Chasm Lake

Well, so no, we didn’t get all the way to Longs Peak. We didn’t plan to, although there are some youngsters who really really wanted to attempt this. We set out relatively early Monday morning (not like 2 am like those who actually went to the peak) and were pretty tired by the time we got to the lake that is nestled at the bottom of Longs Peak, 4.2 miles later. It was a beautiful view and quite a feeling of satisfaction that we made it, although some would say it wasn’t worth it. I’d never done a hike labeled strenuous before, and I learned that strenuous means STRENUOUS. It was really tough. But good.

Once above the treeline, the sun was intense. Several unprepared hikers got pretty fried. Somehow eagle-eye Jacob spotted some rock climbers rappellers on the face of the diamond, a diamond-shaped face of Longs Peak. Was pretty amazing to watch them and think about what they were doing.

Also amazing was this 86-year-old hiker who trailed us and passed us etc. on the trail. He’s been hiking his entire life and was obviously in amazing shape!

Various cairns marked the trail through the rock-strewn field. Ben maybe made this one. I think.

This portion made me a little nervous, I’ll admit.

See the trail, near the center of the picture? A stumble would’ve ended a long ways down.

Find Ben and a red-shirted Kaiser in the rocks below. The final leg of our hike was free-climbing up this pile of rocks; the lake came into view as we crested the top. Dad, Sarah, and Josh stayed back, too winded to finish. SO CLOSE!!!  But they were just plain done in. The high altitude (~12,000 ft) made breathing difficult.

WE MADE IT

Remember the rappeller Jacob was watching? I circled him below in red. Don’t ask me how Jacob spotted that. There were a couple other people up there too, in white shirts; I never saw them, but they were more visible than this black dot (for a short time, then they disappeared from view and no one saw them again) . Even with the naked eye, though, we could all see this black dot moving up. Pretty incredible.

Kids rested and snacked on their rock. I stayed put a ways from them, out of energy to get where they were. I was D.O.N.E.

Then Dad and the other kids came too!

A nice long rest at the lake, a long weary painful hike back down, a short and sweet drive back to the cabin, and we were all content to call it a day. Sore and tired but successful!