stretched ourselves to greater limits.  We have completed the Long’s Peak adventure so that can be removed from the bucket list.  I wonder what will replace that item in the bucket list…

REI new purchases:

Ice stabilizers…used them

Water purifier…used it

Headlamp…used it

Sock liners for boots…used them

Quick dry pack towel…used it

New GORTEX hiking boots…used them

Water proofing for boots…used it twice

Tying up loose ends: the truck and its change oil dinger continued to ring the entire vacation.  Upon returning to National Car rental we told them about it.  Told  them we had to add a quart of oil as it was also low. We tried to mention that we had put 1200 miles on since the dinger had started.  The lady with the electronic check-in gadget asked if we still had the receipt for the oil.  I said no I did not have it.  No worries, she just gave us a $15 credit and said she hoped we had had a good trip.          Well, yes, I guess we did. 

Bear, Helena, Odessa, Fern Lake loop

July 21, 2011  Bear, Helena, Odessa, Fern lake loop 

9.2 miles hiked                         Total miles 129.6

Today we take the beautiful loop hike of Bear Helena, Odessa, and Fern Lake.  This has been one of my favorite hikes here at RMNP.  You take the bus up to Bear Lake and start it from there.  You gain 1300 feet of elevation before loosing all of that plus more.  You most defiantly want to start this hike from Bear Lake because it is a nasty climb going up from Fern!  The Rangers at Beaver Meadow must be telling people to hike this from Fern on up as we meet a lot of people hike this the hard way!  I am assuming they thin the snow fields are impassible coming down from Odessa to Fern.

We are about 20 minutes into the hike when we pass three people from WI.  We stop and chat and find they are on a redo hike.  Some 20 years ago they took this hike and the boy who is now 28 found himself in some state of hypothermia.  The father took him down and got him wrapped up and out of the weather so he could get warmed up.  The mother had continued on up to the top with the daughter.  Today they were off to the top of Flattop to make good on the 20 year old adventure.  The Mom and Dad were both retired and worked at Miller Park back in Wisconsin.  They invited us to come to the park and look them up.  Loge level, first base side, just ask at the Tiki Bar for Victor and he will set us up!  Geez hiking is such a great people mixer.  We wish them good luck with their big redo adventure.  We hope to catch up with Victor at a Brewers game and see if they completed their bucket list challenge.  Lord knows I have had to go back and redo a few hikes…It proves better to get it right the first time.

We press on up towards Lake Helena.  The vistas seem clearer today and we have heard that the weather of Monsoon thunderstorms everyday is predicted to break soon.  We hike up to our first major snow field to find a father and son standing and looking for where the trail goes next.  Kathi and I have a lot of experienced with this type of game…  I place a mark on the gps and we start searching.  With in a minute Kathi has the trail located.  We flag down the father and son and continue along towards Helena.  After all of yesterdays practice this was hardly a challenge that the Father was making it out to be. 

Our snow bridge game

Notch Top Mt.

We find Helena is open, but the whole area is covered in snow.  So we laid down a gps mark and went in search of the back of the lake.   Along the way we find a great opportunity to play snow bridge hurl.  After a few rocks we go on back and find an exceptional snack spot.  From here we can see notch top and the side of the little Matterhorn.  This is a very beautiful spot and because it is all snowed in, we have the place to ourselves.  I’m sure that unless you know exactly where this secret hideaway is, you would not venture back into this behind the lake scene with out following a trail.  With out the snow there are several faint trails that would suggest where to go.  This a big ole pile of snow, you only go if you know where to go.  We have been back here many times so it is all familiar.  After a snack and some pictures, we pack up and head down towards Odessa Lake.

Snow bridge by Odessa

The downhill gives us a great opportunity to look around.  We did have a few snow crossings, but nothing like yesterday.  The father and son from earlier were digging some really big steps into the snow crossing.  They took all of the danger out of the crossing.  I could see how someone who did not know how to walk on snow might be challenged by this crossing.  We make it down to the junction for Lake Odessa.  Heading down the Odessa trail we soon find ourselves stopped by a massive snow bridge.  We are standing on the edge of the trail with the raging river at our toes.  Standing with us are three lady hikers from the Colorado Hiking Club.  They are also wondering the sturdiness of the snow bridge.  The trail to Odessa is right next to the river in a tight ravine.  At some point closer to the lake there is a log across this river so you can cross over for the best view of the lake.  We are standing at a spot that does not receive much direct sun light and since it is a pretty tight space it becomes a bottle neck for the snow to build up during a snow storm.  The snow bridge looks very questionable.  We would have to side step up the edge of the snow bridge or perhaps trail grabbing on to tree limbs for support and then at some point take a step of faith onto the snow hoping the snow bridge would hold us… With five of us now standing there we took a vote and we all voted- no.  Even though Odessa is a magnificent place to be, the chance of falling through the snow bridge is too high and surviving the fall into the rushing river was about 0 %.

