Unbridled fear, sheer terror, a level of scared I didn’t know existed enshrouded my brain and wouldn’t let go as I clung to the boulder perched on what felt like a three foot wide ledge above a thousand foot drop to imminent doom, getting pushed back by an almost constant eighty to ninety mile per hour wind. I have never felt that feeling, that lizard brain, pure instincts you’re going to die feeling before but in the midst of it, after I came to terms with what might happen, I clenched my jaws and screamed at myself to just go, although not in so polite a phrasing and pushed through it. Already four hours in to what would end up being an eleven hour day, there was no going back now.
A full moon greeted us as we woke from our short slumber, the bright light shining in through the moonroof of the car we’d slept in. It was two thirty in the morning and we wanted to be on the trail by three. Long’s Peak is a serious hike, it takes six miles of hiking just to reach the boulder field beneath the east face of the peak after which it’s another mile and a half to the summit but it becomes a class three scramble around the back side of the mountain. Not terribly difficult or dangerous but certainly no walk in the park and nothing like any mountain I’ve summited before, I was in for an interesting day.
We hiked by moonlight neath the trees, keeping up a quick pace. The light from the moon was bright enough we didn’t really need our headlamps so we decided to leave them off and put away. As peaceful as a forest can be it is more so when the sun is down and the moon illuminates the path. Bright white beams shone through the trees where they were thinnest and the scene was surreal, a palette of ink blacks, dark navy blues and bright whites made it feel as if we were in an old black and white movie, Humphrey Bogart was surely right around the corner waiting to deliver some iconic line. About halfway through the trees we began to hear the rushing of a creek, it wasn’t some trickling thing either, it sounded like a raging torrent blasting tempestuously down the mountain and being unable to actually see it made for an even more eerie setting, us out walking, after midnight, neath the moonlight.
As we climbed out of the trees the landscape felt more and more strange, the great shadows ahead of the peaks surrounding us and a high meadow in between, behind us you could see all of the lights of the I25 corridor like a carpet made of a Lite-Brite some overzealous child had meticulously overloaded, it stretched as far as the eye could see and made for an extremely odd setting considering we were attempting to summit a brutal beast of earth and stone. This was the first time I’d been close enough to civilization whilst summiting that I’d had that obvious of a reminder. We continued up the path finally completely out of the trees and bushes and into the rocky tundra which under the full moon became reminiscent of the lunar surface, the stones all appeared white and the alpine mosses and grasses were indistinguishable.
About four hours into the journey we reached the boulder field, traversing many forks of a stream along the way something which I am still confused as to how I didn’t fall into, by this point the moon was behind the summit and it was incredibly tough to discern what was what beneath our feet, it was still bright enough to continue sans headlamp however so we kept moving onward, stumbling our way across the boulders. The sun began to rise and with it the colors of the stones changed from different shades of black to reds and browns it was like traversing the surface of Mars, an alien landscape featuring strange rock formations and winds of a strength and fierceness I’d never experienced anytime we came into line with the Keyhole. As we got closer we noticed a small stone shelter to the left of it so we stopped in for a bit of reprieve and then decided to sit outside and watch the sun rise on the distant horizon.
Seeing such a truly awe inspiring sunrise gave us a boost of adrenaline so we hopped up, strapped on our rock climbing helmets and pushed our way up toward the Keyhole a unique rock formation that creates a wind tunnel and features near constant winds blustering through it at between seventy and eighty miles per hour. I had misplaced my gloves which would prove folly during the traverse of the Keyhole as the winds started to freeze my extremities, luckily getting through and around the Keyhole took only a minimal amount of time and when we got settled, perched on a decent ledge on the other side, the wind was almost completely gone and the view we found was something I will never forget.
A valley down below us and a long drop down to it, Rocky Mountain National Park to our north and straight west almost perfectly between two peaks was the moon, not quite hidden by the sun’s rays, sitting in a band of orange light beneath a lavender sky and above a darker blue where the sun hadn’t hit yet. Gusts of wind occasionally chilled our bones but our souls were warmed by such a beautiful sight, a once in a lifetime kind of view, the perfect sky, the perfect moon, the perfect dawn and the perfect setting below. If I had died in that moment it would have been more peaceful a passing than anyone could hope for, perched on the side of a mountain gazing out in wonderment at all this bright blue marble we call home has to offer.
Onward we climbed, first down and then we began the long slog up the section known as the Trough a defined gully that features a six hundred foot vertical climb that, while not mentally draining, was tough physically having never scrambled anything close to that difficulty. A slog it was but we trudged onward and upward and soon enough we reached the ridge, at which point we would turn left and enter the most terrifying place I’ve ever been. The Narrows.
