I’m planning to spend the weekend climbing in the spectacular Acadia National Park–Hopefully I’ll have a good story to tell when I get back (but not the broken bones kind of good). Until then, I’ve decided to write a retrospective post about a hike I did a few years ago in Colorado. I figured I should see if a post about a perfect hike has the same draw as my disastrous one through the 100 Mile Wilderness.

My summer in Colorado was coming to an end. With only a few days left in the state, I’d soon be leaving for grad school in North Carolina. It had been an unbelievable summer so far, spent exploring some of the most beautiful places I’d ever seen. In Colorado, you get views even from the highways that put the east’s most stunning vistas to shame. But I had no idea my best adventure was yet to come.

It was a warm evening spent sitting on my porch swing with a cup of tea, savoring the summer air, reflecting on the wonderful last few months of my life. I was soon joined on the porch by my roommate Matt. I hadn’t gotten to know him as well as I would have liked, but he had been the perfect roommate so far.

I had come to Colorado under strange circumstances. Reeling in the wake of devastating family tragedy, I decided I needed to escape Utica, the small, rusty, soul sucking city I had spent my entire life in. Three weeks after the idea to leave New York entered my head, I had quit my stable job, donated nearly everything I owned, packed everything I had left into my tiny Chevy Aveo, and was on my way alone to Denver. I knew no one there, but I had found three strangers in need of a roommate on Craigslist (a detail I conveniently left out when I explained my plan to my parents). I had talked to one of them on the phone, but that was all the assurance I had that they weren’t crazy murderers or con-artists. I had no idea what the house was like, who the people were, or even if this place really existed, but it didn’t matter. I was finally escaping. If it didn’t work out there, I’d figure something else out.

Amazingly, it seemed the forces of the universe had conspired to make my great escape succeed beyond what I could have possibly hoped for. After a three day drive across the country, I arrived in Denver to find a room waiting for me in a beautiful house in a lovely part of town with three of the cooler people I’ve met. I was, at that point in my life, still incredibly, painfully shy, but they made me feel welcome. Some of the greatest hikes of my life were with my roommate Jeff and his girlfriend Liz, and some of my best evenings were spent sitting on the porch swing with Matt, talking about life, the universe, and everything.

But now, only four months later, after accidentally being accepted to the best graduate school for my program (which is a story for another day), I was moving on. Joining me on the porch, Matt began talking about all the things I would be missing out on by skipping town so soon.

“And you still haven’t climbed Longs,” he said, referring to his favorite of Colorado’s fourteeners.

“Maybe I still will,” I answered, but we both knew I wasn’t going to do it by myself when I had so little time left in the area.

He offered to climb it with me, but we couldn’t find a day when we would both be free.

“Unless you want to do it tomorrow,” he joked. It was already ten-o-clock at night. In order to get up the peak and back below tree line before the afternoon lightning storms rolled in, we would have to start hiking by about 4am. That meant leaving Denver by 2am. It wasn’t really feasible. It looked like I wouldn’t be climbing Longs after all.

A little while later, when Matt had already gone in and gotten into bed, it struck me that I was giving up an opportunity to do something amazing, just for a few more hours of sleep. A little nervously, I went in and tapped on Matt’s bedroom door.

“Hey, would you really go tomorrow?” I asked.

He sighed and got back out of bed to start packing. We would be leaving in three hours.

Too excited to sleep, I researched a little about what I’d be climbing. The fifteen mile route up and down 5,000 vertical feet at high altitude was not going to be easy. I read this description from the National Park Service’s website:

The Keyhole Route is not a hike. It is a climb that crosses enormous sheer vertical rock faces, often with falling rocks, requiring scrambling, where an unroped fall would likely be fatal. The route has narrow ledges, loose rock, and steep cliffs… Disregard for the mountain environment any time of year has meant danger, injury and even death.

I also read about a man who had been killed just two days before, when a gust of wind swept him off the mountain. I tried to reassure myself with math; the odds of two people dying on the same mountain within 48 hours of one another were extremely unlikely. Matt and I would be fine, right? I packed my gear and went to bed.

After about an hour of fitful sleep, it was time to leave. It was only two in the morning, but soon I would be embarking on the most difficult, dangerous hike of my life to that point.

The first two miles of our route meandered through forest, switch backing up a steady incline. We moved quietly through the dark trees, with only the feeble illumination of our headlamps to light the way. In my sleep deprived state it didn’t feel real. After what seemed like only a short time, we broke through the tree line and continued on as the sun crested over the nearby peaks. While most people were still fast asleep, I was watching the sun rise, already miles into my day.

As we continued up a steady grade for the next few miles, the peak we were climbing came into view. Longs is definitely one of the most beautiful mountains to look at and, as we drew closer, instead of feeling intimidated, I felt empowered. Soon, if it let me, I would be standing at the top of that beautiful peak, looking down on the world.

