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By David Baron, For The New York Times
For many of us in Colorado, a state that boasts more than 50 peaks rising over 14,000 feet, summer is not complete without “bagging a fourteener.”
Some of those fourteeners — gentle Bierstadt, for instance, or the twin peaks of Grays and Torreys — require nothing more than stamina and a good pair of shoes to get to the top. They are formidable, to be sure, but they entail hikes, not climbs. My goal this year was a far more challenging destination: Longs Peak.
I had wanted to climb Longs since arriving in Colorado a decade ago, but the mountain always seemed too daunting. Even the easiest route to the top requires scrambling over slick rocks along sheer cliffs. (Segments of the route are aptly named the Ledges and the Narrows.) One is well advised to begin the climb by 3 a.m. so as to be up and off the summit before afternoon thunderstorms roll in. The mountain — ably assisted by gravity — has claimed many lives.
If you're a fan of fourteeners, join Club 54 and log your summit victories!
Read about Coloradans who RUN the summits in our story about Nolan's 14.
Let’s be clear: I am no mountaineer. I own no ice ax, no pitons. Yet the allure of Longs is such that it attracts thousands of ordinary Coloradans each year (including twin brothers next door who climbed it this summer to celebrate – get this – their 11th birthday).
As I set out on my trek in predawn darkness, the headlamps of dozens of climbers traced a constellation along the switchbacks ahead. It seemed a bizarre nocturnal pilgrimage. After the sun rose, while we climbed loose rock toward the summit, I asked some around me: Why are you doing this? An older gentleman said simply, “To prove I can.” Then he added, for good measure, “I’m afraid of heights.”
Read why public radio editor David Baron set out to climb Longs Peak.
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