Day 6 8/31/10

Sun rising over "Sky Potty Junction" near Chasm Lake

The alarm went off way to early, it was 1AM, and the Russians had kept us up all night.  We got up, grabbed our packs, and headed to the Longs Peak trailhead.  I'm not sure what I expected on this trip, but getting up to go hiking in the middle of the night was not it.  We arrived at the trail around 2:30 and were off.  The first part of this hike is entirely made up of switchbacks through the woods.  Occasionally the trail gets flat for a bit and seems easier but that disappears quickly and its back to marching uphill.  Somewhere around 10,500 feet the trees disappeared and we were back on the tundra.  This time however it was dark and hailing on us, if I was smart I would have brought a hat and gloves like Lindsay and Jason, but I wasn't.  We finally reached the place where the trail split however there was no sign  so we kept heading towards Long's Peak for a bit.  When we realized what had happened we headed back to the trail junction and attempted to find the right trail.  Interestingly enough there are pit potties near this junction on the trail way up in the mountains.  They call this "Sky Potty Junction."

Sunrise, Chasm Lake

Lindsay doing her best Kashi advertisement

I tried going into one to look at a map because I thought I would be shielded from the wind.  No luck there, these potties had no roof.  Luckily the Iphone has an app for just such an occasion and I was fortunate to have downloaded it (Parkmap with guide RMNP).  The app has downloaded maps and GPS capabilities so I was quickly able to locate us on a map of the park and find the correct trail to get to Chasm Lake.  We kept hiking and soon we were on a ridge overlooking the chasm and the lake.  At the end of the chasm is a long waterfall leading down to the lake.  It was breathtaking and only got better as we watched the sunrise from atop a boulder over the waterfall.  The sky was all different colors and there was a bank of clouds below us extending over the lake.  As the sun came up Lindsay started getting cold so we decided to get moving.  We headed back to the trail and were back down the mountain by 8:30 AM, wet and hungry we went to look for food.  We found breakfast at a place called the Aspen Lodge.  It was a neat place very close to the trailhead with great food, but it didn't appear to get much business.

Jason at the Keyhole

  There's a bed a breakfast there with 4 rooms the lady told us and a large restaurant.  There was only one other couple in the restaurant the whole time we were there.  After breakfast we took the car back to the trailhead to wait for Jason to get back down the mountain.  We were in for a long wait.  When he finally got back we found out that he had in fact made it past the keyhole and probably about 95 percent up to the summit before the winds forced him to come back down.  Dead tired and finished for the day we went back to camp again.  We had talked about leaving that evening, but we were all too tired to even think about driving.