Longs Peak

It's that time of the summer again. That time when people deprive themselves of sleep so they can walk 15 miles in a day. That's right, we got to do Longs Peak. What an awesome hike it is. You leave from the trail head early in the morning, typically well before the sun rises on the East Coast. We left from 2 am to do Longs Peak in this atmosphere of little sleep, headlamps, and lightning in the distance. You hike about 2 miles before you find yourself above treeline. There you can see the lights from the state of Colorado. Almost literally. You can see the lights from Boulder, Longmont, Denver, and more towns around the eastern part of the state. Up there I took a picture with extended exposure of the cities. Unfortunately I wasn't able to hold the camera steady. But what I was able to do (completely accidentally) was get a picture of people walking past with headlamps. The coolest part is that all you can see is the headlamps looking like bolts of lightning. Incredible.

We continued another 4 miles or so to the Boulderfield. There the sun was starting to peak over the edge of the Earth. In that twilight I took the picture of the base of Longs. It's such a powerful peak. We continued up to the Keyhole to try to catch sunrise.

We were very close to the Keyhole (below) as the sun began to rise. The morning light brings out the most amazing colors in the rocks and I am just floored by it. Finally we crossed over into the other side of the mountain. This is where it turns from a hike into a climb. It's so fun but slow going. We arrived at the summit in still pretty good time. It wasn't even 9 am when we got to the top, even though it felt like the afternoon.

The final picture is our group on the summit. It was myself, Jennee, and Devin. Going back down wasn't the must fun however, as it is so painful on the feet. When we got back, it was bedtime. That was of course after a burger at the 14ers Cafe in Estes Park. We ate there satisfied that we had gone that high up (14,255-14,259 feet depending on who you talk to). I slept from 5-9 and it was incredible. I woke for a bit, did some work, watched a movie, and then conked out again for the night.

It really did end up being an incredible trip and was just as good as I remembered it the first time I did Longs two years ago.