climb – Page 2 – Wild Wanderer

Redcloud Peak – 14,034, Sunshine Peak – 14,001, Handies Peak – 14,048

Quick Notes:

·
If you’re thinking about making Redcloud and
Sunshine a loop and it isn’t winter, don’t.

·
Don’t do the loop unless you LOVE, LOVE, LOVE
gullies (I don’t love gullies)

·
If you do decide to do the loop, wear a helmet
and crampons (for the rocks & scree, not snow)

·
Don’t do the loop

Since I’m not a fan of sleeping at trailheads I woke up at
midnight and drove five and a half hours to the Grizzly Gulch/Silver Creek
trailhead. I missed a turn (I blame the
lack of signs) and ended up not making it to the trailhead until 6:30am, which
meant I didn’t start until 6:45am. This
is the latest start I’ve ever had on a 14er.
Yes, I was pretty mad at myself.
In any event, here’s what the rough 2WD road to the trailhead looks
like:

There were a few bumpy spots, and a lot of puddles. Unless your car is lowered, it can probably
make it.

OK, so I started at 6:45am, which meant the sun was already
out. Here’s the trailhead
parking/bathroom situation.

As I was leaving my car I saw a man rushing down the
hill. Apparently his friend was visiting
from out of state, and he’d forgotten the beer at his car. Luckily they weren’t too far into the trail
when he realized his mistake, and he was rushing back to get it. I wished him luck, and silently thought to
myself it would probably be a better idea to enjoy the beer after successfully
making it back to the vehicle. I any
event, I appreciated his enthusiasm.

The trail up was very well maintained

And the aspens are just starting to change color.

The first part of this hike follows the Silver Creek. It was absolutely beautiful in contrast to
the red rocks.

For reference to those of you who do choose to do the loop,
here’s where you either turn right to go up Sunshine first, or where you come
out after making the loop. It wasn’t
obvious, as it just looks like a trail to the creek. Note the placement of the mountains in the
back.

The trail did include a lot of scree

Once I reached the basin the trail evened out for a bit,
then climbed up to the right.

Here you can see Redcloud

It’s important when you get to the saddle to turn
right. A lot of people were turning left
to head to a beautiful 13er, but it isn’t on the trail to Redcloud.

Here’s a look at the trail up Redcloud. As you can see, it has a false summit (right)
and true summit (left).

And once again, a view of the false and true summit

From the saddle the final push wasn’t too bad

I took a shadowselfie because I do that type of thing

And a picture of me at the summit.

I had the summit all to myself. The pair of guys hiking behind me was about a
mile behind me at this point.

I turned and looked south to Sunshine Peak. It was a good mile and a half to this summit.
It looked like another double summit was
in order!

Take note here for those of you who wish to make this a loop
instead of crossing back over Redcloud to head back to the trailhead: The topo map shows this as a blue line above
#3,

but when I passed the place this intersects I saw this sign
indicating it’s NOT a trail and not to use it as such (14ers.com states the
same).

The hike up Sunshine was long but steady. Here’s my summit photo.

Here I got out my maps and tried to decide which route to
follow. I knew not to go down the saddle
from Sunshine, and I really didn’t want to go back over Redcloud (that 1.5
miles and another summit climb didn’t sound like fun).

When I have the option I try to make my hikes a loop, and
that seemed like an option when looking at my map (I took the loop below the 3). It included a gully, which I’m not fond of,
but it looked like a doable trail. I
brought up my GPX file and looked at the pictures. Yes, it looked doable as a difficult class 2. So I headed down the Northwest Face of
Sunshine. It hugged a ridge, and was
FULL of exposure, rock, and scree

When I made it down the ridge this is what I saw. It looked like a pretty easy way to hike down

Until I hit the top of the gully. This is what it looked like from the top

I noticed several cairns indicating several different ways
to go down the gullies, but I wanted to stick with my GPS route. So I did some investigating, looking over and
around as much as possible. In the end I
decided to go with the GPS suggestion.

I put my camera and hiking pole in my bag and took a deep
breath. This was going to be an
adventure! I slid more than I hiked, but
I was careful and made it down my gully of choice without stopping/getting
stuck. I carefully close each
step/foothold, and hand placement, and thought to myself how one wrong move
would result in my sliding down a rocky slope for several hundred feet. It was very slippery and a bit scary but it
was obvious this was how I was intended to complete the trail. Here’s what it looked like from the bottom.

