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| Signing in |
I hope you went to bed early last night! Set your first alarm for 1:55 your second alarm for 1:57 am.
When we got home after our light day yesterday we packed everything we were going to need for our big day and were in bed by 7 pm. What the heck do you pack for a 12 to 15 hour hike? Rain gear, fleece, long sleeve dry fit shirt, headlamp, extra batteries, energy bars, and 4 liters of water, gloves, and a hat. All if this comes in at about 25 pounds of pack.
On our 18 minute drive to the trail head the sprinkles are gathering on the windshield. This does not seem to be a good sign of fair weather. Today’s forecast is 40 % chance of rain. Super!
We have front row parking for our early morning start. If you remember last Saturday there were 360 some hikers who gave Longs Peak a try. We climbed out of the car and donned our head lamps. We decided to put rain coats on right away as there was no need to get sprinkled on. The temperature when we began was a balmy 62 degrees.
Kathi signed in at the trail head log and we left a note on the car seat. We also gave a call to a friend and told her if we did not call her back by 7 pm she should call the following emergency number. Well, I had never done that before taking a hike!
We tromped off into the darkness. Walking in the woods on a trail with headlamps is interesting. There is nothing to look at except the next rock. You would think that with only the rocks that are within your headlamp beam you would have ample time to not trip over anything. This simply is not the case. While you are looking at the eight inch rock sticking out, you trip over the four inch rock that was sticking out just to the left of the other. Ah well, mostly the trip is about gaining as much elevation as you can before dawn. We are moving right along but get passed by two younger hikers. They just bobbed their little ole lights up to us and pass us without any problems.
Before long we are above tree line and are hiking through the tundra. Usually leaving tree line you want to make a last chance potty break. Not so in the dark, potty breaks are really easy. No need to find sufficient shrubbery! Hiking above tree line you can see all of the other hikers who are above tree line bobbing along with their head lights. Every once and awhile you see a flash of a camera. We make it up past the junction of Chasm Lake and Boulder field junction. We continue on up toward the boulder field. As the horizon begins to brighten we can see that the valley is all draped with low hanging clouds. We are above one set of clouds, but below a higher set of clouds. Temperatures are dropping it is now 41 degrees. We run into two lights coming down the path. Two younger fellows had started at midnight. They had gotten as far as the boulder field and were suffering from high altitude sickness. Altitude sickness is nothing to play around with. Just get down and get down fast before the person is no longer responsive and then you can figure out how to drag or carry them down…
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| Aplaud |
As we were making our way up the shoulder of Lady Washington the dawn is breaking. As the burst of sun peaks over the horizon there are cheers from the hikers who are all on this side of Lady Washington. Those hikers just over the pass will have missed their chance to see the sun. The sun is visible for about twenty minutes before it rises up and behind the second bank of clouds. We press on after watching the sun rise for about five minutes. We still have a long way to the boulder field. We have to gain 3355 feet in elevation over a 6 mile hike to get to the base of the boulder field.
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| Look for all of the tents hidden in the rock walls. |
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| You can see tiny little people sitting up in the keyhole. It is a quarter mile up to the top. |
Sitting at the top if the Keyhole is remarkable. To the East side you have the whole Wild Basin and to the west side Glacier George. Sitting up at 13, 150 feet without any obstruction we can see it looks like it is raining off to the west. The breeze picks up some. But mostly the dark clouds do look troublesome. Ahead of us, are people are making their way down to the Trough which is a long steep gully of loose rock set at a 30 % grade up. Then to the section called the Narrows, which is wide enough for two people to walk side by side, but the drop off to one side is straight down… Next up the homestretch which a is polished 45 degree slab of granite, then Home free on top of the football sized peak of Longs. So close we can almost reach out and touch it. So close but this last portion takes a person two hours to climb. Certainly, the weather will not hold for the necessary four hours to get there and back. Wet granite is not any fun to try to perch yourself on, in fact it is quite slippery when wet. We knew if it looked stormy we would not go. As the sprinkles of rain begin and the temperatures get even colder we turn from the thought of going up and start to think about going down. While sitting at the second bull’s-eye of the trail markers we know that two hikers have died on this trail already this year. Going on would not be a sensible choice. I don’t know if it is tears of relief or regret filling my eyes but it is not a happy moment.
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| Sitting in the keyhole |
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| Skies to the west do not look so wonderful. Some rain is falling. |
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| Sitting at the second bullseye trail marker with teary eyes. |
Once down to the bottom of the jumble of boulders, we head to the privies, before starting the long hike down to tree line. My rule is never to miss a good opportunity to pee! As we are leaving the privy the sprinkles are less and less. Turning our attention to the sky, it is clear, the clouds have broken and soon the sun will be coming out. This burst of sun light is like a knife of sadness and misery. I had been praying the choice at the keyhole would be easy for us to make, no chance of regret. If it was windy, wet or chance of rain we would not go. The skies had been all dark and the sprinkles were on our jackets… Spending another hour climbing back up the Boulder Field and through the trough to the narrows to the homestretch would certainly put us in danger of early afternoon storms. No, with the heaviness of despair we turn for our hike home. Stopping to have to take off clothes because it is getting warmer does not improve our disposition. Tears and words from the effort spent only to be turned from a dream destination sting. The sunny sky is not helping.
We hike in silence for a long time.
I’m thinking about all of the work that goes into getting ready to try something like this. Hours and hours of cardio work, 100s of pushups every other day since January, 100’s of sit-ups on the opposite days of pushups, balance workouts, then all of the hiking miles, getting acclimated to higher and higher elevations. Less we not forget that although young at heart, our knees do display the yellowing price tag of age.
This is a big huge problem with having a destination rather than a journey. It is highly disappointing when you don’t get to the destination. Arrgh
By the time we hike downhill about 5 miles we are beginning to talk about trying to do this hike up Longs Peak again on Friday morning. We leave for Milwaukee Saturday morning. Another Longs attempt will mean: packing up for flying home on Thursday night, stopping at the grocery store to pick up some high protein/energy bars, going to bed early, get up at 12:55 rather than 1:55 and a good weather report… More than anything is the weather report.
We get to the trailhead sign and out in at the log book. We stop in at the ranger’s station and they all say the Keyhole is something to be really proud of. They also tell us that a group of rangers were going up to Long’s Peak by way of a different route and also turned back due to the aforementioned skies. This bit of news does only a small amount of repair on our damaged dream.
Dragging our feet along to the car we open it up to see my missing glove on the car seat. That must have dropped out when I took out my rain coat. Great! We drive into town and go to the Safeway parking lot. From the parking lot we call our emergency plan person and report that all is well. Great!
We drive one block back to the main drag park the car. We are going out for pizza. Pizza can heal a weary soul. Well perhaps pizza and a beer!
The storm does arrive but later in the evening. It was a good old evening thunderstorm.
We hardly notice. We are so tired from our early morning get up and shortened destination we are sound asleep by 7 pm.
9 hours and 36 minutes, 2853 calories burned, 12.5 miles hiked, 3770 feet elevation, 13150 ft above sea level.
Total miles hiked 118.3
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