Climb Longs Peak! One of Colorado's most famous and dangerous 14ers via the classic Keyhole Route

Good morning. Hi, I'm Lisa and this is Kaylin. Hey. And we're here at the Longs Peak Trailhead and we're excited. We're going to go up the Keyhole Route today to the summit of Longs Peak and what do you have to say to everybody out there? This is my first time ever on Longs Peak. I grew up here and I'm really excited to get up there. I'm excited too. Yeah, she grew up in Estes Park and this has been a goal of yours for a while. For a long time, for years now. For years and she's been training all summer, thinking about it all summer, psychologically preparing and she's got a nice big pack with a first aid kit and all the essentials that she needs and we are going to go do this. We'll see you on the trail, guys. We are on the East Longs Peak Trail having a great day so far. Here comes Kaylin. Yeah, here we go. And this is a really scenic spot here on the trail with the water flowing. So nice. Here we are just enjoying this beautiful creek on our hike. We are at what I think is a really good landmark along this trail. It's the Goblins Forest Campsite sign. It's 1.2 miles up from the trailhead on the East Longs Peak Trail and it just gives you a really good idea of your progress and your pace. So yeah. Yay, we made it this far. Let's keep going. What a beautiful morning. We are loving it. The forecast had a lot more wind in it than we're feeling so I'm wondering if later the wind's going to pick up and like maybe on the upper mountain. So yeah, just anticipating potentially some wind but right now it's breathless and still and just gorgeous. How's it going, Kay? I'm pooped. Yeah, it's hard. Longs Peak is hard. It sure is. But beautiful. It's beautiful. We are here on the Longs Peak Trail, East Longs Peak Trail, heading up toward Granite Pass. The trail is pretty rocky. It has these big steps that you have to come on up like this. It's super well maintained. The trail crew does an excellent job of maintaining this trail for us. So thanks, trail crew. We appreciate you. Thanks, trail crew. I don't envy you. Yeah, it's a lot of work. We're coming up to the junction here between the North Longs Peak Trail and the East Longs Peak Trail. We are headed toward the boulder field. It's 1.7 miles from here. Longs Peak itself is 3.3 miles from here and we've come 4.2. Here we are just moseying up the trail. Loving life. All right, getting our first amazing view of Longs here for the day. What do you think of that? It's so beautiful I could cry. I might. Oh, it just takes your breath away, don't you think? Yeah, it's so striking. You can see the diamond there. You can see the beaver. You can see the north face looking all nice and dry. You can see the upper part of the dove's snow field and you can see the keyhole. Do you see it, Kaelin? Yeah. Yeah, so we're getting there. Yeah, slowly but surely. Just cruising along on the flat section of the middle boulder field. Loving it. Having a great day already and we kind of barely just started. Although by the time we get to the boulder field, which isn't very far ahead of us, we will have gone six miles on the trail and then we've got the mile and a half from there to the summit. It's not very much mileage but it's a lot of terrain so it's a lot to negotiate. Woohoo, we are getting there. We are now approaching the boulder field campsites. There's a bathroom up here. A pretty nice one, actually. So when it is open for the season, you know, it's really nice when visitors can use that and keep the area clean and lots of people camp up here. So yeah, I'm going to show you some tents and some of the beautiful rock shelters that have been erected to shelter tents from the intense winds that we get up in this area in the boulder field. Kaelin was feeling a little poorly for a minute but we stopped, rested, ate, assessed what was going on and how are you feeling now? Much better. Yeah, she's feeling good now so yay. Always listen to that. You don't want to get AMS or acute mountain sickness up here. There's a sign here that talks about don't climb the keyhole route if you're unprepared, which we are very prepared. It's a good sign because everything on it is true. It's a serious route on a serious mountain, which is so beautiful. This is a hitch rack for the llamas come and service these restrooms and for other stock that they bring up here. There are the bathrooms. There, can you see them? There's two of them and I think it's really neat the way they made them. They used the surrounding rock to make them sturdy in those cages because