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Peak(s)  Longs Peak  -  14,259 feet
Date Posted  07/24/2023
Date Climbed   07/23/2023
Author  oldschool
 My Finisher on Longs   

(Please see my Forum post called My Finisher for context)

I headed out at 3:30 pm to do Longs in the afternoon, July 23rd, 2023. A six hour drive for me in Grand Junction. I got to the practically empty parking lot at 8:30 pm. Loaded my pack up and took off hiking. I had a small down quilt to grab a nap if needed. I was headed for the Keyhole route. I was moving slow but steady and got to the boulder field and snuggled up again a boulder and took a quick nap. Beautiful night....clear and warm. Heard some climbers pass me about 4:30 am or so and I got rolling. Made it up to the Keyhole and around the other side. Damn the wind was whipping through the Keyhole!

The excitement begins around the other side. It was great 3rd class stuff, which I enjoy. A few people were coming along behind me. I suffer from AMS and had my typical nauseous stomach..feel like I'm gonna puke but don't. This makes it hard for me to eat correctly so I get a bit bonked. Never happened to me when I was a bit younger. I was struggling to even drink. The weather was so nice.

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Caption Here

and warm. On the back side the wind was minimal. There were only about 6 or 8 climbers ahead of me. I got passed by a few going up the Trough. What a damn slog that was. Reminded me of Lavender Col on Sneffels. With people above me it was important to keep aware of rock fall from above. Fortunately none came down on my way up. No snow at all to contend with, even on the Homestretch. Loved the Narrows and Homestretch. Everyone ahead of me was taking a line to the right of the normal-ish way as there was some snow on the Homestretch to the left. Easy enough. Some wet rock and water to deal with but again minimal and easy to avoid. It was so cool to get to the top of the Homestretch and bang you are there! No false summits, no slog to the high point. Even at 7:40 am there were about 10 or so climbers on top. When I descended..holy crap. It was a zoo. I'm guessing 300 ppl at least.I never climb on weekends due to my work schedule and I saw why I'm glad I don't.

As stated at the top of this post, I wrote a bit of a story in the Forum about this being my Finisher. As part of that I am including some photos of my Longs Peak day and some other photos related to my Forum post.

22165_01
Caption Here



Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17


Comments or Questions
Kiefer
User
Solid Job
7/26/2023 10:46am
I couldn't agree more about staying away from the weekends. But sometimes, you just don't have a choice. Congratulations on finally getting up this bugger.
So many routes on this mountain, you could spend an entire summer on it and still not hit all of them.
Your summit profile shot is rather awesome.


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