The Rocky Mountains: Longs Peak
After a terrible night’s sleep on a lumpy hotel mattress and a near-disastrous slip into an ice-cold stream that almost drowned my phone, I set out to conquer Longs Peak. What starts as a peaceful, snow-dusted sunrise hike through the pine forest quickly turns into a serious test of endurance.
Battling altitude exhaustion, treacherous snowy boulder fields, and a severe facial sunburn on the open tundra, the keyhole feels like a million miles away. But between a friendly little pika acting as my morale coach and a well-earned box of cold pasta at 4,008 meters, it’s a day I’ll never forget.