We continue down to Fern Lake to settle in on its splendor.  Sitting there having lunch we think back through this past two weeks.  We think forward to what we should do next year.  During these last days of our hiking adventure is when we begin to dream about what is possible for next year…Hmmm, I’m turning 50 so it should be something special.  But what would be special, something we have never seen or something we want to see again?

Fern Lake with Notch Top Mt in the back

We tromp on down the trail going past the waterfalls, the pool, and large boulder rocks that look like they have fallen from the sky to get there.  After that it is a long tromp out to the shuttle bus.  We just missed the bus so had to wait almost 20 minutes before the next one came.  The ride back up to the park and ride takes almost 30 minutes.  Most of which I took a nap.  It reminded me of taking the school bus when I was back in school.  It moved slowly, it made many stops, and it was stuffy warm on the bus. The temps today were in the 80’s and the shuttle was not air conditioned, I think my body is still tired from Longs; I just tilt my head over against the window and snooze.  My dreamy thoughts remind me of all I have seen with my eyes, stepped on or over with my feet.  The magnificence of it all is overwhelming…How Blessed we are to be able to do see it and touch it.

Fern Falls

Lake Isabelle up toward Pawnee Pass

July 20, 2011 Lake Isabelle Up toward Pawnee Pass

In the Brainard Lake area right out of Ward, CO 

Hiked 8.5 miles            Total Miles 120.4

After yesterday’s epic adventure today is gong to be kind of boring!  We know we will need to get up and get that lactic acid build up out of our system and have a recuperation day. We declared a “sleep until you wake up” day.  I woke up at 6 am…  I did not feel too bad considering I ached about everywhere you could ache last night.  Kathi was still asleep; I went out in to the living space of the cabin and started trying to stretch-out. It is amazing how far away those toes can get!  I got wondering how a couple of hours with a massage therapist might feel right now.  Instead I had brought a tennis ball along and decided I could apply my own version of deep muscle massage.  I got a good half hour of self applied deep muscle massage and stretching in before Kathi woke up.  Kathi said her knee was rather tender so I tossed her the ball. 

We needed to go on a recovery hike.  So we ate a leisurely breakfast and headed towards the Indian Peaks Wilderness Area by Brainard Lake.  It is very close to Ward, CO about an hours drive from Estes.  The road is very windy; it is part of the Peak to Peak drive in Colorado.  As we are driving we are so thankful that we went up Longs yesterday as the winds are blowing pretty steady at 20 miles per hour with some higher gusts.  The winds make the aspen tree leaves flutter and look very beautiful, but we are wondering how the Long’s climbers are doing today.  We are pretty sure there will be lots of people turning back at the Keyhole today.  Longs Peak has been reclassified from a hike to hike with a class 3 climb.  They did this as seven people died up on Long’s last year.  I suppose there were too many people thinking that all of the warning signs did not apply to them…Seriously, it is a climb.

Lake Isabelle is a lake that might seem familiar to some of you as it is used as the main picture on the Colorado map, brochures and in many books that may be laying around on coffee tables. 

You drive up all of the elevation and get out of your car at 10,500 feet.  The hike is a lovely hike along Long Lake then up past a roaring stream until you get your first vistas of the water fall coming out of a snow bridge from Lake Isabelle.  It seems almost as if the Forest service cut down a few trees to help improve the vista.  Shortly after this we meet a couple who might be in their mid 70’s.  We wait for them to come up a short patch of snow.  They stop and ask if we have been to Lake Isabelle before.  We say no.  They say we are in for a real treat, but there is lots of snow…

Outlet stream from Long Lake

Lake Isabelle on a very windy day.

