Our first fourteener, Long's Peak 14,259'

Hiking and Climbing the fourteeners(mountains above 14,000ft) in Colorado is something that we started late in the season this year. On August 18, 2012 we decided to climb Long's peak, while Long's gets a lot of visitors daily in summer it  isn't your run-of-the-mill hike. We choose to take the Keyhole route since it is arguably most popular route to take by beginning climbers. Due to the supposedly 15 mile round trip length of this journey, we started our hike at around 4 am in the utter darkness. To give you an idea of just how dark it was the below picture was what we could see with our flashlight.

 The sun began to rise about 6:15 and was probably one of the best sunrises I've seen in my life. We had just broken tree line so we were able to sit for a second and get a unobstructed view.

Shortly after we arrived at the first trail break, which gives a good overlook to Peacock pool. The view also gives onlookers an idea of what "The Diamond" route encompasses. "The Diamond" is a true climber's route that includes about a thousand foot, vertical face. Needless to say, I won't be attempting it any time this year.

The next step in the hike is a tedious one, a 1.7 mile gradually switchback trail leading to the Boulder field. Boulder field leads to the "Keyhole" that this route gets it's name from. One thing I learned about naming trends out west is most of the time a section of land has the most literal nickname possible. Unless it starts with a religious reference such as Devil's, Satan's, and Angel's those just tell you something either high, deep, dangerous, or beautiful, and those are thrown around a lot in parks. Anyway, this Boulder field is literally a large ascending elevation field of progressively bigger boulders, leading up to a seemingly cut out square in the ridge line you must climb over to get to the next "trail" installment. It wasn't my favorite.

Once you make it over the Keyhole things start to look up, as in the view is astonishing. We were under the impression that we had made it half way at this point and the the narrows were in fact on the other side of this Keyhole. Which was... wrong, we were only around a third of the way. Though we wouldn't have cared because climbing up and down the rocks was so exhilarating, and the scenery was enough to brighten up anyone's day. After some hobbling to and through finding the bulls-eye marked trail we began to approach the trough, where the trail started to get harder. The trough was a little harder because we started to feel the hike in our lungs and took frequent breaks, making it the most time consuming piece of our hike. I only managed to take one picture of the trough, and my camera was freaking out a little from the incoming fog.

After our very slow ascent of the trough came the Narrows, which yes, is literally a stretch of narrow trail next to a drop off. When we conquered the narrows came the scariest part for me... the homestretch. The homestretch was a tad frightening because it's a couple hundred feet of altitude gain at a likely 45 degree angle. I couldn't handle it at first, then I saw this 8-10 year old child zip past me and I pulled it together. 

After the Homestretch we reached the most majestic sight of the day, the summit. We took a few pictures, tried not to nap like everyone up there, then began the descent. Which took less time than the ascent but was more painful on the joints. We also ran out of food at the summit, so we were beyond starving the whole way down. 

Through all the whining and groaning up and down, this trip was absolutely worth it. We look forward to completing more fourteeners as soon as they thaw out enough for us beginners. Thanks for reading and happy trails.
-Kate

P.S. If you'd like to see Tony's video compilation of this hike here she blows,

Fauna:

Pika

Yellow-bellied Marmot

Snowshoe Hare

Abert's Squirrel

Least Chipmunk

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