Longs Peak Sept 2013

September 7, 2013. My second summit of Longs Peak, Amy's first. It was a simply beautiful day on the mountain. This is a long and challenging hike, made more difficult this day because of heavy rains the day before that left the rock on the Ledges, Narrows, and Homestretch plenty slippery in many spots. So we took extra care. As you can see from the pictures, there were numerous hikers on such a gorgeous day - likely one of the last days of the year to bag this majestic peak before serious weather sets in. The stats: 14 miles round trip and 5,100' of elevation gain. We stepped off at 0300, reached Granite Pass at 0500, the Keyhole at 0630, and summitted at 0835. We made it back to the trailhead, after a 30 minute respite atop the summit, at 1415. All in all, 11 hours and 15 minutes of a hiking expedition. We were both pretty tired at trail's end.