Failed Fourteener

As Ed's friend Dave said to his son over our consolation breakfast in Boulder at 10:30 on Friday morning, "It's not about making it to the top, it's about making the right decisions." That about sums up our experience attempting to climb Long's Peak yesterday. We stayed low, but we also stayed alive.

Beautiful Long's Peak. The bare rock face is known as "the diamond."

Ed has been dying to climb Long's, something he hasn't done since his days as a camper at Cheley. He and his old camp friend Dave, who lives in Denver, planned together for several days, checking the weather, discussing our packing list, etc. Dave wanted to bring his ten-year-old son along, and so the two of them planned to sleep in the parking lot and get an extra-early start on Friday morning, just in case it took Jack longer to make the ascent. We planned to meet them at a feature called the Keyhole over halfway up and continue together from there. Ed and Dave checked in with each other on Thursday night and agreed that the chance of precipitation didn't worry them too much; there was a 25% chance, but there always seems to be a 25% chance.

Ed and I woke up at about 3:15 A.M. on Friday morning, dressed, and headed out the door. The trailhead isn't all that far away, and we were hiking by 4:50. It was, of course, pitch black (there wasn't even much of a moon), and so we hiked by the light of our headlamps, sometimes chatting and sometimes just enjoying the feel of the dark, silent forest around us. At some point, Ed asked if I was seeing raindrops. We were still under the cover of trees at this point, and after looking carefully I realized that I was seeing a drop intercept the beam of my headlamp every few seconds. I was surprised--I had been admiring the view of the stars in the cloudless sky not long before from the parking lot--but not too worried since the "rain" was barely noticeable.

The picture changed pretty dramatically by the time we got above treeline, though. We were about halfway up, and the sky had lightened enough to show us a mountain range cloaked in thick clouds. Worryingly, it was clear that the weather was headed our way. It was getting colder, too. I'd stripped down to a long-sleeved shirt, but since the rain had turned into pelting little ice balls, I called for a stop and reached down into my backpack to extract my raincoat. Out of the corner of both eyes, I saw a bright flash. "Was that lightning?" I asked nervously. A few moments later, we heard a boom. "I think that was about five seconds," Ed said. Yikes. Not right on top of us, but the storm was headed our way and we were above treeline, setting us up to be lightning rods.

Note the white streaks whipping by Dave - ice balls!

We waited for a while to see whether it would clear up or get worse. The ice balls (I maintain that they were not snowflakes) continued to abrade my face and standing still was making me colder and colder. A thick, white layer was accumulating on the ground. Right around the time we heard a second boom of thunder, a group passed by us, headed back down the trail. They weren't taking any chances, they told us. Ed was pretty sure we should throw in the towel, too, but he was worried about Dave and Jack. Phone calls to them were not going through, and he finally managed to get a text message off but receive no response. I was pretty sure no knowledgeable mountaineer would stick around on top of a mountain with his kid in tow in a lightning storm, but Ed was worried they were waiting for us. Finally, after another five minutes of indecision (and another rumble of thunder), we agreed that I'd start for the car while Ed went up the trail to try to find them. I wasn't thrilled about this, but I'd forgotten to bring hand warmers and my gloves were soaked through. I was eager to put my numbing hands in front of the car's heating vents.

Our intended route

The day was predicted to be beautiful after about 9:00 A.M., and it did start to clear as I got lower and lower. Still, it was too late in the day to attempt to summit Long's (afternoon thunderstorms are the norm around here, so it's important to summit early), and we wouldn't have been able to get to the top even if things had cleared up earlier. The ascent requires lots of scrambling over boulders and shimmying along narrow rock passages, which are a little dicey when dry and not to be attempted when wet. I passed hikers headed up as I went down and nearly all of them quizzed me on the conditions up above. Although my report was grim, no one seemed to worried since they were all going to Chasm Lake, which is under the treeline. Several told me that they'd passed a steady stream of would-be Long's hikers sadly trudging back to their cars.

I was thrilled to reach the parking lot and crank up the heat in the car. Ed, Dave, and Jack appeared about 45 minutes later. When they'd gotten Ed's text they had already been on their way down, as it turned out, and so Ed had joined them for the rest of the descent. Disappointed but resigned, we drove into Boulder for a massive breakfast and pity party.

Oh well.

The nice thing about living here is that we have easy access to Long's, and distance won't prevent us from going back for another attempt any time. It may be too late this season, though, so we'll have to be patient. (It is definitely possible to climb in winter when there's a thick layer of snow covering everything, but that requires a great deal of technical climbing and gear and is a whole different ballgame.) One of the most disappointing parts about the day was missing out on the views, both of the land spread below us and the mountains looming in front of us, which is one of my favorite parts of climbing. Everything was just too cloudy this time. But I look forward to many more attempts of Long's and of Colorado's other high-elevation playgrounds, some of which will certainly end in failure but some of which will make me feel as though I'm on top of the world.