This is the route I took.
I can’t imagine hiking up this!!!

I was deposited in a basin and could see the trail I needed
to connect with further ahead, so I just started walking towards that
trail. There were cairns, which was
helpful, but not needed on the way back because I could see where the trail
led. Here’s a picture looking back at
the gullies

And a picture of the hike ahead.

I came to the stream where two men dressed in camo, along
with their black lab, greeted me: “You
must have some big ovaries to have hiked that!”

I was a bit confused until they told me they’d seen me climb
down the gully. They had binoculars,
heard a few rocks drop, and thought they’d be seeing a rockslide. Instead they saw me descend the gully and
were quite impressed. Their exact words
were that I “seemed in control the whole time”. They also said two guys came down behind me,
or at least they think they did. They
saw two guys looking at the cairns and trying to descent to the right. I mentally thought about those two guys
behind me and the beer. Ugh. I hope they made it!

I smiled, wished them luck, and tried to quicken my
pace. I still wanted to get in one more
peak today if the weather allowed.

Almost immediately it started hailing from out of
nowhere. It was cloudy but didn’t look like
hail. The hail/rain came down quickly,
and was over in 5 minutes.

At this point I connected with the Silver Creek trail and
headed back down to the trailhead.

I’d started at 6:45am, and it was now 12:30pm. The hike had taken me almost 6 hours, 12.25miles,
4669’ elevation gain.

Now I had a choice to make.
Should I hike Handies Peak or spend the night in my truck and try to
hike it in the morning? I was
exhausted. I mean really, really
tired. My lungs hurt and so did my
calves. I hadn’t eaten all day (besides
some beef jerky and dried bananas along the trail) and I was running on 3 hours
of sleep. And it looked like a small
storm was going to roll through. The
only thing keeping me from stopping and getting some rest was the thought of
sleeping at the trailhead. I know from
past experience this never ends well.
Although I try I’m never able to sleep, and I’m always really, really
cold. I have Raynauds, so I’m overly susceptible
to the cold, no matter how much I bundle up.
It makes for miserable trailhead camping experiences. I did not want to get up at 5am freezing cold
and try to start out on a hike. It takes
me forever to defrost!

I decided I’d attempt Handies. I knew I could always turn back, since I didn’t
really need to summit today. If the
weather got too bad or I felt I couldn’t go on I’d just head back to the truck,
sleep, and try again tomorrow.

So I grabbed my new maps and headed up the Grizzly Gulch
trail, crossing a bridge

The aspen trees here were also beginning to turn

I was hiking slow. I
mean, really, really slow. I usually
hike around 2mph when hiking 14ers, rarely stopping to do much but take
pictures. However, on this hike I found
myself stopping every 50 feet or so to catch my breath. This wasn’t normal, especially for such an “easy”
hike. I was embarrassed for myself, but
explained it away: I’d hiked Mt. Lindsey
yesterday, and Redcloud and Sunshine Peaks this morning. That’s a lot of mileage and elevation gain/loss
in under 24 hours. I was allowed to be a
bit tired, right? I was still upset with
myself. Breathing only got more difficult.

I continued on, rounded a corner, and I saw her: A beautiful mama moose! I knew she was a mama because I could hear
her calf braying in the bushes somewhere like a donkey jumping in circles. It was an adorable sound! However, Moose are dangerous and known to
charge, especially mamas protecting their babies. She was really close on the trail so I gave
her a wide berth and didn’t make eye contact.
I took this one picture from behind a tree and hurried on. She kept her eyes on me the entire time I was
in view. It was a bit daunting, but
really, really cool. I usually expect to
see Moose in meadows, so seeing on in the trees, and so close, caught me off
guard. In fact at first I’d thought she
was a horse. In any event, cool
experience! I was already glad I’d made
the decision to hike Handies today.

Then I heard the thunder.
Great. I looked up, but the
clouds didn’t look threatening. I exited
the trees and came into the basin and caught my first glimpse of Handies.

