La Plata Relative Difficulty
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La Plata Relative Difficulty
On the 4th I made it up La Plata with a good friend from out of town, my daughter and his son. While we did make it and it was a truly beautiful hike I'll have to say I very much underestimated the difficultly. It was the first 14er of the season for me and a combination of injury and work has left my workout regimen minimal at best the last three months. I know that La Plata's elevation gain (4500) over just 4.7 miles is nothing to ignore. Bear Peak near my home in Boulder has a similar lower mileage but steep gain that makes it a brutal hike. I was hoping to get a relative sense of difficulty with the mountains around the area and get a better sense of I just choose a hard mountain or I just sort of got my ass kicked or a combination of both. I'm trying to plan a hike for Long's in August so I'm trying to prep myself for what to expect and also how much harder I need to work to get ready.
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Re: La Plata Relative Difficulty
I guess the below is somewhat subjective, but...I was hoping to get a relative sense of difficulty with the mountains around the area and get a better sense of I just choose a hard mountain or I just sort of got my ass kicked or a combination of both.
La Plata is about average as compared to the others in the that area. Elbert might be slightly easier, at least from the East Ridge. Massive is about the same, but probably very slightly more difficult. Sherman would be easier. Huron would also be easier.
Holy Cross would be harder. Belford, Oxford, and Missouri would be harder than La Plata (Belford alone is probably about the same) if you did them in one day, but you can camp making them easier.
Columbia is slightly harder (or perhaps more accurately more of a pain) than La Plata and Harvard is about the same, but a little longer. Yale would be about the same.
Longs is harder than all of those.
Last edited by Scott P on Tue Jul 07, 2015 8:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
I'm old, slow and fat. Unfortunately, those are my good qualities.
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Re: La Plata Relative Difficulty
Also, check these out:
14ers by Difficulty (as rated by users on this site)
14er Climbing Routes Grouped by Difficulty
Longs from any route is a lot harder than La Plata. Train hard. Start early.
-Susan
14ers by Difficulty (as rated by users on this site)
14er Climbing Routes Grouped by Difficulty
Longs from any route is a lot harder than La Plata. Train hard. Start early.
-Susan
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Re: La Plata Relative Difficulty
Longs is twice long hike. And it has Class 3 moves, which means you use your arm strength in several places to keep from falling to injury or worse.
Half of your problem could just be getting used to high altitude at the beginning of the season. If you climb a 14er or do a above treeline hike every other weekend 3 or 4 more times, that will improve altitude conditioning before a late August Longs attempt. I am recomending the last couple days of August Full Moon for pre-dawn Longs attempt this season.
Half of your problem could just be getting used to high altitude at the beginning of the season. If you climb a 14er or do a above treeline hike every other weekend 3 or 4 more times, that will improve altitude conditioning before a late August Longs attempt. I am recomending the last couple days of August Full Moon for pre-dawn Longs attempt this season.
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Re: La Plata Relative Difficulty
And these:
14er Routes by Exposure
Route Selector
Lots of great info on this site... check the weather and route conditions before you go as those will also affect the difficulty.
-Susan
14er Routes by Exposure
Route Selector
Lots of great info on this site... check the weather and route conditions before you go as those will also affect the difficulty.
-Susan
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Re: La Plata Relative Difficulty
Thanks for the feedback. I'm happy to see I choose something a little more middle of the road. I know Long's requires a bit of climbing. Even though I'm tall and broad I do have pretty decent upper body strength. My intention was to climb Gray's and Torrey's via Kelso later this month to test out my ability to climb at altitude under a little less severe conditions than Long's as well as gain more acclimation.
The weather was very clearly rough and building very early at the mountains this week. We were very lucky in that it held out for us but I'm making the assumption that the monsoon will continue to be active this year. With all that I'm gunning for a 12am wakeup (camp near the trailhead) for Long's but I do have to balance that I'm pretty sucky with low sleep. I'm never going to be super fast I need all the time I can get. All that and very clearly I have to resume my workouts.
The weather was very clearly rough and building very early at the mountains this week. We were very lucky in that it held out for us but I'm making the assumption that the monsoon will continue to be active this year. With all that I'm gunning for a 12am wakeup (camp near the trailhead) for Long's but I do have to balance that I'm pretty sucky with low sleep. I'm never going to be super fast I need all the time I can get. All that and very clearly I have to resume my workouts.
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Re: La Plata Relative Difficulty
Good luck with the Long's hike! I have been up the keyhole route 3 times, and it is a great hike. I think a trail start of 1am would work well, although some people start at 2 or 3. Personally I don't mess around with lightning, and Long's is definitely not a place to get stuck in it (particularly past the Keyhole). It is essentially class 1 until you get to boulder field (5ish miles in). The hardest part of this hike in my opinion is the Trough, which seems to never end. The Homestretch is the second hardest part to me. But if you are in decent shape you should be able to make it to Boulder Field and the Keyhole in good time. I would plan to spend about 2 hours getting from the Keyhole to the summit. The trail is very well marked the entire way.sieggy80305 wrote:On the 4th I made it up La Plata with a good friend from out of town, my daughter and his son. While we did make it and it was a truly beautiful hike I'll have to say I very much underestimated the difficultly. It was the first 14er of the season for me and a combination of injury and work has left my workout regimen minimal at best the last three months. I know that La Plata's elevation gain (4500) over just 4.7 miles is nothing to ignore. Bear Peak near my home in Boulder has a similar lower mileage but steep gain that makes it a brutal hike. I was hoping to get a relative sense of difficulty with the mountains around the area and get a better sense of I just choose a hard mountain or I just sort of got my ass kicked or a combination of both. I'm trying to plan a hike for Long's in August so I'm trying to prep myself for what to expect and also how much harder I need to work to get ready.