Two years later I returned to Colorado in July of 2001. Jermey had been sidelined, as he and his wife had just had a son. My cousin Dave this time was along for the ride. This was Dave's first time to the Rockies, as it had been mine two years prior, so I did not even fathom that we would be climbing Longs Peak this trip. But in the meantime, I wanted to get more experience hiking and to get a closer look at Longs.

On my prior trip, we had stayed in Boulder which did not afford as much time in RMNP as I would have liked. So, this time Dave and I parked ourselves in Moraine Park Campground in the the park itself. Our tent was on site #152, which had a wonderful view of Longs. Early in the week we hiked to the summit of Hallett Peak (12,713 ft.) Both Dave and I handled the altitude well, so I new that we could go higher. I got out one of my guidebooks as we sat by the campfire, and we talked about what we should try next. I wanted to get closer to Longs and Dave wanted to go higher, so we settled on attempting Storm Peak (13,326 ft.), which sits on one side of the Boulderfield and is one of the two buttresses to Longs (Mount Lady Washington sits on the otherside of the Boulderfield and is the other).

We left the Longs Peak Trailhead t 6:00 A.M. Once we got abov treeline and headed towards Chasm Junction, Longs really began to show itself...what a manificient sight! Dave asked me, why don't we try it, Longs that was. Having read many guidebooks, I knew we had started too late to make an attempt at Longs. Mountains become magnets for electrical storms, especially in the summer months, so you have to exercise caution when above treeline. It is recommended that you are off the summit and below treeline, when these storms arrive. Generally, they arrive in the early afternoon, but one must still look out at all times as they could spring up at anytime. Another factor was that I had told Jeremy before I left that I wouldn't do Longs without him. Still, I didn't completely rule out the idea. Storm Peak followed the same route as Longs until the small camping area in the Boulderfield. I figured we could go until this point, which would give us some time to talk it over, and then we could see how we were doing physically at the Boulderfield and more importantly how the weather was holding up.

We took a right at Chasm Junction (If you go straight it will take you to Chasm Lake at the foot of Longs' massive east face, the Diamond) and headed around Mount Lady Washington towards Granite Pass. We reached the Boulderfield and the Keyhole came into view off in the distance. Like a tractor beam in Star Wars it just sucked us right in. We abandoned our attempt of Storm Peak and headed through the massive boulders towards the Keyhole. All the while, clouds were starting to stack up quickly in the sky, and I was developing a headache from the altitude. As we got closer and closer to the Keyhole, it became larger and larger. We peered inside the Agnes Vaile shelter which is situated just below the Keyhole and then made the final scramble into the Keyhole itself. It was 10:30 A.M. The Keyhole at 13,150 ft. is a notch in the Longs' ridge that makes it possible to traverse from the east to the west side of the mountain without having to actually climb up and over the ridge. The views from the Keyhole are breathtaking. You look down into Glacier Gorge and up to the Trough on the way to the summit. We didn't know how long the traverse to the summit and back would take us. As next year would prove to us, it takes a lot longer than we had thought. Dave and I thought we were almost there. We only had 1 1/2 miles to go, yet there was still 1,205 ft. in elevation to gain. As we chatted with the many people who had crowded at the Keyhole trying to make the very decision we were trying to make, the clouds continued to pile up and were moving in quickly. Thus, our decision was relatively easy--Go Down! Others pressed on but we wanted to play it safe. Sure there was dissappointment from having to turn around, but I rather be dissappointed than dead. Dave and I told ourselves that Longs wasn't what we had set out for in the first place and that we were happy to have made it to the Keyhole, which was true to some degree! As these thoughts were racing through our heads, we were racing down the mountain. We made our way down through the Boulderfield while clouds swept in from the west engulfing the mountain. I looked back to find that the peak was no longer visible. We tried to out run the weather, but we lost that race big time! The last 5 miles back to the trailhead were spent being miserably wet in the downpouring rain. Luckily there wasn't any lightning. Along with being wet, flying down the mountain had intensified the headache I started to get on the ascent. For some reason, on the way down is when altitude seems to really catch up with me. My head was pounding. Imagine a bad hangover. You got it? That's an altitude headache! We arrived drenched back at the trailhead around 2:00 P.M.

We changed into some dry clothes and went into Estes Park to eat some pizza at the Village Inn Pizza (They have damn good pizza!). Over dinner, my headache began to subside, and just as with the case with hangovers I soon forgot what had caused it. The next day was the last day of our vacation before had to drive 1100 miles back to Indiana, and Dave suggested that we give Longs another shot--Dave hates defeat. Although I knew that I was going to climb Longs Peak someday and that it didn't necessarilly have to be tomorrow. Oh what the hell..Let's do it! We ran over to the laundromat and through our hiking clothes and boots into the drier, stocked up at the grocery store, and went back to the campsite to plan it out. I got out my guidebooks and read about the Trough, Narrow and Homestretch, all parts of the climb we had yet to see. I also told Dave how we have to get an earlier start, as he now understood with what had already happened to us. We set the alarm clock for 1:00 A.M., as we were planning to make a 2:00 A.M. start. Although we had good intentions, when that alarm went off Dave looked at me and I looked and him and we said not today and went back to sleep. As it turned out that day we had gorgeous weather. We didn't see one cloud come even close to Longs so we definitely missed a golden opportunity. But I didn't regret it. We were both dog tired from the day before so we might not have made it despite the good weather. We talked about it on the drive home to Indiana. Trust me we had plenty of time. We decided to come back the following year and to make Longs the sole focus of our trip, and this time Jeremy was going to come with us.