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| Pikes & Longs Peaks, Colorado (22-26 August 2007) |
I've been on a few adventures since coming to the US, but my latest effort over the 22nd - 26th August surpasses everything that I've ever done as far as challenge and adventure goes. Myself, Todd and 3 more friends of his from Denver set out to climb a fourteener in the Rocky Mountains. The term 'fourteener' is given to Colorado's highest mountains, those that are over 14 000' in elevation, and the one we attempted was Longs Peak.
It had been on the cards for a few months, since back in April when Todd first discussed climbing a mountain in Colorado sometime during the summer. When the date was finally set, we began training a month out, but our objective was only agreed to by everyone in the second last week. I'd been speaking to Bill at work, one of the bosses who had done Longs Peak by the Cable Route in winter as well as several other fourteeners, and he gave me a book where I found Longs Peak. What attracted me to Longs was the obvious range of attractions along the hike, with lakes, ridges and amphitheatres. I was unaware of its true difficulty though, and its history, someone dies on Longs Peak every year, and Todd's mates in Denver had heard stories, and warned us that it was gonna be tough. Todd also has a bad back at the moment with some turned vertebrae probably from wakeboarding, and is in therapy, so his family was persistently trying to discourage us from doing anything hard. But as I said to Todd, we weren't getting any younger, so Longs Peak we all eventually agreed to.
So, I got to running. It was more of a fun training scheme than strict, when I felt like it I would usually run, i'm guessing 5km from Todd's house, the long way through the neighbourhood, then north over Lindsey St towards a college apartment block which backed onto a green strip with a creek. I usually ran at 9:30pm at night when it had cooled from blazing hot high 90's to simmering, and running through the half-mile green strip to the sound of crickets and random bright orange flashes of lightning bugs was almost as good as running down Miami beach back home to the sound of the surf with the moon rising over the ocean. Except for an added plus, when groups of college girls were out on their balconies above the park, and they thought I couldn't hear them.
The East Longs Peak trail via the Keyhole, easiest of the various options, is a lengthy 16 mile (25.7km) return trip, with 4 845' of vertical gain in the range of 9 410' from the trail head to the 14 225' summit of Colorado's 15th highest peak. Camping options are numerous but crowded at this time of year, with spots at the trail head, a couple of km up the trail in the Goblin Forest, or up near 13 000' in the Boulder Field. Originally I liked the idea of camping along the trail, to take some of the endurance out of the hike, but it would require all of us to have appropriate light camping gear, so the plan was camp at the trail head, and get up early.
So on Wednesday, Todd and I jumped on a Frontier airlines flight from OKC to Denver, and encountered awesome storms on the way, which we had to fly between. We skirted the east side of a huge storm through grey gloom for a while, but then suddenly we came into brilliant sunset twilight, flying in clear air between the base clouds and the anvil top, with the core flashing with lightning out my window, and a near full moon to top it off.
We stayed with Todd's sister and brother in law, Shelly and Tony Wahl, in Golden, a suburb of Denver. They have a lovely daughter Abby who is nearly 4 and baby Luke who isn't 1 yet. Wednesday night I slept in the basement bedroom that has two ground level windows, and in the middle of the night a storm hit us, with one colossal crash of thunder that woke everyone up. I remember waking to the flash and crash of thunder at the same time, Todd said he sat bolt upright in bed braced like he was ready for a fight. The lightning was almost constant and it hailed, making loud clanging noises on the grates that protected my windows. Maybe it's something about Denver being so high that cloud to ground lightning is easier, coz that was not a normal storm, yet Tony and Shelly seemed used to it, and Abby & Luke didn't even wake apparently.
So Thursday, Todd and I set out in Shelly's Camry for Pikes Peak down near Colorado Springs. Pikes Peak is the most famous of Colorado's fourteeners, home of the Race To The Clouds, the only fourteener where you can drive to the summit, and the easternmost of all the fourteeners being the first mountain clearly visible as one approaches from the east. Stopping in Manitou Springs to get Subway for lunch, Todd and I drove up through Cascade to Pikes Peak Highway, paid the $10 per person toll and headed up the awesome 13 mile drive to the top. Part way up the weather cleared to almost cloudless sky, typical of the fast changing conditions in the Rockies.