the winds up here, especially in the winter, are super high. So you don't want an outhouse that blows away. There are some people and their tents camped here in the boulder field. Just gorgeous. Looking up at the mountain, we do have a few clouds building there, but so far nothing to worry about. Yeah, all right. The fabled boulder field. How do you feel now that you're here? Like I'm looking at a big boulder field. Well, that is true. Ready to get to that keyhole. Yeah, it's exciting to get to the keyhole. Let's head up there. I'll show you my favorite camp spot up here where when my daughter was little and we used to camp the night before we would climb Longs Peak. She used to love this campsite here. This was her favorite one. It's my favorite one because of that. It's a really nice one because it's nice and big and it has that boulder there at that end over there that you can sit on or cook on or whatever you want to do. So it's a cool one. Kaylin just told me that she's watched so many videos on hiking the keyhole and none of them have shown the bathrooms. So she's taking a break and something to eat, fueling up before the hike across the up the boulder field to the keyhole. So I said, well, maybe I should run over here really quickly and just videotape this for you guys so you kind of know what you're you're in for when you want to use the boulder field bathroom. You kind of got a whole boulder hop to it. There's not really a nice level trail but here they are. If I don't fall off a boulder trying to get to them. So isn't this rock work impressive for a bathroom? It's cool and then it has this little box where it says no toilet facilities ahead and it's supposed to have little wag bags that you can use when you go up higher on the mountain if you have an emergency but it's never never has any in there so it doesn't really help. So you can always tell if these are open or closed because they put the sign up when they're open and this one is for people with disabilities who need to use a restroom. So you pull that and there you have it. They used to have toilet paper in these but they have since stopped which is a really good idea that they don't because the wind would just blow it all over the boulder field. But wow, talk about a room with a view, huh? Yeah, tells you how to use the toilet. Yeah, look at that view. So yeah, that's the bathroom. I want to see the second one. That's that. All right, cool. I gotta get back over to where Kaelin is and we're gonna head on up. Here comes Kaelin through the boulder field. Lots of big boulders to negotiate. She's doing awesome. Nice work. Oh yeah and look at our view. There's the dove snowfield. Those are its wings and his head used to be down here like looking down valley but global warming kind of melted that out. There's the cables route. The north face is over there and you can see the keyhole. I don't know if I'm going to be able to point to it but right in there. Gotta watch out for those loose blocks. They're everywhere. Good morning. How are you? I'm doing awesome. Beautiful day. Morning, how are you? Fantastic. Do you make YouTube videos by chance? I do. I literally just watched your Long's Peak winter one. You did? That's so cool, yeah. Awesome, wonderful. Well, welcome to the channel. You're on it now. Oh, cool. Hey, what's up? That's a great video. That was a pretty pretty cool trip. Definitely want to come back in the winter. I just did the loft. Cool. It's a great route. Have a good one. Have a great day. Congratulations on the loft route. That's an awesome route. Thank you. Yeah, it's pretty fun. Take care. All right, we had a fan. How exciting. You got recognized. Yeah, the YouTube channel's picking up. People are watching it so that's good. We're approaching the keyhole. You can see it there. Looking good. I'm going to take you over to this little hut here, the Agnes Vale Memorial Shelter. And one of my viewers wanted to know why it wasn't named for some of the rescuers who tried to rescue her, one of whom was named Herbert Sortland, and he unfortunately perished on the rescue. So I don't know why it's not named for some of them, but it's named for Agnes Vale. So we'll go look at the plaque. It has a little plaque on it. So it is dedicated to Herbert Sortland as well, and one who lost his life in an effort to aid her, Herbert Sortland. That's awesome. There you go. Now we know. The more you know, right? Here comes Kalen coming up. Those other folks going down. You want to see inside? Let's go check it out. Yeah, it looks like some people have their stuff in here and listen to these