Catherine Russell
September 28th, 2010, 03:11 PM
Hi all:
In the lull while we wait for Tony's judging to be completed, I have a little tale of wonder, but mostly woe that I need to get off my mind. Hopefully, it still fits in this forum because it has to do with continued work on my UWOL long form film. The tale started last year.
My long form film is (as Kevin put it really well) a celebration of the wildlife in Rocky Mountain National Park located near my home. I had plans all along to try and get a bird's eye pan of the Park from its highest point, the summit of Longs Peak which stands at 14,255 ft (4,345 m). It's not an easy quest however, for the trail distance to the top is 8 mi (13 km) one way with an elevation gain of almost 5,000 ft (1,524 m). This would be a lot of work for a couple of minutes of film. But my heart has been set on it since I started this project. My husband and I climbed Longs almost 30 years ago! This was my personal challenge.
As the long-formers know, last summer I ended up with a serious sprained ankle filming at Andrews Glacier which precluded me from any hope of hiking Longs Peak. The frustrating thing about this is Ed and I had picked the perfect day for hiking Longs: hot, no clouds, no wind... perfect. But he ended up having to work that day and so the next day I went up to Andrews Glacier alone, and twisted my ankle in the process! So last year's "attempt" I didn't even make it to the trail head.
Now this summer comes at last, and I renew hope for the summit of Longs Peak. I share this with my neighbor who turns out that he has always dreamed of hiking Longs his entire life, without having the opportunity. So of course he joins our party. Then to my surprise, I learn that he was so excited, he flies his son out to join us. We were planning a roped route called the old Cables route, which is different from the more traffic dominated Keyhole route. Very quickly we became a slower party of four for the roped pitches near the top. Also, since his son was out for a week, we were obligated to select the best day out of that time period, which wasn't boding well.
But we went anyway and we had a wonderful time. The two were so in awe of the beauty of this mountain... so were we for that matter. But alas, it was not meant to be. We were roped up perhaps 500 feet (152 m) from the top when .... thunder. Storm clouds blew in with a wink of an eye and retreating with all four of us on ropes took long enough, much less trying to summit first and then retreat. This part doesn't bumb me out too much, because it was such a joyful experience to share with these new enthusiasts. I think it changed their lives, and as Meryem says... it's all in the journey!
Here is a little 40 sec virtual tour animation of the route we took that day that my husband Ed cooked up:
A Virtual Tour of Our Longs Peak Ascent Attempt on Vimeo
Three weeks go by, and Ed and I decide to try one last time. The season had really started to change by now and my window of opportunity was slipping away. This time, instead of shorts we had full gear from head to toe, there was almost an added hour of hiking in the dark and there was already a fresh dusting of snow up top (yes, even in late August). This time we took a route between Mount Meeker (13,911 ft; 4,240 m) and Longs Peak called the Loft. And to make a long and dangerous story short, we were thwarted again by gale-force winds up top. We edged our way up Meeker instead where I shot this sad piece of footage at its summit:
A 29 sec pan from the summit of Mount Meeker. The higher elevation mound that appears about 17 sec in is the last 300 ft (91 m) to the summit of Longs Peak.
Mount Meeker Summit Pan on Vimeo
I know. Folly. We shouldn't have been up there. That footage almost makes me want to cry.
Three weeks later, I'm writing this entry. It has been the most stable, beautiful weather here for a week now. No wind. No clouds. Just endless blue sky as far as the eye can see. I haven't felt peace with these events and a part of me has wanted to go back up again! What is going on with me! Somewhere along the way I think I crossed over from healthy enthusiasm to a very unbecoming streak of pride.
But the real reason I needed to write this post is because just 3 days ago a man fell and died on Longs Peak. Even though we are having nice weather, there is black ice up on the high peaks. This news has hit me fairly hard. This summer alone, Longs Peak has claimed 4 lives, a man had a serious fall but survived and another man was struck by lightning. And my heart goes out to each one of them.
Have any of you had an experience where all your work, effort and enthusiasm just didn't pan out the way you expected it to? Want to swap tales?