We continue on up and like turning on the light switch we find out first big patch of snow.  Easily crossing this patch we get a good look at Lake Isabelle.  It is beautiful!  We hop around the end of the lake and take some great pictures.  If you decide to ever visit this lake go early in the summer because this lake is used as a water reservoir. They drain water from it and draw it down to a mud pit later in the summer.  The lake is very full now; some of the trail is well below the water line. There were even a couple of ice bergs floating in the very cold water.   Due to the very heavy snow fall this past May the lake is still shrouded in snow.  Some of the trail sticks out to sort of give you a clue on were you should be headed.  So we head across the snow always in search of the trail.  We find the trail junction for Pawnee Pass and think that we might be able to hike above tree line and get out of the snow.  So for about an hour and a half we searched and found bits and pieces of the trail, but mostly we found snow crossing after snow crossing.  The snow crossing would end, we would find ten feet of trail and the next snow field would begin.  We had to put on our new snow stabilizers and cross some real doozies of snow crossings.  By doozy I mean ice imbedded in the snow and a very steep angle.  The kind you look down below and run calculations on your ability to get yourself stopped before you crash into the rocks.

Putting on our ice stablizers

There is some guy in front of us that had crampons on.  He must know where he is going as he does not stop to find the trail.  He just heads straight up the snow field.  We finally throw in the white towel and give up trying to find where we are suppose to be headed.  The common sense in my mind would lead me to think we could have hiked up and out of the snow, by getting above the tree line.  But it is not so here!  We have no desire to head straight up the next snow crossing.  It would take us a series of switchbacks in the snow field to get up the cliff that is ahead of us.  We sit down and have lunch then turn back.  The gps is very handy in finding our way back.  At one point we do not want to re-cross a snow field that we felt was too dangerous, so we take a lower less severe angle at the crossing.  Well we crossed the snow field in a safer way, but then had to kick step our way back up to the top as we were sort of on an island and not close to where we needed to be.   Ok, well that idea did not seem any safer in the long run. 

Pawnee pass is still above us and we are headed to the next snow field.

Lake Isabelle from above.  Large chunk of ice still in the lake.

Good thing there was a log here as this creek was running hard and fast!

We manage to get ourselves back down to Lake Isabelle to have the second part of our lunch.  We are able to sit on a rock and watch two sets of two head up and over a large snow field towards what we understand is the way to Isabelle Glacier.  That would have been a second hike we could have done today, but we thought we could out hike the snow.  I think they will have snow until it starts to snow again this fall.  Some day we will go and see that glacier, but it will involve way less snow!  This place is beautiful and new.  It will be a wonderful place to visit when the snow is less, but before they drain it into a mud pit…

We head back to Estes it has been a wonderful recovery day!  Not a lot of calories burned or elevation gained, but slow steady revitalization of body and mind.

Longs Peak- The Rest of the Story

July 19, 2011 Longs Peak Continued J           16 miles round trip        111.9  Total Miles

“From the Keyhole locate the first of a series of red and yellow ‘bull’s eye’ markings indicating the best route to and from the summit.  Travel across a series of very narrow ledges along a cliff edge.  Carefully climb a constricted slot-like section with two iron bars drilled into the rock.  Continue upward toward the high point along the Ledges section. Then follow a gradually descending traverse to the base of the Trough.  Take note of the Ledges/Trough junctions, as some climbers have had difficulty locating this point while on decent.” RMNP Long Peak brochure

Kathi and I move down the ledges about 100 feet.  Believe me the first 100 feet should thin the crowd out considerably!  There is a “skinny mans delight”, “fat mans misery” right off the bat!  If you go one way your hinder is hanging off very ‘exposed’ and if you go the other way you need to be pretty skinny.  I fell into the group that had to ‘expose’ myself to the edge of the cliff rather than slip through between the mountain and this large rock.  This is the part where exposure means very close to the edge of the cliff rather than put a warmer jacket and mittens on because it is cold outside.  100 feet seems like a long way.  Kathi and I met and confer.  The wind has stopped.  I decide if I can make it past that last rock, how much worst could it be…  Certainly, by now I should know in life … there are always more challenges.