I saw a quick flash of lightening and began
counting/mentally calculating my options.
I looked up at the clouds again.
Hmmm. Now I had a choice to
make. The clouds really didn’t look
threatening, but I’d heard thunder and seen a bit of lightening. Thunder was rumbling in the clouds but there
was no more lightening after that one bit (it didn’t hit the ground, but stayed
in the clouds). The wind was moving to
the Southwest of me (I could see the clouds moving) and behind the peak I could
see sunlight. I was hiking very, very
slowly. I decided it would probably take
me longer to summit than it would take those clouds to pass, so slowly I
continued on. At this point I knew I was
the only one on the trail (I couldn’t see anyone ahead of me and no one else
was signed in the trial register. I’d
also passed someone who told me they were the last one up today).

I continued on at a slow but steady pace. By now I was stopping every 25 feet to catch
my breath. I wanted to cry. This was an easy peak, and yet I hadn’t been
this tired/sore/exhausted since climbing my first 14er (Pikes Peak 26 mile
route). It kept sprinkling off and on,
so I kept putting my jacket off and on.
It was a nice excuse to stop and still be “productive”. I kept my eye on the sky.

I was about ¾ of the way through the basin when I looked up
and saw sheets of ice raining down from the direction of Handies. It looked like it was going to hail again,
and here I was, 2 miles above treeline, with no place to go. I’d known this was a possibility when I’d
started this hike, so I pulled up my hood, turned against the wind, and braced
myself. I knew these storms usually only
last a few minutes or so, and this one was over in about 5 minutes. It left me with a wonderful view! Check out that layer of hail/snow (graupel?)

This was cool! It was
beautiful, and just as I’d predicted, there was sunlight after the brief storm. I stopped to take off my jacket and heard
what sounded like a loud clap, then tumbling.
The brief storm had caused a rockslide!
I couldn’t see where it was coming from, but I could hear a steady
stream of rocks tumbling down. I tried
to get it on video, but due to the wind didn’t come out very well. For the rest of the hike I heard rocks
tumbling. Geological time is now people!

The last mile and a half seemed quite steep. The elevation gain seemed more here than I was used to, but it was a short hike to the summit, so I guess I needed to make up elevation somewhere.

Did I mention I was hiking slow? I mean really, really slow? After the storm my paced slowed to hiking 10 steps, stopping to breathe for 5 seconds, and continuing. I was hurting all over, couldn’t breathe, and even this pace seemed to be killing me. I was mad at my body, but kept going. I knew the storm threat had passed, and I could see the summit. I was going to make it: Just give me a second to breathe.

At this point I looked down at my feet saw a rock shaped like a skull. It was about the same size too. This took me back for a second, but I decided to do the obvious thing and take it as a good omen and continued on. No pictures of the rock (it seemed morbid and too much like negative foreshadowing). The peak was once again in the clouds. Weather changes quickly on 14rs!

The last quarter mile was steep scree, with loose rocks wet from the recent storm. Read: slippery. I had to hike even slower, but I enjoyed it when I got to the rocky part because it meant using different muscles in my legs. Climbing was easier than hiking. This was actually a lot easier than it looked (besides being slippery).

Woohoo! Another false summit! That’s three for three for today!

I turned around and looked back on the basin I’d hiked, with Redcloud and Sunshine in the background. Pretty awesome!

I made it the final push to the summit winded, out of breath, and with a frozen face and fingers. I couldn’t smile because my lips were frozen, but I’d made it!

I was super proud of myself, but ready to hike back down. My body seemed to enjoy hiking down as compared to up (I didn’t need to stop/rest/catch my breath). The clouds continued to swirl around the mountain

After I’d hiked about a mile down the sun came out and birds/pikas/marmots started chirping. The rest of the hike was uneventful (I looked but didn’t see the moose again). I was very, very proud of myself for making the decision to hike when I did. It was probably the most exhausting hike I’ve ever done. I started at 12:45pm and didn’t make it back to my truck until 5:30pm. That’s 5 hours for an 8 mile hike. Ouch!

When I made it back to my truck I was hungry and tired, so I made some Mountain House Lasagna, thinking I’d eat the entire serving and still be hungry. But I wasn’t. I wasn’t even able to finish half the meal. I sealed it up, put it away, changed my clothes, and hopped into my sleeping bag, exhausted. I pulled out Roach’s book, and looked up my Sunshine descent today. His notes: “Avoid this route of Sunshine’s West Gullies are snow free”. SMH.

