Keeping an Old Appointment with Longs Peak

What Would Shakespeare Do?

 
Longs Peak: “To climb or not to climb—that is the question: Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageously unfit and unprepared crowds or to take boots against that sea of troubles and, by opposing, pass and ignore them.”

--Generally attributed to William Shakespeare as he contemplated the climb of a popular but majestic peak in Scotland; later, inspired by the idea of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, he adapted this for what became the world’s greatest play.

Enough of that.

But does someone who loves the mountains but feels distinctly differently about tourist-choked trails climb a mountain like Longs or not? Its stature, size, splendor, and variety of routes all say to climb it. The traffic jams on certain parts of the standard route, plus the noise and deflating effect of a crowded summit, say to stay away.

But look at it. Read about it. How can you NOT climb it? Experienced Colorado mountaineers who have seen much of the state’s very best still return to and love this mountain, so it’s more than just a very popular hunk of rock.

Broken Appointments Finally Kept

I first saw Longs Peak in July 1996. I first passed on a chance to climb it the next July. In August 2001, I passed on it again, opting to spend an extra day around the Wind River Range before returning to Denver to meet my wife. In 2003, I procured a backpacking permit for the Boulderfield Campground—a place that lives up to its name perfectly—at about 12,200’ and 6 miles along the 8-mile, 4800’ standard route up Longs Peak. Questioning my desire to put in all that work just to share the peak with the crowds the mountain attracts all summer, I time and again came close to canceling my permit and settling for something else instead.

But Longs Peak, in addition to being a prominent and challenging mountain, is also the northernmost Colorado fourteener and the highest peak in all the national parks of the Rockies (Canadian parks included), and there is no higher peak in the Rockies proper north of it. To someone like me, not climbing it despite ample opportunity to do so would be more than a shame; it would be a sin. I climbed it, and I am glad I did. I endured the crowds (and totally avoided them when it really counted) and conquered this great peak. I’d be kicking myself now if I had passed on it once again.

It’s a little hypocritical, I know, to expect solitude on a popular mountain when yours are yet another set of feet on it, but that’s me. When I broke camp a little before six the next morning, there was already a steady stream, more like a small army, of headlamps coming up the trail. Back at the trailhead, I checked the register and counted almost 80 groups on the mountain that day, and most had three or more people. Had I done Longs as a day hike, I’d have had to have dealt with from 200-300 other hikers on the way up. I can’t imagine how frustrated I’d have been hiking with, past, and hurriedly ahead of all those people, especially up the Trough, the long, steep, and narrow couloir that puts one in position to reach the summit pitch.

Throwing the Dice, and Turning Up Snake Eyes

Instead, I summitted in the late afternoon. I started at about 9:30, reached the campground around noon, got a nice rest, and found I had the time and energy to try the summit that afternoon instead of the next morning as originally planned. The only question mark was the weather, but it held; although storms threatened much of the afternoon and thunder and rain briefly visited around lunchtime, the skies, often overcast (but the clouds were high and the views therefore still good), cooperated.

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