The ledges description really sums it up.  If you slipped and fell from here you would tumble.  Tumble downward at a pretty steep angle such as a double black diamond on a ski hill for about 200 feet.  Problem is there are large chunky rocks down there that will do great damage to your body.  There is a good amount of incentive to pay attention to every hand hold and foot placement.  Kathi is moving and grooving ahead of me and nice enough to stop and offer words of encouragement or helpful pointers along the way.  I am busy staying in the moment and when I need a break I only stop where I feel I have room to pause and take in the beauty of the moment.  I am able to look down into Glacier Basin and see where we were last year when we got chased out by a whopper of a storm.  This leads my brain to think I better look across the sky and do some weather forcasting…  Looks like low level clouds are starting to settle in the valleys.  I wonder to myself what that really means… I ask Kathi if she is keeping an eye on the weather.  She says she is, I will just have to let her keep an eye on the weather because I need mine to see where I should put my hands and feet on every move. 

Weather moving in...

This might be a good time to mention that we meet the two young 20 year old whippier snappers who passed us on the boulder field earlier.  Clearly they will have been to the top and back down before it is time for brunch!

We make it through the ledges and get to the trough.

“Continue up to the broad gulley called the Trough.  This section is full of loose rock.  Be careful of other climbers and rock fall.  At the top of the Trough, you will come to a short steep section to the start of the Narrows.” RMNP Long Peak brochure

Let’s just call the Trough a steep wide gully filled with loose gravel, sand, scree, talus, large rocks the size of basketballs, and some attached rocks.  Since you are now an experienced climber, (remember you just finished the ledges and survived so that moves you up to ‘experienced’) you get to evaluate every rock and test whether you want to place your entire weight upon it to take the next step up.  While Kathi and I are busy testing, stepping and moving up the trough the clouds are busy seeping up into our immediate trough and up to the ledges.  Kathi says she is keeping and eye on it.  I don’t know it looks pretty foggy to me.  The sky above is bright blue.  Where is that personal weather forecaster number when you need it?

We have one other person going up and five people coming down.  We all share the trough.  Of  the five coming down, one is a Father son combo, both have helmets.  The Father had the wits scared out of him on the homestretch.  The next set of three must be a father son combo who hired a professional guide to take them up to the peak.  The guide is belaying the father and son down through the hard parts.  I asked the guide if he wanted to belay me through the tough parts.  He said he was busy right now taking a group down.  I asked the father/ son if they wanted to go back up with me.  They said very quickly, NO.  The guide said I would have a few more challenges along the way.  Hmmm what does he mean by that.

The ledges.

Trough





We arrive at the top of the trough to find the guy in front of us sitting down at the base of a large boulder.  He said that could not get up either side of the boulder.   RMNP has a name for this boulder they call it the “bottle neck”, as it causes a back up of people trying to figure out how to get up and over… but I call it “The Boulder of Denial”.  You can either go up the slippery side to the right which all of the foot and hand holds are about 1/8 inch deep. Or you can go up and around to the left side which has some very amazing tricky hand and feet movement that are necessary to scale the “Boulder of Denial”.  The guy who was sitting there had tried both and could not seem to manage it.  Kathi had asked the ranger below which way he went around the rock and he said he always went to the right.  Within four seconds Kathi had managed to use the 1/8^th inch grooves and pulled herself up to the top side of the boulder.  The guy who was sitting there was now standing with me with the same gaping mouth face.  As if on cue we both said “how did you do that?” 

Kathi of course said you just use those grooves to hoist yourself up.  Oh sure, just do that!  The guy and I look at each other, the guy and I can see that those grooves are not deep enough for a boot and yet Kathi is up on top and we are on the bottom.  The guy tries to help me up, I get about five feet off of the ground and then slip FAST back down the five feet.  Denied!  I go and examine the left side.  Meanwhile the guy somehow manages to follow Kathi’s instructions and is now also standing on top of the “The Boulder of Denial”.  The guy continues on and Kathi comes to the left side of the boulder to offer helpful hints.  This side seems worse as I feel like I am going to fall and falling from here would leave a very lasting impression.  At this point I am ready to have Kathi go on without me and I would meet up with her later. (This thought causes me great angst as I had to re-do a couple of hikes in the past as they were out of my league at that time. I have no great desire to re-do this hike/climb). I am perched on top of some ledge with my rear end “exposed” and I am trying to pull myself together.  Really why couldn’t some ranger come up with a rock chisel and make those grooves deeper.  Seriously, they put bridges over the rushing water to help people across, why not three or four groove improvements.  I manage to get myself back down to a safer spot.  I say a prayer and ask God for calm clear thinking.  Kathi comes down the “The Boulder of Denial”, gives me a boost, and just like that I am on top of that “The Boulder of Denial”.  Kathi’s is up right behind me.  Her thoughts are, “great, let’s get moving”, my thoughts turn to, “how in the world are we going to get down that?”  Can you tell by now that I enjoy hiking and climbing is just not my thing? 

