Our (Long) Longs Story (a long time in coming)

Remember back when I asked if you thought we made it to the top of Longs Peak? Even though people have not been knocking down my door to find out, I'm going to tell you anyway because I think it's a great story of God answering prayer.

Let me start by telling you that a couple of weeks before we climbed this mountain, one guy blew off of it and died and another fell and broke both his ankles. It's not a walk in the park.

We started hiking at 2:00 am so that we could go 7 miles, gaining 5,100 feet in elevation, to get to the top (14,255 feet in the air) before 9:00 am, in order to avoid getting struck by an afternoon thunderstorm.

The first several miles up were non eventful, just a great time talking in the dark with lights on our heads. I liked it when we would near the mountain streams in the dark. You could tell you were near water because you heard splashing, as you got closer it was more of a load rushing sound, but you didn't know where it was until you were right next to it.

The picture is from the way back down. It was light by then.

Originally Brad and I were thinking we would just go to the keyhole, but something came over me and I felt the urge to try and be something I am not. Brad has climbed 6 other 14ers, so I figured it was no big deal for him to go to the top. I might as well just try too, right?

We made it the 6 miles to the keyhole. Here we are approaching it.

Here is a view from the other side. Views like these are one of the reasons people climb mountains.

I mentioned to Brad that he looked sick. He said I did too. (Honesty is crucial in marriage.) I felt great so we kept going knowing we could always turn around. So through the keyhole we went and on to the back side of the mountain for the last mile of the climb. The hard part. Two members of our great hiking party decided they didn't want to risk their life and turned back after a few yards. Shawn went on ahead, and Brad and I took our time.

I can't tell you how risky or not risky it was because I didn't look down and just leaned into the side of the mountain. We moved slowly, but so did most everyone else we saw. We would go a little and consider if we should keep going. Brad was feeling a little nauseous, but we'd come this far so we should just finish. That was our logic after every major point. I just kept thinking about how I couldn't wait to get back to my kids. Considering how you might not live makes you want to squeeze your children.

We get past the ledge,

we conquer the trough,

and pass the narrows

to turn the corner and see this, the last 300 feet.

I think we may have said almost in unison, "We're not doing that!" We felt like we'd been on the mountain forever, were exhausted, had to climb all the way back down, and Brad really wasn't feeling well. In fact we sat down to rest and Brad sent the entire contents of his stomach rolling down the side of the mountain.

I think maybe the rock on the bottom right corner of this picture took the brunt of it.

This is another view for you of where this episode occurred, the rocks at the end of the path.

Sometimes when you get sick you feel better afterwards. That was my hope for Brad. I'd rested a little, Brad just wanted to try to sleep, so I was a selfless wife and thought I might as well try making it to the top. So I actually just left my extremely altitude sick husband sitting alone and tried to finish. What was I thinking?!

I got a few feet up, couldn't figure out how to get up a rock without someone lifting me, and saw Shawn, (who had an awesome hike experience and made it to the top!) coming back down. Any thought I had of making it to the top ended there. I was not going to spend another hour trying to get up there by myself!

So Shawn and I make it back to Brad, still sitting, still not feeling well. In fact, he looked and acted sicker than I've ever seen him. Not good my friends, considering we had about 7 miles down to go over all those things we'd just climbed, high on a mountain where staying hydrated is critical, where falling down due to weakness...

...is a terrible idea.

For the next couple hours, it looked like this.

Me telling Brad he can make it, looking at Shawn with a look of "WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?"  and Brad looking at us like he's going to throw up again, which he did several more times. Then Shawn telling us we have to keep going or we'll get stuck in a thunderstorm. It was not good. We kept trying to give him food and encouraging him to take little drinks of water, but 10 minutes later and it all would come back out.

Brad who normally stops every 30 minutes on a mountain hike to pee, hadn't done so in a couple of hours, and could barely muster the energy do anything except sit with his head on his knees. As we slowly made our way down, stopping what felt like every 10 feet, I thought about how paying $80,000 to have Brad taken off the mountain by helicopter would be worth it and about how much it was going to cost for Brad to be taken to the ER and get IV's to get rehydrated, and how we should've just stopped at the keyhole so we could enjoy the day of vacation!

I also honestly prayed for God to give him supernatural power, and that is what happened. He made it down, and by the time we made it back to the car around 3pm, he was actually keeping food in his stomach! That's altitude sickness for you - cured by descending. That's also a very abrupt ending to a very long post. Oh well.

The morals of the story -

1.If you're feeling sick when climbing a slightly exposed mountain, it might be a good idea to turn around.

2. Don't forget to pray in crisis!

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Thanks to Shawn and 14ers.com for the pictures. I carried the camera the entire hike but never once felt like expending the energy to dig it out and take pictures.

Thanks to you for reading my long Longs post that was a very long time in coming. I hope it was worth your time and energy!