Redcloud:

Sunshine:

Handies:

Mt. Lindsey – 14,042 (and Northwest Lindsey 14,020)

I arrived late at the trailhead for 2 reasons:

1: When I got up I
needed to fold some laundry, start a new load, and clean up from the kids’ late
night baking session (the dishwasher was full and needed to be unloaded and
then loaded again).

2: The I25 was closed
for 2 exits and the detour took forever because of all the semis trying to
navigate the downtown streets.

So even though I got up at 2am I made it to the Huerfano /
Lily Lake Trailhead at 6:15am. Here are
some pics of the easy 4WD road to the trailhead.

There were two other cars in the parking lot (which could
probably hold 10 in the immediate area, but there was a lot of room on the road
itself as well). I was on the trail by
6:30pm. It was just beginning to get
light outside.

The beginning of this hike was pretty easy. It followed a creek and a boulder field.

I could tell the views on the way back were going to be
amazing!

I followed a waterfall up a hill and saw two hikers at the
mine. (Side note, I had an epiphany
here: Mine probably came from the word “mine”. Think about it). Anyway, they were on the other side of the
stream and couldn’t hear me, so I waved and continued on.

Here’s my first view of Mt. Lindsey. It’s the peak to the center right.

I crossed this basin and ascended the hillside. At the top I took a shadow selfie, because
that’s what I do.

Here I reached a saddle, and decided to leave my hiking pole
at a cairn, as this was a class 3 hike/climb and it wouldn’t help any when I
needed two hands. I took a picture of
both sides of Mt. Lindsey and put my camera away.

It was here I met a man who stopped me: “Hey, do you blog?”

Me: “Yes”

Man: “Aren’t you
WildWanderer? I’ve seen all your stuff
on the 14ers site. You’re famous! You’ve been rocking out the peaks this
summer!”

I thanked him, argued a bit about the “famous” part, and was
on my way.

We met up again while I was putting on my helmet. I was trying to figure out my route. I didn’t want to hold my map as I was
climbing, so I was studying the picture I had and what I could see in front of
me. I didn’t want to take the gully
(blue line) because I’m not a fan of gullies.
I wanted to take the pink line, as that’s an easy class 3.

I put on my helmet, put away my map, and started my way
up. I’d told myself to just hug the left
side of the ridge and I’d be fine. The
sunlight was blinding, shining directly in my eyes. It was difficult to see any sort of
trail. It took some maneuvering, but I felt
I was doing pretty well. Until I came to
the crux. That’s where the route
diverges into 3 different parts about halfway up the ridge. However, I couldn’t tell that was where I was
at. Looking at a picture/map is totally
different from when you’re actually climbing.
You can’t see much in front of you or behind you while climbing, so you
have to go by memory. I knew I was good
as long as I stayed to the left of the ridge, so I looked up and started
climbing. The easiest route looked to be
the pitch, so that’s where I went. It
wasn’t too hard until I was almost all the way up. This is what it looked like:

I kept thinking to myself as I was climbing: “This is MUCH
harder than Longs Peak. Aren’t they both
supposed to be class 3’s?” My research
had told me Longs was harder than Lindsey.
I felt what I was doing was within my abilities, but why was this so
difficult? And why did this feel so much more difficult than Longs?

By this time the man who’d talked with me before had caught
up with me again. I was doing the route
finding and he was following me. Since I
had an extra pair of eyes I called back to him “Hey, from where you’re standing
does it look like this line goes to the top?”

He said it did, and I was almost there. Great! Except I didn’t fit though the path I
needed to take, and going back down wasn’t an option I wanted to take. I’m not a big girl (5’4”, 105lbs), but in
order to make this move I’d need to remove my backpack and lift myself/crawl sideways
and up through a tight space. Once
again, I felt secure I could do this (without my backpack). I discussed this with the man below me, and
we decided to help each other out: I
took off my backpack, climbed up, and he handed it up to me, then took off his
and handed me his backpack. This worked
great, and we both made it! The entire
time I kept thinking to myself how I did NOT want to go down this way! I couldn’t see what was below me, and even
knowing there was a ledge just beyond my sight I knew it’d be suicide. I needed to find a safer route down.