This was my test for altitude, as before then, the highest I had ever been was climbing to the summit of Mt Ngauruhoe, a volcano in New Zealand at 7516' (2291m), which everyone here laughs at; I had no idea what thin air was! I was about to go almost twice as high. The body's fitness level has little bearing on its ability to cope in thin air, and while living at altitude can help, ultimately it is the luck of the draw as to whether your body's physiology can adapt to handle it. Turns out I was fine, while Todd began to feel a little off after a while at the summit. It was spectacular being so high above the clouds, like being in an aeroplane but walking around in the crisp wind and seeing a full field of view instead of looking out a tiny window.
The drive down was even more spectacular than heading up, as the road at several points seemed to be on the edge of the world. At a section of roadworks on an exposed slope, one dude was driving heavy machinery that compressed loose gravel and dirt on the wall of the road, and he had to follow the crooked road edge driving consistently within a foot of the steep slope dropping away hundreds of feet to the side! That night we met up with James & Britney, Todd's childhood mate who is now married and living in south Denver, and we ate at the Cheesecake Factory. When I exclaimed at the monstrous foot high mud cakes for sale at the entrance, Todd saw James' puzzled look and explained that I do that all the time, at things that are just normal to them.
Friday we had a lazy morning, playing with Abby & Luke until James drove up and Tony finished work. Then after lunch we packed our camping gear & day packs and headed north and west into the Rocky Mountains for the Longs Peak camping grounds. That drive was also very scenic, and while we were still out on the plains we could easily see Longs Peak towering above all the other mountains around it. Arriving at the trail head, we could see it was busy, and went to visit the Ranger Station for news on the trail. It didn't look good, the Park Ranger said a heavy storm had come through thurs night and had left the region beyond the Keyhole (south west face) fraught with black ice. Nobody had summited that day, and the chances of the ice melting in time for a summit attempt the next day were slim. Perplexed at possibly being denied the summit, we were further disheartened when the trail head camping spots were all taken. We had to back track a couple miles to the next camping ground, and eventually found a clear spot there.
After setting up camp, our 5th person Michael joined us from finishing work in Denver, and while I grilled Brautwurst sausages on the fire and watched Tony, Todd and James play horseshoes, I thought of how cool it was that I was finally camping in the Rocky Mountains. The Rockies and Yosemite are the two places I wanted to camp most in the world, except I couldn't flip the top off a bottle of beer for happy hour because we were so focused on hydrating to acclimatize and reduce our risk of altitude sickness. After a simple dinner of sausages and bread and water we cleaned up camp ready for a quick getaway at 3:30am the next morning.
I don't think I slept at all during the night, and it wasn't because I used my jumper wrapped around my backpack as a pillow; that was quite comfy. I guess it was just the anticipation and excitement about the next day. By 3am the campground was filled with voices and cars being packed and driven off, and even traffic could be heard on the road outside the grounds! After forever, a light came on in our tent and I saw Todd's face squinting at his phone. I asked 'what's the time?' he said '3:24, 6 minutes. Ah might as well get up'. We were all awake anyway. I had slept in my clothes, packed up my sleeping gear and went for breakfast, where I hunted around for my yoghurts, then remembered I had forgotten to pack a spoon, borrowed a spoon off Michael, then found I had left the yoghurts back in the fridge at Shelly's. Gave the spoon back to Michael and had 2 bananas and some chocolate instead.
We packed the tent and headed back up the road to the trail head, where to our astonishment, cars were parked in a line by the side of the road hundreds of metres from the trail head carpark! We drove up anyway, only to find the place was packed with cars and people getting ready, so we headed back, and to me it really sucked coz we would have to hike half a k uphill before we even started our 16 mile day! As we walked up the road, Tony set a freaking quick pace and Todd joked about being exhausted already. I remembered Todd had never seen the Milky Way, which was clearly visible straight above us, so I pointed it out to him. Micheal signed our group into the book at the trail head showing who is on the mountain and we set off through the pine forest.
