Long's Peak Trip

Well, I just got back from an amazing trip to Rocky Mountain National Park! I went with Trent, Jacob, and Beau. It was an awesome camping experience with two full days of hiking.
We pulled into our campsite at 3:30am MT. We got the only open spot at the time and set up camp. We hit the hay for about 2 hours and got up to a brisk, beautiful Colorado Rocky morning. After suffering through Trent's burnt eggs and Jake's killer bacon we headed to Estes for some gear searching (One of my favorite past times). There I got a sweet pair of hiking pants and an Adidas jacket for $2.15 at a secondhand store!
We lunched at Lily Lake and hiked a nearby peak. We hoped it would help us acclimatize, since tomorrow would be 12-14 hours of extreme hiking. We hiked the afternoon away and summitted the peak we had eyed during lunch. We then headed back to camp where we had a dinner to remember - Ramen noodles, jambalaya, and hot dogs. We finally went to bed about 9:30pm.
1:30 am came quickly but we were all so excited to get on the trail that the hour didn't really matter. We geared up, got our headlamps on and hiked up to the trailhead munching down some pop tarts for our official breakfast.
We officially signed into the trail register (which is required by all attempting Long's) at 2:10am and started up the hill. The elevation of our starting point was 9,042 ft. We had a killer pace for the first two or three hours, then we stopped for a water break and decided to bust our our Starbuck's Doubleshot! I will never do this again! From that point on I had a hard time keeping anything down. During the night as we gained altitude we saw the city lights of Denver which was 50 miles away!
The sun rose as we entered the Boulder Field. When the light really began to shine we beheld Long's Peak, it's Diamond Face and the Keyhole. It was amazing! We stopped in the Boulder Field for breakfast. I tried to choke down some oatmeal, and sipped on some hot tea. The temperature was about 35. After breakfast I hit up the privy and made my way towards the Keyhole. Every step felt like the end of my life, but I had to get there. When I finally got there the "shit trio" was there to welcome me. The view was indescribable. They asked me if I was ready to go on to the the Ledges and the rest of the hike and I answered 'no' almost before they we done asking. I had reached my limit. There I sat for a few minutes at 13,200ft and sipped some water, still trying to keep all of my food and water down.
As I came down form the Keyhole I got really sick. Dry heaving, stomach cramps and fatigue were really taking over and I had to get down to where I could at least lay down for a short nap. The nap didn't happen. While I was laying there in the sun (I'm guessing it was around 55 degrees then) I started to feel that if I didn't get my butt off the mountain I was going to literally die. So at 8:30 am I started my descent, alone.
One step at a time, a sip of water every 10 to 15 steps and 4 hours later I had returned to the Trailhead. I hiked the remaining 1/4 mile or so the campsite and went straight to sleep.
I woke up a couple of hours later to see that Trent, Jake, and Beau had returned from there Summit! Then we headed to town where we feasted like kings and dominated three pizzas! We returned to camp around 6pm and went to bed. 12 hours later we were left for home.
I'm so disappointed that I didn't reach the summit with the guys. I looked forward to this trip for a year and walked away with having come short. Still, it was an accomplishment reaching the Keyhole. It's just that I was only a mile of rough terrain from the summit. I'm now more motivated than ever to get back to running and working out.
I do miss the mountains already...

I'll add pics soon.