LONGS PEAK

Longs Peak is one of the 54 "fourteeners" (Peaks over 14,000 feet) in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. It can be prominently seen from Longmont, Colorado, as well as from the rest of the Colorado Front Range. It is named after Major Stephen Long, who explored the area in the 1820s. It is very popular to climb. Longs Peak rises to 14,259 feet above sea level. When taken with its neighbor Mount Meeker, they are sometimes referred to as the Twin Peaks.

As the only fourteener in Rocky Mountain National Park, the peak has long been of interest to climbers. The easiest route is not "technical" during the summer season, and was probably first used by American Indians collecting eagle feathers, but the first recorded ascent was in 1868 by the surveying party of John Wesley Powell. The East Face of the mountain is quite steep, and is surmounted by a gigantic sheer cliff known as "The Diamond" (so-named because of its shape, approximately that of a cut diamond seen from the side and inverted - see image at right). Another famous profile belongs to Longs Peak: to the southeast of the summit is a series of rises which, when viewed from the northeast, resembles a beaver.

The first proposal to climb the Diamond, in 1954, was met with an official closure by the National Park Service, a stance not changed until 1960. The Diamond was first ascended by Dave Rearick and Bob Kamps that year, and the route was listed in Allen Steck and Steve Roper's influential book Fifty Classic Climbs of North America. The easiest route on the face, the "Casual Route" (5.10-), was climbed many years later and became the most popular route up the wall.

As with Pikes Peak, there is officially no apostrophe in the name, although a number of Colorado residents continue to object to this ruling by the Board on Geographic Names.

Email: schottc@pcisys.net