The Senior Voice • September 2007 • 3
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The Senior
Published Locally Since 1980
VOL.27,NO.10
www.theseniorvoice.net
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The Senior Voice
newspaper has beenpublished locally the first of each monthsince 1980 for 40,000 residents age 50-plus.
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© Copyright 2007
The Senior Voice
EDITORIAL OFFICE:
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Dr.William Lambdin,Publisher
By Bill Lambdin
C
limbing Longs Peak near EstesPark is one of the great outdooradventures in Colorado, and muchhistory is associated with this magnif-icent mountain.Before Major Stephen Long’sexpedition arrived in 1820, Indianshad climbed the peak. Some earlyexplorers said Arapahoes trappedeagles on its summit.Major Long did not climb it,though the peak is named for him. Hefollowed the Platte River south alongColorado’s front range to Pikes Peak,discovered in 1806 by Lt. ZebulonPike.The first known pioneers to climbLongs were John Wesley Powell andWilliam Byers in 1868.Powell was the well knownexplorer of the Grand Canyon. Byerswas editor of Denver’s RockyMountain News, then an infant news-paper. They found a route up the westside of Longs above Grand Lake.Powell had lost his right arm in theCivil War and made this ascent withonly one arm.The sheer east-facing diamond isso difficult that it was not climbeduntil 1960 by two professionalclimbers, Bob Camps and DavidRearick. In 1978, Bill Forrest madethe first solo diamond climb with noropes, which must have been one of the scariest ascents made on Longs.Today thousands of people climbthe mountain every summer, of allages from 8 to 80. Agood trailrequiring no technical climbing skillsis available. It’s about a 13-hour hikeroundtrip.You gain nearly 5,000 feet fromthe trailhead to the lofty 14,255-footsummit of Longs. The mountain is thenorthernmost peak over 14,000 feet inthe entire Rocky Mountain range.Professional climbers use thediamond route up the sheer east faceof Longs, considered by many to bethe most difficult climb in Colorado.But amateurs are warned to take theeasier route.Nearly 50 people have diedclimbing Longs over the years,mostly from taking a wrong route,being careless or getting caught in asudden storm.One of the early female climberswas Isabella Bird, an English adven-turess who vividly described herexperience in 1873.She wrote of “wild fantastic viewsopening continually—a recurrence of many surprises. The air is keener andpurer with every mile...I would notexchange my memories of its perfectbeauty and extraordinary sublimity forany other experience of moun-taineering in any other part of theworld.”Isabella’s guide was a trappercalled Rocky Mountain Jim Nugent.She said the last part of the ascent wasso demanding that “Jim dragged meup like a bale of goods, by sheer forceof muscle.”Isabella described her adventure inletters to her sister and in a bookcalled “ALady’s Life in the RockyMountains.” Some people speculatedabout a romance between her and JimNugent.She described him as very hand-some, except for one side of his facethat had been disfigured when he wasmauled by a bear. “His manner wasthat of a chivalrous gentleman, hisaccent refined and his language easyand elegant.”Aman such as that would havebeen a rare find among the rough trap-pers and pioneers in the mountains atthat time. Isabella was obviouslyattracted to Jim’s mysterious charms.But he was a mountain man,accustomed to surviving in a violentplace. That had shaped his characterand frightened Isabella.Today many people feel the wayIsabella Bird did about Longs Peakand would not exchange their memo-ries of climbing it for any otherexperience.The serenity at its summit,however, can change quickly becauseof sudden storms that appear out of nowhere. Those storms have proveddevastating for some climbers.The mood of the mountain is likethat of Rocky Mountain Jim—calmand charming one minute, violent anddangerous the next.________________
COVER PICTURE: Longs Peak.Senior Voice photo.
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First Longs Peak Climbers
Many people have died climbing Longs peak. SeniorVoice photo.
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