We separated once again and I was off to find the
summit. This part of the hike was
slippery with a lot of loose rock. When
I finally gained the ridge to what I hoped was Mt. Lindsey I realized I was at
Northwest Lindsey (14,020). Luckily I
could see Mt. Lindsey in the distance.

I thought briefly about taking a picture of me summiting
here, but didn’t deem it as too important, so I pressed on.

The rest of the hike was easy. I followed the small saddle towards Mt.
Lindsey, and then looked back at Northwest Lindsey.

This part of the hike was only about 200 yards, and soon I
summited! I was the first to summit
today!

I got out my map and looked at my options for the way
down. That’s when I realized I’d hiked a
class 4! Check this out: Here’s a picture of what I’d intended to
climb (the pink route)

And what I actually climbed (the red line).

Now everything made sense!
When the man I’d climbed with reached the summit I told him about our
achievement and we fist-bumped. Then
promptly discussed taking the gully back down.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to do this because I didn’t know where it started
back down. I passed several gullies and
wanted to be sure I was hiking the correct one on my way down. My intent was to hike back the way I’d came,
but to try to find the class 3 route down.
If I couldn’t, I’d load my GPS with different directions and go looking
for the correct gully.

I was off, and on my way back decided to indeed take a
picture at Northwest Lindsey, just because I don’t’ ever want to climb this
mountain again and I wanted proof I’d been here. That class 4 part was really the climb up
Northwest Lindsey, so I felt I’d earned a picture.

Here’s the way back to Northwest Lindsey

And my summit selfie

As I started down I noticed the couple I’d passed at the
mine coming up what I presumed was the gully.
We talked about their route up, and they gave me directions back down
the gully. This seemed like a good
option. All I needed to do was aim for
the red dirt in the middle right of this picture, and then the route down would
be visible.

So that’s what I did.
And this is what that route looked like:

It wasn’t very much fun.
I’m not sure which was worse, the ridge up or the gully down. In fact, as I met hikers trying to make the
decision which route to take I wasn’t sure what to tell them. They were both pretty crummy. I was just glad I didn’t need to do either of
them ever again.

As I reached the saddle I turned and looked back at the
mountain. Can you see the class 4 pitch?

Here it is…

I felt like a badass as I continued hiking back down.

I talked to a bunch of hikers on the way down, but didn’t
see anyone after I reached the saddle.
Except for a marmot in all his glory.

The trail went through a pine forest, which was lovely
except the evergreens are losing their needles for some reason. The ground was littered with green pine
needles, which are extremely slippery.

The trees are just starting to change colors here.

Oh, and I found a patch of wild strawberries by the
stream! I love hiking this time of year
because of things like this!

So, here are my final stats:

Started hike at 6:30am

Summited around 9:15am (I looked but forgot the time…)

Made it back to my Truck at 12pm

Total hike time: 5 hours 30 minutes

Total Mileage: 8.25 miles

Total Elevation Gain: 3500’ (it felt like way more)

Here’s a 360 degree view of the summit

The Mt Lindsey Summit Sticker can be bought here

Longs Peak 14,255

This is the most fun I’ve ever had climbing a 14er! This hike is the hike I’ve been waiting for,
I just didn’t know it meant I’d need to hike a class 3 to get it.

I have a very Type A personality, so I do a lot of research
before going out on a hike. I usually
have no less than 3 maps (one on my phone and one in my backpack, another in my
pocket) a compass and altimeter on my phone and a manual one in my daypack, and
multiple versions of directions/checkpoints (including a GPS).

I’ve been trying to do this hike for a while now, as I
thought I was “ready” for a class 3, but the weather and my schedule wasn’t
cooperating, so it got pushed back. Last
night when I looked at the weather it said 30% chance of showers until 1pm and
winds at 9-13mph. That was by far the
best forecast I’d seen on a day I was able to hike, so I chose this one for
today (that and the forecast for Tour de Massive called for snow today, so that
was out).

My research told me the Longs Peak Trailhead fills up FAST
on weekends, and if I wasn’t there by 3am I might as well forget it. This is Labor Day weekend so I woke up after
a quick nap at midnight and drove to the trailhead. I’m not a fan of crowds, especially when I’m
hiking. It’s totally worth it to me to
wake up early to avoid seeing dozens of people on the trail. Not to mention I knew some parts of this
trail got bottlenecks when there were too many people hiking. I didn’t want to experience that.

