Steps in the Right Direction: 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!