The Diamond Of Longs Peak Rock Mountain National Park

Descriptions with topos and black and white photos for 50 routes for the Longs Peak Diamond, Chasm View Wall, and Lower East Face.

From an out-of-control wildfire that nearly destroyed a town to a serial spouse killer in Estes Park, It Happened in Rocky Mountain National Park looks at intriguing people and episodes from the history of Colorado’s largest national park. Learn how two teens’ attempt to scale the Diamond—a sheer granite cliff so dangerous that climbing it used to be outlawed—resulted in one of the most complicated rescues in the park’s history. Read about the life and untimely demise of Rocky Mountain Jim, who was badly scarred by a grizzly bear attack and earned a reputation as an eccentric but highly skilled wilderness guide. And meet Harriet Peters, an unusually tenacious girl who summited 14,259-foot-tall Longs Peak at the tender age of eight.

Avid climber Dougald MacDonald has gathered histories, hair-raising tales, and personal journeys to tell of this prominent peak in the Rocky Mountain National Park. Reflections on mountaineering, geology and wildlife are presented with historic images and gorgeous, full-color contemporary photography. The ten best hiking and climbing routes, plus See It Yourself activities, offer great ways for both novices and seasoned climbers to explore the great mountain.

Rocky Mountain National Park is often called the crown jewel of the nations park system. Set in Colorado in the southern part of the Rocky Mountain chain, which forms the backbone of North America, the park contains 72 named peaks above 12,000 feet with the tallest of these, Longs Peak, rising to 14,259 feet. Established in 1915 as a national park, it now hosts more than two million visitors every year. Vacationers enjoy picnicking, hiking, camping, climbing, skiing, and simply admiring the beauties of the park, which include alpine plants, wildflowers, aspen, conifers, lakes, streams, waterfalls, and an abundance of birds and animals.

Renowned mountaineer Gerry Roach's classic hiking guide to Rocky Mountain National Park.

Best Climbs Rocky Mountain National Park showcases the classic routes and best climbs in America's largest national park. Ideal for both local and nonlocal climbers who want to hit as many select climbs as possible in a weekend or a short visit, it provides visually appealing, to-the-point information. Longtime Colorado climber Stewart Green filters out more than 150 first-rate routes―from moderate beginner routes to challenging expert climbs. Each section covers a different climbing area and route history, and also includes entertaining sidebars on local climbing history and trivia. All routes are shown clearly on detailed color photo topos, alongside stunning action photos and a contemporary, exciting design.

At 14,259 feet, Longs Peak towers over Colorado’s northern Front Range. A prized location for mountaineering since the 1870s, Longs has been a place of astonishing climbing feats—and, unsurprisingly, of significant risk and harm. Careless and unlucky climbers have experienced serious injury and death on the peak, while their activities, equipment, and trash have damaged fragile alpine resources. As a site of outdoor adventure attracting mostly white people, Longs has mirrored the United States’ tenacious racial divides, even into the twenty-first century. In telling the history of Longs Peak and its climbers, Ruth M. Alexander shows how Rocky Mountain National Park, like the National Park Service (NPS), has struggled to contend with three fundamental obligations—to facilitate visitor enjoyment, protect natural resources, and manage the park as a site of democracy. Too often, it has treated these obligations as competing rather than complementary commitments, reflecting national discord over their meaning and value. Yet the history of Longs also shows us how, over time, climbers, the park, and the NPS have attempted to align these obligations in policy and practice. By putting mountain climbers and their relationship to Longs Peak and its rangers at the center of the story of Rocky Mountain National Park, Alexander exposes the significant role outdoor recreationists have had—as both citizens and privileged adventurers—in shaping the peak’s meaning, use, and management. Since 2000, the park has promoted climber enjoyment and safety, helped preserve the environment, facilitated tribal connections to the park, and attracted a more diverse group of visitors and climbers. Yet, Alexander argues, more work needs to be done. Alexander’s nuanced account of Longs Peak reveals the dangers of undermining national parks’ fundamental obligations and presents a powerful appeal to meet them fairly and fully.