When I got there at 2:45am there were about 10 cars in a 50
car lot. Did I mention it’s a Friday on
Labor Day weekend? This was not what I’d
expected, but I was pleasantly surprised.
The weather was warm (about 60 degrees) and it looked like I wouldn’t
run into too many people on this well trafficked route. This was turning out to be a wonderful hike,
and it hadn’t even started!

I got my gear out of my truck and was on the trail by
3am. I hiked all the way to the Keyhole
in the dark, so the only picture I have is this one from just above
treeline.

Much of this hike is above treeline. I have pictures to share but that will have
to come later in the post as I took them on the way back down in the
sunlight.

As soon as I hit treeline the wind picked up and the
temperature dropped. The wind was icy,
and not the 9-13mph winds as predicted, but 30mph+ gusts of cold air that took
forever to pass. I was miserable, and
put on my snow gloves and hat. Twice it
almost knocked me over and I had to brace myself on a rock.

All of my directions were great, but in the end not really
needed. The trail was heavily marked
with new signs all the way to the boulder field. I kept checking my GPS just in case, but I
was always right on route.

Until I hit the Boulder Field. This is where things got iffy. You see, I was hiking faster than I’d thought
I’d hike, and I’d made it there when it was still about an hour from
daylight. The trail kind of ended and I wasn’t
sure what to do. I knew I was supposed
to walk towards the Keyhole, but in the blackness I didn’t know where exactly
it was (or where I was in the boulder field for that matter). By this point I’d passed everyone else on the
trail (I knew this because I couldn’t see any more flashlights shining in front
of me) and those behind me chose to sit and wait for daylight. That was going to be over an hour away and I
didn’t want to wait that long.

I looked around for some cairns. It took a good 5 minutes, but I found one! Lucky me!
I hiked toward it, stopped, and looked for another one. I kept doing this and one by one they led me
to the campsites in the Boulder Field.
Everyone was still asleep. I
continued on, and soon I could see enough to tell I was at the base of the
Keyhole, so I just climbed up towards it and through to the other side. That was much easier than I’d
anticipated. And I’d done it in the
dark!

This is where the hike got REALLY FUN!!!

The wind died down a bit, but now I was surrounded in
clouds. This ended up being a good thing
because it minimized my perceived exposure.
I put on my helmet, looked left, pointed my flashlight, and followed the
bullseyes. This was surprisingly
simple. I’m all about LNT, but I’m sure
these bullseyes have saved lives.

About 10 minutes after passing the Keyhole the sun had risen
enough for me to turn off my flashlight, which was a good thing because I
needed two hands to scramble on the rocks.
There were a few really tough places, but mainly because of my
height. I’m about 5’4” but I really
could have used 2-4 inches of height to climb in many areas, but I found if I
stopped and looked around, sometimes I could find footholds behind me to help
me out.

The part of the hike that was stated as the most difficult, “the
trough” was actually where I found the most satisfaction: I was so ready for this climb! My upper body strength was way better than I’d
anticipated, I didn’t need to stop to catch my breath/take breaks, and I was
being creative and learning with my climbing.
And I was doing it! Yes, there
were bullseyes to point the way, but I was doing this on my own, without
someone there to help me (and felt confident with my directions I could have
navigated through the trough). I was
climbing a class 3!

The narrows weren’t scary or difficult, but I also had cloud
cover blocking the drop, so I’m a bit biased.

The Homestretch loomed before me and I took a deep
breath. It looked just like the picture
I’d seen online, but being here in person I could visibly pick a line and just
go with it. So I did. I didn’t follow the bullseyes here, but the
route I felt most comfortable climbing. I
just have to say, I was so lucky I had decent weather today. In no way could I have done this if it had
been raining (look at pictures to come).
It would have been a waterslide the entire way down and I don’t mean
that in a good way! I have great hiking
shoes, but rock climbing shoes would really have been helpful here. When my shoes got wet they slipped on the
granite.

I kept putting one foot in front of the other, and before I
knew it, I was on the summit! I was
immediately overwhelmed. You know that
feeling you get when you’re so happy you want to cry and you start taking
really quick-deep breaths and your heartbeat races and your eyes start to tear
up? That’s what happened to me (all
except the eyes tearing up part). I was
overcome with emotion, and immediately on cloud 9! I’d done it!
I’d actually done it! For the
first time I’d climbed a class 3, and I’d done it all by myself, without
someone to follow or help me along. I was the first one to summit that day (it
was 7:05am) and had the summit all to myself!
This was fan-freaking-tastic!!!