acoustics. Hello, hello, hello, hello. Yeah, lots of people left their stuff in here today. These glass windows are impressive. It'd be a good spot to shelter in the winter if it wasn't always filled with snow. Snow, snow, snow. Yeah, not so good to hide out during a lightning storm because I think the lightning could definitely hit this structure, but pretty neat in here. Too bad some of the glass is broken. Luckily it's not broken out yet. And we've got Kalen right there. She's doing her video thing. Awesome. Got it. I'm excited to see Kalen's face when she looks through the keyhole because it's so magnificent, and this will be her first time seeing this type of scenery or this scenery from here, and I can't wait to see how she reacts. Got a little wind here in the keyhole like we usually do. Oh boy. Yeah, you're doing it. You're here. Key in the keyhole. Yeah, her nickname is Key, so this is Key in the Keyhole. Woohoo. Nice job. What do you think of this view, huh? Awesome. Yeah, it's so spectacular. Panoramic. So Kay was smart. She brought a helmet. If we're going to go on, that's, this is the place to do it. We can take a break here. It's a little chilly, but we might want to walk over into the sun there. I wanted to show the viewers these bullseyes. These bullseyes are markers on the upper mountain that are maintained by the National Park Service so that people don't get off route on the keyhole route, because it's easy to get off route on the keyhole route, and if you do, you get into much harder climbing really quickly. So these keep the visitor and hiker climber on route so that when you think you're just gonna be in for the keyhole route, you don't stray off and end up getting into something much more serious. So look for those along the way. They are all along the ledges, which we are in right now. They are in the trough. The narrows has them, and the homestretch. So yeah, they're pretty helpful. Kaylin putting on her helmet. Sure thing. Here you go, Mom. Yeah, being safe. I love it. Yeah. I love it. A lot of times I wear helmets up here too. I just wasn't thinking about today, and sometimes on the keyhole route I don't, but sometimes I do. So it's always a good idea. So good thinking, Kay. Thanks. All right, so this section, you can either stay on the outside, which is a little more exposed, or you can go right up the slot. Going right up the slot is pretty polished, so it's slippery. I like to stay on the outside, but again, you have more exposure. So you just have to make your own decision what you want to do. Yeah, of course it is, Dan. How you doing? My friend Kaylin wanted to go up long, since it's her first time. I figured I'd see you. We're just taking our time, going slow and steady. Like I said, this is her first time, so we just want to be sure. Of course. So yeah. Congrats on what you're doing. Yeah, she's been crushing it. She's been doing so great. So that's the high point of the ledges, and now you start to go down. Even on the way up Longs Peak, you have to go down a little bit here in the ledges from the high point. There's a bullseye showing us the way. Wow, it's really crowded. Lots of people. Oh, slick, did you say? Yeah. Yeah, it's really polished. So these rocks see a lot of visitors all summer long, every summer, and they just get smooth and polished. So they're slippery. Kaylin was just remarking about that, and you really have to be careful not to fall off. Hi, how are you? Having a good day? Fantastic. Excellent. Hi there. How was your ascent? I stopped a little short. Okay. Didn't have the pace to get in. That's okay, understood. You guys have fun and be safe. You too. There's somebody coming up the trough. I don't do that this time of year. It's a lot nicer with snow in it, but seems to be making pretty good progress. We're taking a snack break right here before we get into the trough. Yeah, and then we're going to head up. Lots of people coming down. Wow, there's so many people on this mountain today. And now we're transitioning from the ledges into the trough. See if I can show you the trough above me there, behind me right there. You see it? You got lots of people coming down it. Yeah. So now we got to go up that to the narrows. Congratulations, you've made it to the trough. Nice work. You got to be careful not to knock rocks down. A lot of loose rocks in the trough, so you really got to be careful of your fellow hikers not to knock rocks down on them. Hey, how you doing? Fantastic. How are you doing? Pretty good. I couldn't decide if I could say fabulous or fantastic, so that's how it came out. Fabul-tastic. Pretty