A Long, but Worthwhile Road to a First 14er

Prelude

I first met Brad Virkus in February 2018 when he came out to visit my firm from his home in Michigan. We chatted about a variety of topics over dinner, including hobbies and interests. Naturally, 14ers came up as one of mine. He was intrigued and we joked that maybe someday we would do one together. He figured that was the last he would hear of that idea.

By June 2018, our firms had decided to join forces, so it looked like we would be seeing each other on a semi-regular basis. We bantered a bit more about doing a 14er together someday through the fall. I told him that I was serious in my offer to join him on a peak if he had an interest. I threw out that it would be pretty awesome if we could do a bigger peak like Longs Peak. A bit to my surprise, he said he would really like to do it, so the planning began.

Both of our calendars tend to book up a ways in advance, so we decided to put a June 2019 date on the calendar in February. Brad was committed to being in great shape for our outing, so he asked me the best way to train. I told him to focus mostly on cardio and legs, suggesting that if he could get on a stair machine a couple times per week with a 20-30 pound pack, he would be more than ready. I didn't realize then how far on this journey Brad had already come....

He messaged me after his first stair machine training session saying that the best thing he had found around the house for training weight was cat food. From then on, this is how I pictured his audience for each of his training sessions (in finding this photo, I learned that there are islands like Aoshima Island in Japan that have more cats than people):

I sent Brad a gear list, and he carved out some time from his accountant busy season schedule to go visit his local outdoor gear store in Michigan - Moosejaw. I'm sure they were thrilled to have a guy walk in the door, wallet in hand, and say, "I'm going to climb Longs Peak this year and I don't have any gear. Will you please hook me up with what I need?"

Word of this climb was spreading amongst our partner group in both Colorado and Michigan. My Colorado partners largely think I'm crazy for climbing as much as I do anyway, so they just shook their heads at another crazy adventure that I had up my sleeve. It was of course an epic snow year in Colorado and our June climb was clearly going to be a snow climb - I told Brad that I would have what he needed for the snow.

In Michigan, Brad was getting great support for the outing and his diligent training leading up to it. We had a partner meeting in Michigan the week before the climb where I was visiting with our Managing Partner for a few minutes. He asked me about the climb and wanted a bit of reassurance that I intended to bring Mr. Virkus back alive. Expectations set - and quite clearly.

The other thing that came out of my conversation with the Managing Partner was that Brad had already come a long way. Apparently Brad had shed some 65 pounds just prior to our first meeting after his doctor, Dr. Jeff Coppinger, had a little heart to heart with him about his unacceptable odds of having a heart attack if he didn't change the way he was eating and get himself some exercise. Brad has a 25-year relationship with Dr. Coppinger and consulted him along the way during the training process. They discussed his fitness level and what could be done to improve his acclimatization. "Am I fit enough to climb Longs Peak?", Brad asked his doc. Dr. Coppinger had apparently spent some time in Colorado during his residency, knew of Longs Peak and gave Brad the enthusiastic thumbs up.

Brad's wife, Cari, decided to accompany him to Colorado, and they decided to stay at the Stanley in Estes Park for two nights before the climb to get Brad a little more used to the altitude - much higher than his home elevation of 870 feet above sea level. At breakfast Tuesday morning, Cari read the sad story of the recent recovery of a fallen climber below the Ledges section of Longs Peak. She was understandably a little concerned, but decided to trust her Brad and this other Brad she had never met before (but who had apparently climbed a 14er or two).

The Climb

I picked Brad up at the Stanley at 2:00 AM on Wednesday, June 12, 2019. Our firm was having its annual family picnic that night, followed by a big firm conference the following day on Thursday. Brad was hoping to attend the picnic, so we decided to shoot to be walking at 2:30 AM.

I handed Brad crampons, an ice axe and a helmet as we geared up at the car, then we launched - walking at 2:36 AM. I could tell that Brad had put in the cardio work since he was easily able to maintain a conversation with me while walking uphill from the 9,440' trailhead.

We made quick work of the trail through the trees, then wallowed a bit in some less than supportive snow as we made our way up towards Chasm Junction. I asked Brad if he was a Lord of the Rings fan. He admitted to having never seen the movies (that's a project for another time), but caught on very quickly that we wanted to be like elves on top of the snow - not like the men and dwarfs punching through.

As we approached Granite Pass, the sunrise got better and better - we were above the cloud deck and enjoyed the astounding views.

When we rounded the corner and climbed towards the Boulder Field, we could see that the upper mountain was socked in. Our weather forecast for the day was about as good as I've ever seen, so we were certainly hoping that the clouds would blow over or burn off.

Once across the Boulder Field, the clouds broke for a few minutes and we got a view of the route ahead. We planned to climb and descend via the North Face route. Brad liked the idea of not doing the Ledges where his wife had just read about the fallen climber, and I liked that we would have the security of a rope given the Managing Partner's strict rule that I bring Brad back alive. In fact, he was due on stage at the big firm conference the next day. This is quite a production and I gather that the planners didn't love that he was doing Longs Peak the day before. They had asked one of our Colorado partners to be Brad's back-up and join them for the all-day Tuesday dress rehearsal. She also asked for re-assurance that I was going to bring him back so that she didn't have to expend too much mental energy on preparing as his back-up.

When we got to continuous snow, we stopped and geared up. Brad put crampons on and held an ice axe for the first time in his life. We went over some basic crampon climbing technique. We talked about the axe always being in the uphill hand and we spent a few minutes on ice axe self-arrest. Up we went, but then the clouds came back. I was really curious if the old Cables Route eye bolts would be accessible above the snow as I had planned to anchor us into at least a couple of those as we went up the crux. I was not thrilled when the upper mountain socked in again.

