After my first semester in college my Brother Chad and I, along with friends Kevin and Todd, drove from Indiana to Colorado in search of true adventure. The goal was to climb some mountains, explore the outdoors, and maybe even some fly fishing. I actually went with them at the last minute and really didn't even have initial plans to go but when the opportunity presented itself I figured why not.

We drove the whole way, stopping in Hayes, KS to meet some of Kevin's friends and eat one of the best cheeseburgers, and corn nuggets, I have ever had. Once we were done in Hayes we loaded up and wouldn't stop again until we reached pay dirt, Estes Park, CO. For those of you who have never been to Estes Park I would surely encourage you to stop by and visit this truely beautiful place at least once in your life.

We popped out our tents at the camp ground and setup base camp then started looking at our maps. We had a semi game plan but when you have four young guys on an adventure then everything is subject to change. We all went our own direction for a while just exploring the area. The base camp was surrounded by some really beautiful streams, trails, and wildlife.

We planned some hikes, then a smaller mountain climb, and then finally a real mountain climb, Longs Peak. At 14,259 feet, Longs Peak is not a small object, in fact the climb is 15 miles round trip and although it's not the most technical climb out there, it's surely not the easiest. We enjoyed the downtime very much and tried to hike some small trails throughout the week.

After enjoying the trails, and the small climb, we were finally ready to begin climbing Longs Peak. We got our camp licenses, checked in at the trail point, and headed to our camp site half way up, the camp was called Battle Mountain. We setup a new base camp here, found a stream to collect some fresh water, and cooked up some dinner. The plan was to wake up at 5:00am and begin the scramble to the summit. I was not feeling good at all... Dinner didn't like me and I had a huge migraine. Chad read the symptoms to me and told me I just had a touch of altitude sickness and it was totally normal.

5:00am came and guess what, Todd and I decided sleeping in and enjoying the vacation was more important than climbing to the top. So we both hit snooze and Chad and Kevin continued on as planned. Later on around 8-9 I woke up, ate some breakfast, and climbed the Boulder Fields to the Keyhole pass to wait for Chad and Kevin. From this point I was only about 2 hours away from the top but unfortunately they would be coming down as I was going up, so it wasn't going to pan out. It seems my laziness had took a cool summit experience away.

At the time I didn't really care about getting to the top... I was in the mountains, out of school, on vacation, and life was great, but little did I know that years later I would regret this moment a lot. So I'm writing this post to let Chad, Kevin, and Todd know that I think we should go back, and do it again. I feel like I left something up on that mountain that I should have came home with and it's bothered me ever since.

Let me know if you guys want to go... I don't know when but I would prefer to climb it in the winter season and use Crampons and Ice Axes..

Cheers, Dustin