cool mountain, I gotta say. Yeah, nice job. Yeah. Yeah, it was fun. Yeah, good. Yeah, it was nice up there. I hope the weather holds for you guys. I hope so too. We're watching it really closely. Yeah, it seems okay. It's just you never know up here. You never know. I think you're doing awesome. You're crushing. Thanks. Just kicking my ass. There's another bullseye showing us the way. You've got Black Lake right there, Blue Lake right there, looking out, and Jewel Lake, and then Mills Lake is the lowest one we can see right there. And if you look up higher on that stop, you can see Shelf Lake. Pretty cool. There's a bunch of people going down still, and there's Kalen coming up. Just beautiful. I probably say that too much. Sorry. This west face is really impressive. So beautiful. There's a really fun rock climbing route right there called Dialog on Zen. There's a bunch of routes on this face, actually. Yeah. Yeah. Good job. You got a YouTube channel or something? I do. You want to check me out? Of course. Lisa's Adventure Channel. Lisa's Adventure Channel? Yeah. Is she the one we watched? Have you done this before? I've done this many, many times. Oh yeah? Yeah. This is my friend Kay. It's her first time coming up here. She is totally crushing it today. This is my first time. What? This is my first time. Congratulations. Let's put her here, pal. Nice job. I did not like that ----. Congratulations, guys. Nice meeting you all. I'll check out the channel. Sounds good. Thanks. Lisa's Adventure Channel. That's right. You know it. I love the people you meet up on this mountain. Everybody's so happy and friendly, and they just did a big accomplishment, and they're psyched. So it's really fun. I was just telling Kalen that the trough is a lot of times the hardest part for people as far as energy expenditure. It's not the most technical section on the Keyhole Route, but it takes a lot of energy to come up this many feet this steeply. And she said, I can see why. We're now coming up on the crux of the route, the technical crux, the hardest little section. Right up here at the very top of the trough, this little rock step behind me. You have to go right up this. It's a little tricky, especially if it's wet or something, but it's not wet today. So we should be totally good. All right, this is how you do this crux section. Looking good. Doing it. Nice. Be super careful there. Yeah. If you need a hand, let me know. Nice. That transition from the trough to the narrows is pretty fun. So this little section, you can either go between the rock wall and that boulder, or you can go out. In the winter, I always, not always, but a lot of times go between the rock wall and the boulder because it gets so steep filled in with snow. But it's kind of a matter of comfort, whatever you want to do. Today I'm going to go on the outside. Lots of great handholds. Looks like Kay's opted for the outside route too. Nice job. These handholds here on this rock wall are really good. Going across the narrows. Pretty exciting place to be. There's a 200 foot drop over the edge. Want to see? I don't know if my selfie stick's long enough to really show you, but it's pretty bold. Down that way. Those are tops of rock formations called the Keyboard of the Winds there. Pretty cool. And that's Pagoda Mountain. There. Neat, Pagoda. Pagoda. It's like a little pagoda. It's like a triangular shaped peak. Look at it. It's really nice when the narrows here are nice and dry because when they get icy, There it is in all its glory. The mighty, mighty homestretch. What do you think about that? You can actually see the summit of Longs right there at the top of that homestretch right there. Woohoo! Yeah, Kaelin! Woohoo! Some people excited for us coming down. I love it. They're cheering for us. She's determined to get this thing done. It's pretty inspiring, really, because it's not easy. Nice work, guys. Thanks for cheering for us. Thanks. That right there is the Palisades. Beautiful rock there. And if you go down this way, that's the Corks Arrow route. We're not doing that today. We're gonna head right up here to the summit of Longs Peak. Heading up the homestretch. That raven's got something to say. Really? Sure does. I love ravens. I do too. The homestretch is really fun, especially when dry, because you can just cruise along it and get good purchase. When it's wet, snowy, icy, it definitely changes the nature of it, but right now, today, mid-August, nice and dry. Just a few steps from the summit now. You got it. There's the summit. Go get it. It's all yours. Nice. There she is, cresting the summit of