You cover good ground when it's dark and the only thing to look at is the spot of light cast by your headlamp, and soon the forest was thinning out into smaller trees as the rays of dawn crept over the mountains to the east. It seemed to me to take forever for dawn to come, but we made the ridge to where the Diamond Face and the Chasm is visible just as dawn broke, perfect timing! After shooting some fantastic panoramas, while some of our group went to the toilet on the precariously perched pit loo on the ridge, we made for the boulder field. For the next several hours, it was an arduous haul into increasingly windy and thin air. Since before dawn from the treeline we were subjected to 30-50mph winds, with gusts that would blow you off balance as you plodded on step after step. I got winded quickly and let almost a litre of water out of my backpack, and handed the stack of 6 bananas off to Todd, as my pack was too heavy for the pace.
6 hours later we had made the Boulder Field and were staring up at the Keyhole, an obvious notch in the ridge at the top of a steep boulder climb. By this stage both my knees were hurting on the muscle tendons underneath used for lifting my body, and this condition caused me to be the slowest in the group, as pain had overcome exertion to be the main reason for how often I stopped. I'd been afflicted by the same symptoms the last two times I'd climbed any elevation, at Mt. Ngauruhoe and Mt. Warning, and while I expected knee pain it was worse than before, and incredibly frustrating. The Keyhole, as spectacular as it was with a jagged granite overhang, is the focal point of the infamous winds for that side of the mountain. Climbing towards it on the lee side, you would catch the occasional gust or calm moment, but ever-present was the noise of wind through the rocks above, and it wasn't like the high-pitched whir of wind through a partially opened window, but a deeper shearing noise. I caught some footage of that noise on a video of my camera and uploaded it to YouTube, if you persevere, it is clearly audible in the last 10 seconds:
Entering the Keyhole entailed a blast of chill wind that assaulted your balance, pushed you into the rocks, and made it seem difficult to breathe. Perhaps the most foolish decision I made that day was to still have shorts on at this point, and within 30 seconds I was shivering. The second most foolish decision was to perch myself in the middle of the Keyhole, remove a glove, pull out the camera & attempt to shoot a panorama of the spectacular valley before me. I had to focus to stop shivering and hold the camera steady when shooting, and by the time I finished my face and hand felt numb and I was shuddering more than I ever had in my life. Somehow I lost the glove, probably blew out of my numb hand on a gust of wind, Todd came back to assist and said I looked shaky and pale, but they'd heard people had been going on to the summit, and they were going to press on too. He gave me his spare set of windproof pants which I put on, and initially I resolved to go with them, but after 50m my balance felt terrible with my shivering, my ungloved hand was numb which isn't good for climbing rocks, and I knew I would hold them up. So I told him to go on and I'd remain at the Boulder Field. He gave me the other walkie talkie, and then asked to borrow my camera. I knew Tony had a camera and he was still going, so I told Todd I wanted to take more photos from the Boulder Field, and maybe go back and head up the Chasm.
I took some more photos of him setting off towards the Trough Couloir, the spot where climbers are at greatest risk from falling rocks. I then headed back through the Keyhole and ducked into the Keyhole hut, impressively made of rock and mortar, and sat down to chat with a few other hikers including two guys decked out in full mountaineering gear helmets and all, who had just returned from the summit. After 5 mins, I happened to look out the narrow doorway and saw Tony just below scanning the Boulder Field below looking for me! I called him in out of the wind and we ate some food. People from all over the world are on this hike at any given time, and we had US, English and Irish men and women in the hut at various times. Longs Peak dominated the conversation, with people exclaiming how no guide or reading materials came close to describing the difficulty and exposure beyond the Keyhole. There were also discussions of other Fourteeners and Everest, especially about the book I had read called Into Thin Air about the Everest climbing disaster in 1996.
It took me 20mins to stop shivering, then after a while Tony & I headed down to the Boulder Field. After some time more at the base of the North Face cliff we started heading back intending to go up the Chasm, when my walkie talkie started beeping. Todd had made the summit at 12:05pm and was calling me, and once he had worked out which side of the summit to walk to, we held a crystal clear conversation with him, and I took photos of him, James and Michael on the summit. They had no cameras because Tony had turned back without giving them his, so my photos are all the proof they had, other than writing their names into the Longs Peak summit book. Todd later found someone's website detailing some striking photographs of the territory beyond the Keyhole, including places like the Trough, the Narrows, the Chockstone, the Home Stretch and the Summit. These photos are at http://www.pbase.com/rianhouston/longspeak.
