Hanging out at the Longs Peak Boulder Field

Part 2. So after the approximately 6 miles and 3-4 hours of hiking up Longs Peak, we arrive at the Longs Peak Boulder Field at 12,760 feet elevation in mid-afternoon. As can be seen below, it looks exactly as the name suggests. It really is nice breaking up the trip this way - feels good to take the packs off and kick back for a bit. As we unpack and setup camp, it becomes quite obvious that Alek truly does NOT have a sleeping bag ... but fortunately the weather is good, and we think that if we put him in the three man tent between two people (and bundle him up real good), he'll survive. In addition to a buncha boulders around us, there are two solar toilets. For those who have backpacked, this is luxury for those that ... gotta go! We have time to wander around a bit - behind us is the Diamond which is a massive rock wall to Longs Peak - we hang our feet over the edge and observe a few technical climbers. After that, Myke makes an awesome dinner - Mac and Cheese tastes GREAT after a day of hiking. We then hit the sack early for the big day tomorrow.

Alek wants to sleep in, but the sun hits us fairly early in the morning, and the rest of the crew wakes him up. We see a few hikers go by that had started from the trailhead, but they had been up since REALLY early that morning, to it was relaxing for us to have a casual breakfast, do a morning poop (gotta like those solar toilets! ;-), and then get ready to head out for the summit by 8:00AM.

All hanging out at the Boulder Field

Panning to West showing the Keyhole on the ridge
boulder field 10 boulder field 11

Myke and Kris with Longs Peak behind 'em

Shadows getting a little longer
longs peak 2 longs peak 1

Myke (aka Gilligan) with Digicam and Cell Phone

Myke places "emergency call"
phone home 1 phone home 2

Kurt coming back from some ... BIZNESS!

Thanx Kurt, I actually needed that TP roll
tp 1 tp 2

Two decent solar toilets - almost like home

HEY ... a little privacy please!
toilet 3 toilet 4

Kurt hanging out by the Longs Peak Diamond

Looks like some climbers on the face
diamond 1 diamond 2

Little bitty ants on the rock wall

As close as I can get with 4X Optical and 5 Megapixels
diamond 3 diamond 4

Longs Peak in the morning

Allright, time to wake up Alek (note Keyhole)
longs peak 6 longs peak 7

Alek in the morning ... sans sleeping bag

Bulking up for summit climb with Breakfast
alek sleeping breakfast



Go on to Part 3 - Climbing the Keyhole Route to Longs Peak summit, or back to Climbing Longs Peak - © 2003-2004 www.komar.org Alek Komarnitsky