Hiking Longs Peak via The Keyhole

Good morning everybody. I'm here at the Longs Peak trailhead. We're about half a mile down the road. It's around 3.15, 3.30 right now and I'm going to be hiking Longs Peak today most likely via the Keyhole route. Longs Peak is the northmost 14er here in Colorado and it just has been a mountain I've been eyeing ever since I moved here. It's got epic prominence and it's visible from everywhere. I always thought I was going to ski Longs Peak for the first time. That was kind of my plan but unfortunately the weather, conditions, and my schedule never really worked out so I found myself with a free weekend here and figure today is a good day to go up Longs Peak. I'm really excited to get up high here but also just nervous from the hordes of people. It is a Saturday in August. Like I said it's 3.30 and the parking lot and even half a mile down the road is completely full of cars so that's my biggest fear here today. Definitely more afraid of that than the afternoon lightning storms that are coming in. Let's just hope that these hordes of people don't send boulders crashing down on me as I'm heading up but with that I better get going and I will see you guys when the light comes out and when we get some epic views. Well I'm at the junction where you head to Chasm Lake and the Loft or up the Keyhole. With the amount of people out here you'd think that I was at Disneyland and Splash Mountain was around the corner. Probably passed about 60-70 people thus far and gonna keep heading up the Keyhole route. I was thinking about going towards the Loft but to be honest I just know where the Couloir is and don't really know how to connect it to the summit so in my old age here and infinite wisdom gonna take the safer route even though it does mean battling more hordes of people. It's been a beautiful morning. Got the first light in the sky right now and excited for that alpine glow. Well I've made it to the boulder field here right before the Keyhole and the crowds are absolutely insane. Even worse than I thought but charging up here this morning the sunrise is just perfect and excited to get up higher. I am nervous for all the kind of narrower places with all these people but hopefully I passed a good hundred people so hopefully there's less people in front of me and gonna head through the Keyhole and then whatever the next section is called. Full conga line to the Keyhole. Well I've just made it past the Keyhole. There's an absolute zoo in there but looks like I was able to get past a good amount of people which is promising. As soon as you pass the Keyhole you're following these Colorado colored dots all the way up to the summit and the views are incredible because once you get through the Keyhole you're looking at all Rocky Mountain National Park. Absolutely beautiful. You got some lakes below you. in there. Definitely have to be careful of rock fall because there's just so many people and some loose rock but made it up in one piece and now there's these kind of ledges here. I don't know what they're called maybe the ledges but epic views all around. Excited for this section. Home stretch now and summit's right within reach. Still a zoo but cruising up here. Pretty easy climb. Much easier than I thought after reading the reports. I've made it to the summit of Longs Peak here and the views are as epic as I imagined. I always stare at Longs Peak on my drive to work from my house so being up here is pretty special. Can see the whole front range and the rest of Colorado it feels like. Overall I thought the climb up here was much easier than I expected. People really hype up Longs but I thought it was really simple even with the crowds which are insane today. I don't think I'd ever do this on a Saturday in August again. The route was wide enough that it was easy to get past everyone and I'm not super worried about the way down but I'm gonna have a snack up here enjoy these amazing views and then slowly start heading back down to enjoy the rest of my day. In terms of timing it's around 7 30 when I got up here probably 7 45 now and I left my car around 3 30 3 45 so a little less than four hours to get up here including some filming. There's a chilly breeze right now and I didn't bring a ton of layers so I don't think I'm going to be hanging out too long here. I think I'm gonna walk across this whole flat summit so I can set I walked on every part of Longs. Just got to the bottom of the trough here on the way down. I will say that going down with a lot of people coming up in that trough and then the kind of ledges after it's a little tricky as it's kind of narrow there's one little scrambly crux right at the top of the trough that need to wait for but was able to get around everyone. No rock fall hit me on the head thus far so things are looking good. Feeling a little better as I get down here in elevation. I was cramping up there a little never can get enough electrolytes but gonna be at the keyhole here soon and then I'm gonna have the luxuries of a mountain hut and bathrooms before you know it. It's a very civilized hike. Coming down back to the keyhole stopped at the little mountain hut only place in America I know of having a mountain hut. Boulder hopping was an Olympic sport not sure if I'd get gold but I'd at least make the team. Like most climbs with a little scrambling the way down was a little trickier and it was mostly exacerbated by the amount of people but overall really cool climb. I can see why people love it so much with the the name sections kind of like the infamy of the different places but really I'm glad I finally got up here to Long's and I can't wait to check out some different routes and get up here and ski. Just getting to the end of the boulder field now so my joyous rock hopping has unfortunately come to an end. Now the trail turns into a bit of a highway that leads me back to my car and I think I'm going to be running it. So it's just after nine right now so definitely I'm here way earlier than I expected or planned for. I would have loved that extra two hours of sleep or so but wasn't sure how long it was going to take and there's something about getting up early and climbing a mountain that always makes it feel a little more epic to be up here for that alpine glow and sunrise. I'm going to cruise back to the car and I'm going to have a lot of my day to figure out something else to do. I'll be in the car in no time. There she is, the best sight. Well I've made it back from Long's Peak here. I just realized that earlier at the car the audio didn't turn out plus it was super chaotic with a lot of cars on that road so figured I'd give the final update here. It was an incredible climb. I had an amazing time even with all the people. I think the big large flat summit so there's room to spread out really helped with that and even though there was a little bit of going past people on all the ledges and in the trough it was always wide enough to be able to get past people pretty easily. I think today wound up being just shy of 17 miles. It was 16.8 and a little bit over 5,000 of climbing. Overall it was a big day but everything felt pretty smooth and easy and I'm just so happy to have finally got up on Long's after eyeing it from afar for so long. In terms of timing I got back to my car just right after 10 30 and I did leave right after 3 30 so it was about seven hours for me or six hours and 45 minutes in total. That was about four hours on the way up hanging out at the summit for about half an hour and then about two and a half hours on the way down which did include a good amount of running once I was past the boulder field. Overall I'm stoked to have got up there today and made the most of this free weekend and I can't wait to get back and check out the loft route, the cables route, and some of the skiing routes hopefully next spring. Thank you so much for watching and if you like this kind of video let me know in the comments. Also if you haven't subscribed and you made it this far that really helps me out and means a ton so that would be greatly appreciated and with that I will see you on the next adventure here soon.