As soon as the twilight before sunrise provides enough illumination for me to see without my headlamp, I start to make my way up through the jumbled mess of granite blocks for which the Boulder Field is so aptly named. Longs Peak’s mighty North Face is just to my left, as is the small permanent ice field known as the Dove. Looking a bit farther to my left, I can also see the top section of the Diamond (the awe-inspiring vertical wall in the middle of Longs’ East Face). From this perspective, Longs is a massive presence in the early morning light. It’s impossible not to be a bit daunted by the thought of what lies beyond the Keyhole, where the route will corkscrew three-quarters of the way around the summit in order to follow the least difficult route to the top. “Least difficult,” of course, being a relative term.
For now, though, I simply concentrate on reaching the Keyhole (6.3 miles—13,160 ft). Except for the final scramble up to the opening, this section of the hike isn’t really all that physically demanding, but it’s certainly tedious. The Longs Peak Trail peters out in the area around the backcountry campsites, and from that point on, there are cairns which mark a couple of possible routes I can take up to the Keyhole. Some of the cairns, however, can be a little difficult to spot… “Oh, you mean that small pile of rocks in the midst of this rocky sea of rocks??” Based on my previous experiences here, I don’t worry too much about the cairns and just keep myself pointed more or less directly toward the Keyhole. It’s hard to miss that distinctive notch in the ridge between Longs and Storm Peak (13,326 ft). As I draw closer to my objective, the strengthening light allows me to make out the Agnes Vaille Memorial Shelter where it nestles in the southeastern corner of the Keyhole.
Just before I tackle the final scramble up to the Keyhole itself, I turn and look behind me. The rising sun is just cresting the horizon far to the east. Beautiful.
The final scramble up to the opening requires that I use my hands for the first time on the hike. This is the third time I’ve been up to the Keyhole and each time I step through that gaping hole in the ridge, my thoughts come to a screeching halt at, “Wow!!!” From tediously slogging my way up through a rocky sea of rocks, I’ve suddenly come upon an eye-popping scene of alpine grandeur. The floor of Glacier Gorge, with its shimmering string of mountain lakes, lies nearly 3,000 feet directly below me. Spread out before me, seeming near enough to touch, are the majestic peaks and steep ridges that rise up to form the gorge’s magnificently rugged headwall. As I watch, alpenglow paints the tops of those peaks and ridges a divine rose-pink. Wow!!!
After soaking in the view for a few minutes, I start off south across the Ledges. It’s here, just on the other side of the Keyhole, that the hike up Longs becomes something more than a simple hike. From the Keyhole to the summit (and back again, of course), extreme care is called for.
Once I’m out on the Ledges, I find the first of the yellow and red painted circles called “bulls-eyes” which mark the route all the way to the top of the mountain. I carefully follow the bulls-eyes on a bit of a roller-coaster, up & down, ¼ mile scramble across the rock shelves that take me over to the Trough. Partway across, I clamber over the only truly difficult point on the Ledges— a steep V-shaped niche between boulders where an iron rod has been placed to provide a much-appreciated handhold.
As I exit the Ledges and crane my head back to look up the Trough, my heart sinks. I’d forgotten how steep this sucker is. I stand there a minute, wondering just what possessed me to do this hike again, and then I start off. The Trough is a steep couloir (from the French word meaning "passage" or "corridor," it’s a deep gorge or gully formation found on the side of a mountain) which actually rises from upper Glacier Gorge all the way up to a notch on the west ridge of Longs, where it meets the Narrows. The Ledges connect with the Trough about midway up the couloir.
The Trough is not only wickedly steep but it’s also unhelpfully filled with loose stone. If I accidentally knock a rock loose, I’m supposed to yell “Rock!” so those below will know I’m a klutz and there's a good chance they're about to be maimed or brained by the stone projectile I’ve just sent tumbling down the steep slope. Some people wear climbing helmets on this part of the hike. My painfully slow climb up the Trough is given new life when, on each of my frequent stops to catch my breath, I turn around to admire the view down into Glacier Gorge.
Finally, thank heavens, I find I’m at long last closing in on the upper section of the Trough where it curves up & around to the right to meet the Narrows at 13,865 ft. Before I can access the Narrows, though, I need to scramble over a chockstone which inconveniently sits at the top of the Trough. If I go up to the left, it is indeed a scramble… or what my trusty Rocky Mountain National Park: The Complete Hiking Guide says is “a move or two of semi-technical climbing (Class 3+).” But on my previous hike, I’d watched a couple of people tightrope-walk up a narrow, eroded ledge to the right, so that’s the route I now use to surmount the chockstone.
I exit the Trough and make my way out onto the Narrows. Again quoting my trusty hiking guide: “A sheer drop-off to the south strikes fear into the hearts of many hikers at this point, but a broken rock wall on the opposite side provides good handholds and presents the option of leaning into the wall, away from the abyss.” On my 2008 hike up Longs, I was ascending the Trough when I met two guys who were coming down, having turned around at the Narrows. That made me wonder what I was in for, but— truth be told— the Narrows may be my favorite part of the Keyhole Route. The footing is stable, the view south into Wild Basin is marvelous, and the passage across the exposed but straighforward route over to the base of the Homestretch is exhilirating.
A brief scramble up a small chockstone at the end of the Narrows brings me to the base of the Homestretch (13,980 ft). The Homestretch is comprised of a series of vertical cracks in the otherwise smooth slab of this steep cliff on Longs’ upper south face. There are still bulls-eyes to guide me up this section, but this final push to the top is pretty uncomplicated: stay off the smooth slabs as much as possible, and utilize one or two of the cracks in the cliff to climb up to the cairn which marks the point where you step off the Homestretch and onto the summit. Easy, right? Except at this point, fatigue and the thin air at 14,000+ ft are conspiring with each other so that I’m gasping like a fish out of water as I sloooowly make my way up the last hundred or so feet.
Even though my goal is so close I can taste it, I’m reduced to creeping up the top section of the Homestretch in twenty foot increments. Fifteen feet below the summit, I have to stop one more time to catch my breath. I know I probably could’ve covered this last segment in one final manic burst, without stopping again, but I don’t want to puke or pass out just as I pop up onto the summit.
Okay, deep breaths… wait… be patient… a few more deep breaths…
And then I’m climbing the last few steps up to the 14,259-foot summit of Longs Peak.
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