Longs Peak. Congratulations. Nicely done. Thanks. You did it, Kay. I did it. I'm so proud of you. Thanks. I'm so glad I was here for this. Me too. Nice job, friend. You did so awesome. Thank you. Sit down, take a load off. Here we are on the summit of Longs Peak. We did it. Came up the Keyhole route, gonna go down the same way. It is, like I've said earlier in the video, it's mid-August and we're having beautiful weather, and I couldn't ask for a better day, really. Yeah, this is my 261st, or maybe second, I'd have to look at my record, time on the peak. I think 261, and Caitlin's first time. Congratulations. Pretty soon you'll be the 261. Definitely not. This is the nice flat summit of Longs Peak. I always kind of liken it to a football field. It's flat and long. Football fields don't have boulders, though, but this is the summit boulder where you can see the USGS marker. And here comes Caitlin to the very tippy top where we can get a summit selfie of the two of us, yeah? Yeah. Nice job. Well done. You persevered. Yeah. That was impressive. Thank you. That was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life. Really? Yeah. And it's only half over. I know. I hope you enjoyed the video presentation of this hike up the Keyhole route. I hope it's useful to you if you're trying to do research for maybe your own ascent, and I appreciate you watching the channel, or liking, subscribing, commenting, I love it all. Please keep it up. And I'm going to show you a little bit more here of the summit of Longs Peak, and then I'll show you some of our descent. But I just wanted to say thank you for watching, and thanks for coming along. It's a gorgeous day on Longs. I love it. I always like to get myself, a picture of myself, with this sign here at the summit that says, descend the Keyhole route, roll no rocks. And that's how, that's what I use to count the number of ascents I have on Longs Peak, my picture with that. So, yay. Awesome. You can see the Southwest Ridge, that's a climbing route right up there, goes to the top. And you can see the Keyhole route through the trough going down there, past the west face here. You're going to want to match feet on that, so scoots this straight out this way. Yep. And then you're going to want to put that one there. Yep. And then you're coming down to toe on this, heels land against that. Yes. And then it's a pretty big, this is all super slick, but you just have to use what you can. There you go. And I can, if you want me to hold your foot in place, I can. Or if you want me to not, but it's super slick. Good. I got you nice and spotted here too. So just. Well, you don't want to fall, so yeah. You good? Yeah. Okay. Sorry, I didn't mean to. Thank you. All right, of course. So I'm going to do a quick, a scramble up just for the video. Okay. Um, cause I didn't on the way up, but. All right. I'm gonna show people what it's like. So I'm gonna scramble up just so the video can see it. All right. Maybe I need to do it this way a little bit. There we go. So look for this and do not go uphill toward the false keyhole. Cause from up here, some people think they need to go up here. You don't want to be up there, but really you want to be down there. Nice job. Now it's downhill again. This gentleman got a little bit off route and as you can see, when you get a little bit off route, it gets a lot harder. Are you okay? Uh, what does it look like below me? Um, it kind of drops away. Would you like a spot? Yeah. You got that good foot and then yeah, that's good. Yeah. You got it. It does help to be tall. Nice job doing it. No, it doesn't. You have a great day. Be safe. Yeah. So I just wanted to show you what happens when you don't follow the bull's eyes and you get a little bit off route on the keyhole route. It can get pretty tricky. Almost back to the keyhole. There it is right there. Woo. Here it is. Yay. Such a cool formation. The keyhole. I wonder if at one time, I bet it did go all the way across and connect. Then rock fell out of it and now it's as it is. Yes, it is. A lot of boulders here in the boulder field. We get to step across a fraction of them. There's the Agnes Vale Memorial Shelter and looking down toward the boulder field campground. And that's where we're headed. It's time to call it a day. Look at the light shining through the keyhole in the keyhole formation. Like that is so cool. I've been up here so many times and I see something new every time I come. Something new with the light or something new with the conditions or the weather or my partner or whatever. It's pretty awesome. I don't get sick of it. I love it.