Make it thru Goblin's Forest with no stalkers in evidence. Beautiful day. No more than the requisite amount of panting and puffin, rest stops. Reach the treeline about 1000, pause to admire the pretty brook,flowering alpine meadow and lightning hazard warning. The trail is cut into horse steps, imposing an odd gait on a uman bean. I will come to know and hate these steps. Over the treeline and a shoulder with imposing views of stone and sky.
Wind on past Battle Creek where there is another campground and onward. Puffin and panting increases. Haven't yet figured out the right way to sling the camera +tripod combo. Make several stops to film and catch my breath. We are gonna do WHAT? Come up this trail with a full pack .. and continue to Boulder Field ? And then Long's Peak ? What were we thinking...?
Over the rise to Mills Moraine and all words are swept away. Long's Peak stands before us, massif of uncompromising rock against steely blue. The great vertical diamond shaped face it shows us is not the one we will ascend, we intend rather to circle the mountain and approach from the west. There is no sense of scale until we see tiny dots on the vertical face, climbers on spiderweb of rope.
The trail diverges near here and the right hand fork continues to Boulder field, and the other goes on to Peacock Pool. We pause to eat and investigate a chipmunk and a marmot. Continue on the left hand trail, which is about 2 inches wide and clutches at the mountainside. A 1000 foot drop on the one hand and a 1000 foot rise on the other. You won't stop rolling till Kansas City. Not exactly a place to, ohhh, say, climb off the trail, perch on the scree covered 70 degree slope, set up tripod over a precipitous drop and run off a few hundred frames.
Nyhoo.
Get to Peacock Pool where the trail ends, losing itself in moss covered rocks and rivulets. A rangers hut stands here in front of a wall of boulders about 40 feet high. 11:30 AM. Futilely tighten the camera straps and start up the boulderwall. Doesn't look too bad.
Halfway up, i reconsider. Camera and tripod are taking a huge beating. Then i thought of sumpn else...
turn around and look down. This is complicated, camera/tripod behind me make it necessary to lean out away from face. What is see is not reassuring. I need to get back down that too dont i ... and i am getting close to my self imposed noon deadline for heading downhill. OK, back down. This is more difficult by and order of magnitude. Have to sling camera in front of me, no room to adjust the straps here. one hand on the camera, graceless descent, feel the tendons in my knee flare in protest. Hate to come down with my back to the wall..
Back at the foot in one piece. Take a few steps, knees seem ok. Start off back down the trail, meet TylMjk, who still wants to climb the wall. Disagree with him, he concurs but sulks for a while.
Coming back to camp, is fractionally easier than the way out. Missteps are more dangerous tho, couple times i feel my ankle twist, but recover in time.
Back at Goblin's Forest. Seriously beat. Sit around, pant for a while. Then we remember the cooler, or rather one of it's contents. We have one can of beer. We also have other comforts. Life looks better.
Halfway thru the can of beer, lookin at the map plannin tomorrow. TylMjk looks up, chokes on a lungful of the other comforts, hissing "Ranger!". i stick the beer under the log on which i am sitting. TylMjk rearranges items more discreetly. The dreaded ranger turns out to be a amiable young man who chats to us for a while about the trail to Estes Cone.
Make dinner, eat, clean up, curl up in sleepin bag.
Tomorrow, Estes Cone.
Passout.