I told Brad he must be living right because the clouds evaporated just when we needed them to. Alas, we could finally see the rest of the route clearly. We saw two guys climbing up behind us - turned out to be Justin (The Long Ranger) and Peter. They moved quickly and passed us while I got the rope set up. I had actually told Brad about Justin earlier that morning and how amazed I am of his incredible endurance feats. Just his routine outing of riding his bike to Longs Peak from Boulder, climbing the peak and riding back home seems unreal to me. Justin confessed to me on their way down that he had accepted a ride that morning. I suppose you're allowed to ride in a car every now and then Justin...

Once Justin and Peter were past us, Brad and I headed up, much more slowly, but feeling better that he was attached to me and I was attached to the mountain. This was my 7th time on the North Face of Longs and this was by far the most snow I had seen on it. Honestly, I'll take the snow all day long over some of the icy days. Up we climbed on the great spring snow.

When we topped out, Brad kept saying how incredible this was. He never in a million years would have dreamed that he would be standing on top of Longs Peak, especially with the dire warnings his doc had provided about his health not all that long ago. Wow!

Brad carried two signs with him and wore a shirt with a third sign. We did a picture so he could give a shout out to the folks at Moosejaw back home in Michigan that helped outfit him for the trip. Sadly, it was such a nice day up there that several great pieces of gear were never even needed. Hopefully he'll want to do a 2nd mountain sometime and we can get those layers out of his pack!

Next, Brad wanted a picture of both of us with a banner with our firm printed on it - apparently there was a placeholder in tomorrow's slide show at the firm conference for this one. It took us a few tries to get a shot with my timer that worked. Brad had read that Longs was very popular, so he assumed there would be lots of people on top to take our picture. It turns out on a late-spring Wednesday in an epic snow year, the only other two doing Longs today were Justin and Peter (and they were almost back to Boulder by now!).

And finally, time for Brad to show off the shirt he had custom made to give a heartfelt thank you to his doctor, Dr. Jeff Coppinger, without whom, Brad was convinced he would not be feeling as good as he was and certainly without whom, he would not be standing on top of Longs Peak, the monarch of the Front Range.

Brad commented afterwards, "Now I also have a great tool to show appreciation to my Dr. who deserves so much from me. This adventure allows me to say thank you to him and show the results of his good work which as you know feels good no matter what profession you practice. Especially those professions where the practitioners usually just hear complaints and not compliments."

The Descent

I'm a big believer that getting to the top is optional while getting down is not (thanks Ed V. for keeping things in perspective). We were half way done with the climb, it was about noon and I had promised a lot of people that I'd bring Brad back down in one piece. Time to get off this rock.

I didn't love the idea of descending back down the steep snow of the North Face with the edge of the Diamond looming large. We could stay on the rope, but that would take longer. The last two bolts off of which I had intended to rappel on descent were buried under all the snow. I told Brad I thought we should descend via the Loft. He asked where that was and I pointed out the Homestretch to him. "Is that really less steep than what we just climbed?" he asked. Oh quite. He took me up on my offer for a hip belay while he down climbed the snow on the Homestretch. We repeated it once more and we were ready to turn the corner and go east towards the Palisades on somewhat easier terrain.

We crossed the couple of snowfields to reach the ledge system leading to Clark's Arrow and the exit to the Loft. Brad's knees started to hurt a bit, but he was still doing amazingly well for a guy on his first 14er all the way from Michigan.

Brad didn't love that all of a sudden we were climbing again, this time a short class 3 rock pitch to get to the easier terrain of the Loft, but he made it look easy as he went.

We got to the Loft, walked across the flat saddle between Longs and Meeker, then located the exit ramp down into the Loft Couloir. The crampons went back on again and I kicked in steps for Brad as we down climbed our last steep snow to access the exit ramp. No photos from that as I was focused on being a good spotter and coach vs. capturing what could best be described as descending a steep ladder of snow face into the mountain while holding onto the axe for prosperity. One last bit of downsloping snow on a ramp with cliffs below and we were onto the final mellow snowfield with the gentle run out just a few minutes below.

Once on the final slope, Brad asked about the glissade track that he saw going down the center. I asked if he'd like to try that. We did a quick glissading lesson with the ice axe, then took turns sliding down the track, making sure we could control our speed and stop ourselves. Once he was comfortable and we were satisfied with both, I let loose and zipped to the bottom. Brad was not far behind me, with a mighty big grin on his face. That was the fastest we had moved all day!

Chasm Lake came into view briefly and we snapped a few more photos crossing the last snowfield before being home free at Chasm Junction.

From Chasm Junction, Longs came out again briefly to bid us goodbye. Brad expressed disbelief that we had really been all the way up there just hours before.

When we got back to the trees, I promptly missed a switchback in the confusing multiple sets of boot tracks and had us wandering the forest for a while before finally regaining the trail near the creek (sorry Brad!). From there, we entered the time warp that is the lower section of the Longs Peak trail. It goes so quickly in the dark morning hours and takes so long on the way out in broad daylight.

We got back to the car with a round trip time of 16:41, took one last photo, and drove Brad back down to Estes Park where his wife was patiently waiting for him.

The trip took longer than we expected (I had texts from five partners asking if we were down yet when I hit cell range again), but we had accomplished our goals of summiting and safely returning. The firm picnic was pretty much over, so that was out of the question. Brad wanted a pizza and a beer, but that would have to wait until a few days later when he got home to Michigan.

Thanks Brad for letting me join you for this part of your incredible journey from the stern warning from your doc to climbing Longs Peak in conditions that would have turned around a lot of 14er veterans, much less 14er rookies! I thoroughly enjoyed it.