The only downside were the clouds: they were moving in and out and obscuring the
view. They were really cool to watch
though.

I was surprised at how flat the summit was.

I took some pictures and got to thinking: I’d really wanted to do 2 summits today: Long’s Peak, and an unranked peak referred to
as Southeast Longs that was really close to where I was now, but required a
different route. It was my intention to
make this a loop, hiking up the Keyhole route and down the Loft route. However, it’s not much fun to hike in the
dark. All you see are the shadows cast
from your flashlight, and those can be a bit scary. I wanted to see what I’d missed seeing on my
hike up. I’d seriously enjoyed this
hike, but I didn’t have any pictures to show for the places I’d been because I’d
hiked them in the dark. In my excitement
I decided I’d enjoyed this hike so much I’d come back and do Southeast Longs on
another trip, going up via the Loft route.
In other words, I was going back down the way I’d came.

I didn’t want to stay too long on the summit so I gathered
up my stuff and headed back down. I knew
I’d only completed half of the climb. I’d
need hike down what I’d climbed up. Here
are the pictures from the way down:

Here’s the homestretch

And the narrows

The exposure was blocked by clouds for parts of the route

Shadowselfie (because I do that kind of thing)

I didn’t see anyone until I was on my way down the narrows,
and no one I saw had a helmet. This
disappointed me. It was really easy to
accidentally kick loose rocks onto climbers below. It would suck to get hit in the head with one
of those rolling rocks!

The trough was really exciting!

When I hit the Keyhole the sun came out through the clouds

and I was able to see the Boulder Field. Holy Smokes!
I’d hiked through that in the dark?
How did I EVER find my way?

As I climbed down I realized something that made me
laugh: There were cairns EVERYWHERE with
no particular purpose. Throughout the
Boulder Field, dozens, if not hundreds of cairns had been placed in obscure
positions, as if someone just had a hobby of making cairns. This morning I’d followed one cairn to the
next and eventually they led me to the Keyhole, but in reality they shouldn’t
have! I must have been looking in the
direction I thought the Keyhole should be, and found cairns to validate my
theory.

I passed the tent sites in the Boulder Field, which are
really just large areas surrounded by rocks to break the wind. There’s a bivy here too.

The Boulder Field seemed to go on forever. I kept looking back to get a picture of Longs
Peak, but it was constantly surrounded with clouds.

That is, until I was just about to the place where I’d lose
site of the mountain. That’s when the
clouds lifted and Long’s Peak waved goodbye.

The trail from the Boulder Field back down was very well
maintained.

This is my absolute favorite 14er hike ever! I felt my abilities perfectly matched the
mountain. I was challenged just enough,
and in shape to handle the physical challenges.

If you’re reading this and wondering if you are personally
ready to hike this mountain, please don’t take my above narrative as making it
sound easy, because it wasn’t. I’ve been
training years to complete this type of a hike.
I’m not trying to brag here, or compare myself to the amazingness of
trail runners (who are pretty much trail gods BTW, move over for them because
they are awesome!!!), but I’ve been running 5-10 miles a day with a minimum of
4000’ of elevation gain every day for the past 8 years. Every day. No breaks (unless I’m hiking a
14er, and I’ve been known to hit the gym after one like Bierdstadt or Evans). I also do an hour of Yoga a day, and this is
my 21st 14er this summer (33^rd overall). I did the 26 mile route on Pikes Peak 12
times last summer. I’ve been training
both mentally and physically for years, and this hike fits me perfectly. It may not be the best hike for you,
especially if you don’t have a lot of experience. However, at this point, I want to hike more
class 3’s!

Oh, and for those of you keeping tally, I started at 3am,
summited at 7:05am, and was back down at my truck by 11am. I asked the park rangers there how long they
thought the trail was (because I’ve seen it listed as anywhere from 14.5-16
miles) and they said 15 miles. So I did
15 miles, with 5100’ elevation gain, in 8 hours. This includes stopping to take lots and lots
of pictures and stopping to talk with everyone I passed on the way down to make
sure they were doing ok.

360 of the summit