Sometimes it is the little thing. I have climbed on Longs Peak perhaps 70 times in all kinds of weather by multiple routes. But one small goal has eluded me for years. You see, way back in the early days of Rocky Mountain National Park, an enterprising ranger named John Clark decided to help out his fellow climbers by painting an arrow directing climbers to the saddle between Longs Peak and Mt Meeker. The area is a rock filled gully and can be very confusing so some type of semi-permanent sign would have been useful. Of course today that would be illegal and considered graffiti!
Climbing Colorado 14ers in the winter is always a crap shoot. If the winds don’t get you, then the deep snow will. Recently I met up with a group assembled from the web community 14ers.com to climb the highest peak in Rocky Mountain National Park, Longs Peak at 14,256′. The plan was to meet up with another climber visiting from out of state. He was motivated to claim a winter summit of Longs. However, when we met up with him, he was suffering from mild AMS and smartly declined to go up. So our team of six made the climb continue reading
There are 58 Colorado peaks over 14,000′, so to pick one as your favorite is tough. I have climbed 51 of them so this may be a tad premature but here I go anyway. For years, I told anyone who asked that Longs Peak was my favorite. It had everything a mountain could offer: a variety of routes from easy to impossible, unpredictable weather, and amazing views. Longs will always be close to the top of my list. But in the late summer of 2009, another climb took the top spot – Capital Peak in the Elk Range of central continue reading
I love to climb or more specifically to be out in nature. This past week, I took a long climb to almost 13,000′ on Longs Peak in Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park. It was a rare winter day with mild temps in the high teens and virtually no wind – unheard of for Longs in January. The scenery of the snow covered Continental Divide was stunning as was the lightly peppered Diamond on Longs’ East Face. I was completely alone for the majority of the day. I had started just before sunrise and enjoyed watching the sun light up the continue reading
If you have explored my site, you know that Longs Peak is one of my favorite climbs. In under two hours, I can be on the trail at 9400′ and reach the summit at 14,256′ in a few hours on a good day. It has all types of routes from simple walkups to world-class technical trad climbing. And it offers the best and worst in mountaineering weather all year-round thus making for excellent training for Denali, Aconcagua or serious Himalayan climbs. Of all my pages on 14ers, I have more about Longs than any other since have climbed on it continue reading
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