I told Todd our plans for the Chasm and we arranged to rendezvous at the trail fork where we stopped for sunrise. After a long way down, and a lot of knee pain as lowering myself over rocks was as bad as lifting, Tony & I reached the trail fork and started up the Chasm. I knew it was going to be good, but as we rounded the bend and descended to the valley along the steep edge of a rocky slope, I was stunned. After being in blasting wind all day since before dawn, above the timberline where only hardy tufts of grass and moss grew amongst the granite boulders, the feel of the soft breeze and warm afternoon sun, the sound of waterfalls, and sight of lush green grass and shrubs was like stepping into another world. The crystal clear waters of 'Roaring Fork Creek' flowed under a natural bridge above the waterfall, and I had an idea to use my camera's waterproof capability to dip it partially in the stream and take a photo up the Chasm towards the Diamond Face. I had to guess where I was shooting, and got Tony to tell me how far to dip it in the water, but the resulting photo was by far the best I had ever taken.
One last struggle up the slopes of the higher waterfall revealed the stunning Chasm Lake, at the base of the enormous sheer cliff of the Diamond Face, and at the end of the amphitheatre. After shooting more experimental panoramas where I did my first two-level sequence to take in the cliffs towering above me, I decided to atone for my failure to summit by going for a swim, and at an elevation of 11 800', Chasm Lake is frozen over in winter months, and I doubt I will ever swim at a higher altitude. The swim was brief :) and I have video footage of it on YouTube here :
We headed back down and made it back 5 mins before Todd and Michael, which was perfect timing. James had legged it down over an hour earlier and fallen asleep at the trail fork, while Todd waited and assisted Michael who had begun to suffer altitude sickness symptoms of nausea after 25 mins on the summit; they had taken 2 hours to get back to the Keyhole. Apparently Michael gets sick every time he goes over 12 000' despite having climbed 4 or 5 fourteeners. So we all started down again, talking and laughing non-stop about the day, how starting off at dawn felt like at least 2 days ago, how crazy the Trough, Narrows, Homestretch and Chasm Lake was, how sore we were, how nobody would climb a fourteener ever again, how good dinner would be, how great a shower would be and how awesome bed will be. As we got back below the timberline into the pine forests, we started making free bets as to how much further we had to go. I was the skeptic, coz I knew the first dark hours of pre-dawn was deceiving for how much distance you actually cover, and when Todd guessed 15 mins and I guessed at least 25 he groaned, not wanting to believe it. 40mins later we were still going down, and took another bet, this time Todd said 10mins and I said 15, and after 15mins Todd was leading and passed a sign, where he yelled in dismay "Half a mile to the Ranger Station!?". Finally, we got down at 6pm and Michael signed us out of the book, completing 14 hours on the mountain, over 16 miles and 5000' of vertical gain, and the craziest climbing experience any of us had ever had.
Tony, with good intention, took the shorter road home, which proved a mistake as it was almost constantly winding and turning and Todd got motion sickness. Todd eventually took over driving and had to fight nausea and tiredness on the way back to Denver, where dinner was waiting upon arrival. To my absolute torture, my clothes and gear was of course in the basement, and the stairs down left me breathless with pain much to Todd's amusement. But I got mine back later when I was stretching out in bed, laughing as I heard Todd's voice come down the stairs explaining to Shelly "Why is the baby crying? I don't know, that's just what babies do, they cry for no reason." Abby wanted to play, and so uncle Todd had to stay up and play, while I fell into glorious sleep.
Photos from the trip have been uploaded to Picasa, feel free to have a look at them by clicking below. Also note that both the YouTube videos and the Picasa Album have been mapped, so feel free to have a look at Longs Peak in Google Maps from the mapping links.
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| Pikes & Longs Peaks, Colorado (22-26 August 2007) |