Apologies in advance for such a long post.
Cat
In the lull while we wait for Tony's judging to be completed, I have a little tale of wonder, but mostly woe that I need to get off my mind. Hopefully, it still fits in this forum because it has to do with continued work on my UWOL long form film. The tale started last year.
My long form film is (as Kevin put it really well) a celebration of the wildlife in Rocky Mountain National Park located near my home. I had plans all along to try and get a bird's eye pan of the Park from its highest point, the summit of Longs Peak which stands at 14,255 ft (4,345 m). It's not an easy quest however, for the trail distance to the top is 8 mi (13 km) one way with an elevation gain of almost 5,000 ft (1,524 m). This would be a lot of work for a couple of minutes of film. But my heart has been set on it since I started this project. My husband and I climbed Longs almost 30 years ago! This was my personal challenge.
As the long-formers know, last summer I ended up with a serious sprained ankle filming at Andrews Glacier which precluded me from any hope of hiking Longs Peak. The frustrating thing about this is Ed and I had picked the perfect day for hiking Longs: hot, no clouds, no wind... perfect. But he ended up having to work that day and so the next day I went up to Andrews Glacier alone, and twisted my ankle in the process! So last year's "attempt" I didn't even make it to the trail head.
Now this summer comes at last, and I renew hope for the summit of Longs Peak. I share this with my neighbor who turns out that he has always dreamed of hiking Longs his entire life, without having the opportunity. So of course he joins our party. Then to my surprise, I learn that he was so excited, he flies his son out to join us. We were planning a roped route called the old Cables route, which is different from the more traffic dominated Keyhole route. Very quickly we became a slower party of four for the roped pitches near the top. Also, since his son was out for a week, we were obligated to select the best day out of that time period, which wasn't boding well.
But we went anyway and we had a wonderful time. The two were so in awe of the beauty of this mountain... so were we for that matter. But alas, it was not meant to be. We were roped up perhaps 500 feet (152 m) from the top when .... thunder. Storm clouds blew in with a wink of an eye and retreating with all four of us on ropes took long enough, much less trying to summit first and then retreat. This part doesn't bumb me out too much, because it was such a joyful experience to share with these new enthusiasts. I think it changed their lives, and as Meryem says... it's all in the journey!
Here is a little 40 sec virtual tour animation of the route we took that day that my husband Ed cooked up:
A Virtual Tour of Our Longs Peak Ascent Attempt on Vimeo
Three weeks go by, and Ed and I decide to try one last time. The season had really started to change by now and my window of opportunity was slipping away. This time, instead of shorts we had full gear from head to toe, there was almost an added hour of hiking in the dark and there was already a fresh dusting of snow up top (yes, even in late August). This time we took a route between Mount Meeker (13,911 ft; 4,240 m) and Longs Peak called the Loft. And to make a long and dangerous story short, we were thwarted again by gale-force winds up top. We edged our way up Meeker instead where I shot this sad piece of footage at its summit:
A 29 sec pan from the summit of Mount Meeker. The higher elevation mound that appears about 17 sec in is the last 300 ft (91 m) to the summit of Longs Peak.
Mount Meeker Summit Pan on Vimeo
I know. Folly. We shouldn't have been up there. That footage almost makes me want to cry.
Three weeks later, I'm writing this entry. It has been the most stable, beautiful weather here for a week now. No wind. No clouds. Just endless blue sky as far as the eye can see. I haven't felt peace with these events and a part of me has wanted to go back up again! What is going on with me! Somewhere along the way I think I crossed over from healthy enthusiasm to a very unbecoming streak of pride.
But the real reason I needed to write this post is because just 3 days ago a man fell and died on Longs Peak. Even though we are having nice weather, there is black ice up on the high peaks. This news has hit me fairly hard. This summer alone, Longs Peak has claimed 4 lives, a man had a serious fall but survived and another man was struck by lightning. And my heart goes out to each one of them.
Have any of you had an experience where all your work, effort and enthusiasm just didn't pan out the way you expected it to? Want to swap tales?
Apologies in advance for such a long post.
Cat