Long's Peak




30 years ago Fred and I hiked Long's Peak in Rocky Mtn Nat'l Park. You can't do that any more.
These days, you have to CLIMB.







So Saturday, with son Heinz, I did. At 3:30 am we got the last parking space in the lot at the trail head. Headlamps on, we hiked up the trail.


The sign says it's 7.5 miles - which would apply if it was a hike. But the last 2 miles are rock scrambling:





Boulderfield (just what it sounds like);
(From Boulderfield on it is not a hike. Rocks tip and slide, thousands of boots have polished footholds, and from the Keyhole, it's mostly hands-and-feet climbing.)






through the Keyhole (pictured here on the approach from Boulderfield - a climb up tippy slabs of rock. Up there, the wind is fierce - but past the Keyhole you can put away your windbreaker.)









then The Ledges (from here you look up at Keyboard of the Winds, a craggy distraction from groping along the route from one "fried egg" mark on the rock to the next);








followed by the Trough which still has some snow/ice in it from heavy late storms (Just 2 days ago RMNP took down the sign requiring ice gear to summit); (Fred and I remembered the Trough as a high-altitude-gain plod, one foot in front of the other up a steep trail. Now it's clogged with rock-fall and gravel which make it slippery and dangerous both to step on and for anyone below.





There's a lot of below.
At the top of the Trough were some tricky rock climbing moves - I wished I were roped in. But Heinz, an experienced climber, gave me a hand negotiating the scary part, so I made it.
This is the view from up there.

Then one negotiates The Narrows, a series of moves on a steep exposed massif.





Now we're looking up at the Homestretch - a climb of another 150 feet will get us on top.










Heinz and I have arrived!



Long's is the tallest point for miles, 14,255 according to the USGS benchmark.
It's also a fearsome peak - you would not want to be there in rain, wind or a thunderstorm. In fact, you wouldn't want to be anywhere above timberline on this rocky mountain in bad weather.






But we saw plenty of wildlife: a herd of elk, marmots everywhere, pikas (an alpine rodent resembling a chinchilla), ravens, swifts, other small birds and even a ptarmigan. The marmots were plentiful and we wondered what they eat on the rocky summit of Long's - but there they were.

Ernesto in the Rockies

Once the offspring are out of your house, you can look forward to visits. Ernesto traveled West last week to pay a call on us in our e-partment, and to see his brother Heinz. Ernesto's girlfriend Ruby came too, her first trip to Colorado.

Ernesto, Ruby and I went hiking in the Rockies.
Above timberline it was windy but a fine day for hiking. When we stopped for lunch in the shelter of some rocks we tried to attract the curious pikas with tortilla chips - but they were too skittish.


Though our trail ran mostly through National
Forest Land, we did cross briefly into Rocky
Mountain National Park - whether by design or
chance, that short portion of our hike offered the best views of the high peaks. Here you can see the south side of Long's Peak - not Colorado's highest peak by any means, but one of the most spectacular - Long's has the large flat summit.

Its false summit Mt. Meeker stands to its right (southeast). From this vantage we're right at timberline where the vegetation changes from limber and bristlecone pines to alpine tundra and lots of rocks.



On our hike down, we paused by a stream to
admire the wildflowers, including Indian paintbrush - in this picture the eight-inch-high flowers dwarf a baby blue spruce tree.

We also saw tiny birds, a hunting hawk and a great many other wildflowers - it's been a wet late spring (snow through the end of May in the mountains) which has kept the high country green unusually late into the summer. We saw a couple of snowbanks but most have melted by now, feeding the small streams.

No Ernesto visit would be complete without Scrabble -

here's our aesthetic point for the post:

Ernesto played his final tray with DROLLER, making 3 additional words in the process and coming from behind to win.

He didn't like my triple word score bingo REARGUES so I suppose his word was revenge.