By the time we get past the “The Boulder of Denial”the fog has lifted, the sun is shining.

The Narrows crosses a sheer vertical rock face on a narrow ledge.  A series of boulders and hand holds will assist you on this constricted ledge.  Continue to the base of the Homestretch. RMNP Long Peak brochure

Up the Home Stretch

The Ranger said this is as wide as a sidewalk with a 1,000 foot down edge.  Hah, this seemed more like two rows of tile down a long hallway.  There are some very nice hand holds, I know because I used every one of them!  I certainly would not have been too happy if I would have had to past any one!  The Narrows are correctly named narrow.  I will let the pictures speak as words can not describe what it is.

“The homestretch is a polished granite slab that guards the summit.  This section requires scrambling with your hands and feet.  This section can have ice and snow throughout the summer.  Although many options exit, the bull’s eye will generally provide you with the best route to the summit.” RMNP Long Peak brochure

This is a 45 degree slab of up.  You are on all fours climbing up through tiny slots that if you are lucky you can stick a boot into, but most times just try to wedge your boot toe in, step up, and reach for the next hand hold.  There is some water running down it at spots, but it seems you can avoid it on the way up.  Of course Kathi is thinking about summiting, and I am thinking about how in the world are going to get down this?

We make the summit some 8 hours and 6 minutes after starting.  It is flat, rocky, high, sunny and calm.  We sign in at the register and shoot some pictures.  We have lunch and talk with the guy we have been following.  He asks us if we saw the lightening this morning.  We said we decided it was a camera.  He said that there was lightening way off to the east and he could see the storm was off towards Denver.  We laugh and tell him we thought it was a camera flash…

Now for the happy news…  We are only half way done with this hike.

When going to the shoot to enter the slippery face of the home stretch we had to wait for three young people to finish their accent.  First guy was wearing Chaco sandals, second guy was wearing crocs, and the girl with them was wearing low cut walking shoes.  Really, I said to them that when they get older like me they are going to wish they made different choices in foot wear J  The Chaco guy said he had heard this was a rough trail, so he did wear socks, other wise he would not have…  It is hard to argue with that kind of reasoning.  Kathi and I head on down to the home stretch to begin the second half of the hike.

I will describe the trip back to the Keyhole as I was moving down on all fives most of the time.  Just like a crab walks, only you sit and drag your butt.  There were some very interesting moves to get back, but we made it back to the bottom of the boulder field in 11 hours and 58 minutes.  Our hands are very raw from all of the holding on, our minds are tired from the intense attention to task, knees are achy, and toes say enough.  We are only to the Boulder Field down by the pit toilet and we stop to see if we have phone service.  We do!  We call Polly and tell her all is well, and we have made it up and back.  She is surprised that we called so soon.  She does not know that we have almost 6 miles to go before we are back to the truck.  But these six miles are only hiking and not dangerous.  Who would have ever thought there would be cell service up here.  We can hardly get cell service in town.

15 hours and 17 minutes back to the truck.

We are exhausted and happy about summiting.  I know there is no good reason to ever go back up to the top of Long’s Peak.

I bet there are other 14,000 foot mountains that I should go to before ever repeating this one!!! In fact I think there are 50 some 14er’s in CO to give a try first!

This is in case you do not know where the exit off of the top is...

Looking across the distance, clouds are low.

On the Summit you see this!

Signing in as a Summiteer!

Now, any ideas on how to get down?  Going down from the Homestretch to the Narrows.

These are the narrows which the Ranger said were as wide as the sidewalk. I think balance beam is more like it!

Summit



Can you see the face shape in the vertical rock?  Look center right at the top of the vertical lines.



There are not many people who can say they made it to the top of Long’s, but Kathi and I are in the club.

Down off of the Boulder Field replenishing our water supply

We were just up at the top of that!