I didn’t take pictures in The Narrows, I wasn’t of a sound enough mind to do so and looking back I’d rather not relive that part anyhow. I am afraid of heights, typically in mountain summiting situations I’ve been on stable enough trails or far enough away from real ledges I’ve been able to ignore that fear but perched on a narrow path, barely as wide as my shoulders, above a thousand foot drop with a constant view of doom I couldn’t ignore it. My brain ceased to work and my body became paralyzed as I gazed, shaking, down the mountain, I kept smacking myself and gritting my teeth, clenching my jaw and shouting at myself to move and it would work for a time but with every gust of wind I would start the process over again and again and again until, almost at the end, I saw my compatriot headed back my way. The path ahead was too dangerous he said, he wasn’t going to attempt it, the wind whipping through the notch ahead was worse than the Keyhole and after that the path was indiscernible. I laid my head against the rock I clung to, defeated by the elements I didn’t want to have to turn around but I had to believe him. Just at that moment another climber came through the notch and made us aware that the wind is only terrible in that spot, that once around it the homestretch as it is known was no where near as exposed or windy. I looked up at my friend and he told me to go ahead if I felt I could but that the mountain had bested him this day, he was headed back down, a mere three hundred or so feet from the summit. I don’t blame him, he’s a smarter man than I for what came next was the worst experience of my life.
Clinging to the side of that rock, getting blasted by wind, it was in that moment I broke my brain. Fear enveloped me, it wrapped its tentacles around my body and started to crush the life out of me. I’d never leave that spot, in all my years, of all the idiotic things I’ve ever done I had never felt a true fear, that I could truly die, that lizard brain instinct that the end is nigh and it won’t be forgiving. In that fuzz, that panicked scramble my mind was in, I shouted some very angry words at myself, words I won’t repeat, namely because I don’t know that they were actually words so much as they were incoherent grunts and growls through a clenched jaw. I pulled myself around the rock and almost leapt up the trail ahead of me out of the wind and onto a more solid piece of mountain. I continued up the trail a ways until I found a spot to sit down, my morale was dipping lower and lower as I realized not only would I have to find the trail up but I would also have to go through all of that again to get down the bloody thing. Soon another climber found his way up to me, asked me how I was doing and then proceeded up the trail, I decided in that moment to pull myself up and follow him to the top.
It took what felt like an hour but was probably closer to fifteen minutes but we finally pulled ourselves up over the last boulder and found ourselves standing high above the land staring out over the last bit of the route we had just finished. I wandered over to a rock away from the people, sat down and wept, I don’t know why, whether it was the accomplishment or the fear, or if I was just overcome and overloaded with more emotional and mental stress than I’d ever experienced but for a good thirty or forty-five seconds I was blubbering like a school boy. I calmed down rather quickly and began wandering about the football field of a summit, a big flat top covered in boulders, this thing was massive.
I pulled out my burrito, again from Illegal Pete’s, and tried to eat it but after two bites I thought I might throw up so I wrapped it back up and stuffed it into my bag. A couple asked if I could take their picture and I obliged and then I asked another climber if he would take mine and he obliged. Proof that I’d conquered the beast, I’m honestly surprised I could smile at that point because my brain was fried and I could barely put together sentences.
The climb back down was horrendous, even more terrifying because I knew what was in store but everyone going the opposite way was incredibly encouraging. They all knew what they were accomplishing and what I had accomplished. I made my way back through The Narrows, moving just above a snails pace trying again to keep it together and finally I reached the top of the Trough. My fear was slowly subsiding but my physical fatigue was increasing and getting back down the Trough had me a stumbling mess.
When I finally reached the bottom of it I found a group of fellow climbers to keep pace with and before I knew it we had reached the Keyhole again, the wind didn’t seem so bad this time and as I turned the corner and felt the full warmth of the sun on my face I saw my friend, waiting for me just below the shelter chatting with other climbers, some who had also turned around and some who had summited. I was so incredibly happy to see him I nearly leapt into his arms but we were on boulders still up hill quite a ways from the gulley floor and he was sitting. We enjoyed a few snacks and then got up and began the long journey back down, across the boulder field past the meadows and back down into the trees.
Ten hours of hiking, eleven hours total since we left the car that morning we reached the asphalt of the parking lot, changed into shorts and sandals with the car doors blocking us from view and then headed back down the mountain to home. I spoke after my summit of Bierstadt about Mother Nature’s occasional remorseless brutality, but that was without ever having truly experienced it. I understood my own words that day, I got a close up look at forces far greater than me. I doubt I’ll ever forget that feeling, one of being so insignificant like a flea on a dog’s cheek but I wouldn’t change it.
I would do it all over again if given the chance. There’s no better place to be than in the midst of the mighty forces of Mother Nature.
The Wandering Toto
– 2019
The Wandering Toto 