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Gallery: Bear Lake and Emerald Lake Trails – September 3, 2009, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado
Longs Peak, above the lateral moraine across valley of Moraine Park.
Longs Peak (originally Long’s Peak, see below) is one of the 54 "fourteeners" in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. It can be prominently seen from Longmont, Colorado, as well as from the rest of the Colorado Front Range piedmont. It is named after Major Stephen Long, who explored the area in the 1820s. Longs Peak rises to 14,259 feet (4,346 m) above sea level. Surveys conducted prior to 2002 list the elevation as 14,255 feet (4,344 m). As the only fourteener in Rocky Mountain National Park, the peak has long been of interest to climbers. The easiest route is not "technical" during the summer season, and was probably first used by American Indians collecting eagle feathers, but the first recorded ascent was in 1868 by the surveying party of John Wesley Powell. The East Face of the mountain is quite steep, and is surmounted by a gigantic sheer cliff known as "The Diamond" (so-named because of its shape, approximately that of a cut diamond seen from the side and inverted. As with Pikes Peak, there is officially no apostrophe in the name, although a number of Colorado residents continue to object to this ruling by the Board on Geographic Names. (Wikipedia)
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