The hike continued for a few more stunning miles until we reached the infamous Boulder Field. It looked as though a dump truck as big as the moon just backed up right there and spewed hundreds of thousands of giant boulders down the side of the mountain. We would have to scramble over those boulders to reach the area known as the Keyhole, the entrance to the next segment of our journey.

Matt hopped lightly from boulder to boulder, but with my shorter leg span and less sure-footedness, I struggled across them. He easily beat me to the top, but I made it eventually, pausing for a moment to rest before stepping through the Keyhole and onto the other side of the ridge.

What I saw when I passed through put the breathtaking views I had been enjoying all morning to shame. It was like stepping through a portal into another world. It was late July, but snow still adorned the peaks, the early morning sun lighting the stunning valleys below. Clouds hovered over the landscape in places, creating the illusion that we were looking out over the ocean. Pictures cannot begin to do this view justice, but I snapped a few anyway.

For a variety of reasons, the Keyhole is where the majority of people abandon their trek up the mountain. Sometimes strong winds or unexpected weather forces them to turn around rather than be swept of the treacherous crossing that follows. Other times, getting to this point has taken too long and they’re forced to leave before the very predictable afternoon storm rolls in, putting them at a high risk of being struck by lightning. But often they’ve just underestimated the difficulty of the mountain, and they don’t have the will to continue. Because now would begin the most difficult section of our journey. Only about a mile and a half remained to the summit, but the terrain wouldn’t be easy. First, we were to cross what is known as the Ledges. Here we would need to carefully traverse a narrow ridge, sometimes barely a shoulder width wide, careful not to lose our footing and topple down the side of the mountain.

Before setting out from this point, we took stock of ourselves and the weather, making sure going on was the right decision. Physically, I thought I was still ok. It had been difficult to this point, but nothing I couldn’t handle. The weather was the more pressing concern. Apart from the danger of lightning strikes, if a storm did start before we had time to reach the summit and return to this point, we’d be stuck going over terrain that was dangerous at any time and near impossible when wet. So far, we were only facing threat from a few innocent looking white, fluffy clouds. But in Colorado, clear blue skies could turn to violent storms in a matter of minutes. Still, we had been lucky with the weather to this point, and everything looked fine to proceed.

I spent the traverse trying hard to keep my eyes on my feet and their precarious placement, rather than the spectacular views. But soon, with the Ledges behind us, we reached the Trough, also known as the Bowling Alley. While climbing this very steep ascent over loose rock, hikers above would accidently kick down rocks on top of us, possibly leading to a fall that would likely be fatal. Climbing up this endless face was by far the most exhausting part of the hike. After only a few minutes of climbing, I was reduced to taking only two steps before pausing to regain my breath, then two more before stopping again. But somehow I pushed through, silently cursing Matt for making it look easy as he bounded up the mountain, seemingly without effort.

Now we came to the Narrows, an even more treacherous version of the Ledges. The path over this section was barely wide enough to cross, with sheer vertical drop-off to the right. One wrong step would almost certainly lead to death. Looking back on pictures of this traverse, I can see that it should have been terrifying. But at the time, it didn’t feel like it. Maybe I was just detached from what I was doing: Between the lack of sleep and the high altitude, I was feeling a little like I was floating through a dream.

We saw some people wearing helmets and others even using ropes to traverse this section. Although these precautions didn’t really seem necessary, it did serve to show how different this mountain was from anything else I had climbed to that point. It was just about as hard as a mountain could be before technical climbing skills became necessary.

Finally, we reached the last of our obstacles, the Homestretch: a 300 foot, class 3 slab of sheer rock leading to the summit. Knowing how close the summit was only made finishing this section more difficult. Exhausted from the 7.5 miles of difficult hiking on so little sleep, and from struggling for breath at an elevation over 14,000 feet, every step up this steep climb required incredible effort.

But finally, we made it. The summit of Longs Peak was under foot and I felt like I had conquered the world. I had done something only a small portion of even those few who attempt actually complete, something truly incredible. And it was only 9am.

But it wasn’t just the mountain I had conquered. Four months ago, I had been a meek little girl sitting in an office, too afraid to step out of her comfort zone. But now, rather than taking the path of least resistance, I had said goodbye to everything I knew and struck out on my own; I had arrived in a strange city alone with barely a plan and let it show me what it had to offer, take me wherever it wanted. And I had survived. I had done more than survive, I had thrived. And just like the mountain I now stood upon, it hadn’t even been that hard. I had learned that I was capable of more than I could have imagined. If I could do this, if I could see a difficult path and embrace the challenge rather than turn around and give up, whether it be climbing Longs Peak or starting a new life in Colorado, if I could do those things, I could do anything.

Our hike was only half over, and we still had the long and difficult descent ahead of us, but I knew we would be fine. And soon I’d again be heading to a new town full of strangers, but I’d be fine there too. I had stood on my own version of the top of the earth, and now the rest of the world was mine to enjoy.

Here are some more photos from the trip. I strongly encourage you to Google your own, since mine were taken distractedly and with an inferior camera. The views on Longs are truly awe inspiring.