Long’s Peak Colorado ~ Walking on the Ceiling of the World

Hiking in the Rockies feels like walking on the ceiling of the world. You are so high up that you are looking down on mountain peaks. The wind pushes at you and you have to walk bent against it. But it is glorious.

Until it is not.

One day, my husband and I decided to hike up to Long’s Peak. Clouds like colophons hung above it. White and fluffy they formed clear emblems, signs that stood out against a background of deep azure. Two of them stood together dropping in the still air above the mountain. The morning fresh and bright was no harbinger of things to come

That was at nine in the morning. By twelve the clouds moved in. By one the storm rolled off the mountain, striking sparks of lightening upon the unwary, who enjoying their climb went above the timberline to the boulder field of the Diamond face.

“No! No! Don’t go there,” said the hikers scampering down the mountainside. “There’s lightning! It’s dangerous!” they called as they scurried down the hill toward a blanket of trees.

So my husband and I turned reluctantly away from the beauties of Alpine plants, the high air, the rocky platform for viewing of surrounding mountains. We trudged downhill as the hail struck, fierce pellets of ice knifing us hard. After twenty minutes it morphed to rain. The dusty track turned viscous-squishy, churning mud onto legs and trouser bottoms.

At length we came to the Ranger’s hut.

“That was the worst hike I’ve experienced,” said my husband, “ever.”

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