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The Trough, Going Down (pg.3)... |
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by Jerry Cates |
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Standing about where the fellow from Dallas was standing in the photo on the previous page, I took this shot (the photo below on the right) straight up the Trough couloir. The sawtooth ridge in the right half of the photo is the arête that separates the west slope of Longs from its south slope. It is known as the Keyboard of the Winds. The sharp points resembling canine teeth were created when glaciers formed on each of the two slopes and slowly plucked away the rock surfaces of the slopes near the ridge. Over time, all that was left was a sharp knife-edge ridge between the two slopes.
From that same vantage point, facing north toward the Keyhole, I took the photo shown on the left, looking down Glacier Gorge. The larger of the two lakes in the middle of the photo is Mills Lake (9,920 ft. elev.), and the smaller one in front of it is Jewel Lake. Both are fed by Glacier Creek. The small pale blue lake in the foreground, just in front of the ledge that drops into Glacier Gorge, is Blue Lake. This lake is at 11,130 ft. elev., about 2,000 ft. below where I am standing, 500 ft. above the floor of Glacier Gorge, and 1,200 ft. higher than Mills Lake. Just beyond Blue Lake the slope is very steep, as this photo suggests. Off in the distance, another arête, this one separating the west slope of Longs from the Boulderfield, shoots a single spire into the sky. Just below it, a flat-topped knob juts out of the same ridge. This ridge contains the Keyhole. The tall spire visible in this photo, just above the center and about one-fifth the distance from the right edge, overlooks a permanent snowfield on its other bank known as the Dove. The knob below it is located just this side of the Keyhole. As I hiked closer to it, the visible shape of the knob changed from a knob to more of a shovel, then back to a knob... Next: The Ledges, going down, page 1... Longs Peak Menu ... Bugsinthenews ... Books About Longs Peak |
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