Hand Drawn (and Hiked) by McCall

Happy Wednesday! First off, I want to give a massive thanks to everyone who replied to my last email and said some iteration of ‘welcome back’. The mini-hiatus was fantastic for my mental health and also made me re-realize how much I appreciate everyone who takes the time to read my ramblings.

As promised, it’s time to talk Longs Peak. If my parents somehow find this newsletter — look away! You’re not gonna like anything that follows. I pinky promise I’ll be fine.

Backcountry Chronicles

Let’s start with the tactical: Longs Peak is a 14,259 ft mountain inside Rocky Mountain National Park. Longs sits within the top 8 most climbed 14ers in Colorado, right behind Pikes, Sherman, Quandary, Elbert, Grays, Torreys, and Bierstadt. Despite its popularity, Longs often gets a reputation for being one of the most dangerous 14ers in Colorado — even though the standard (Keyhole) route is class 3 climbing while some of the far gnarlier peaks in Colorado like the Crestone Needle and Capital Peak have class 4 and 5 exposure.

So, why is it so dangerous? Besides the terrain being decently technical, it's location inside RMNP draws a ton of attention, leading to more hikers (and more inexperienced hikers) giving it a whirl. 71 people have died climbing Longs since the parks’ inception in 1915.

An ever crazier stat? Out of those 71 people who have died climbing it, only 4 of the deaths were women. Sure, there’s something to be said about more men hiking it than women on average — but there’s also evidence that women take fewer risks and are generally more careful on expeditions like this. My less polished take is that the average dude who climbs Longs is fresh off a plane from Connecticut while the average woman who climbs it has spent the last year training. There isn’t enough data to make a solid conclusion, but I’ll be noodling on this for the foreseeable future.

All that to say, the standard route isn’t a super technical climb by any means, but it’s still relatively easy for inexperienced climbers to get in over their heads.

The route I’m taking is called the Keyhole Route. It’s 13.3 miles round trip and 4.9K of vert, so about the same caliber day as when I hiked Mount Sopris last summer — which came in at 14 miles and 5.2K vert.

The most technical part of the climb is a section called The Narrows. As the name suggests, it’s a narrow stretch right before the final summit push that involves class 3 climbing and some pretty considerable exposure. I’ve heard from friends who have climbed it that this part is more of a mental battle than anything else; it’s pretty hard to not wig yourself out on a ~3 ft path with a 2,000 ft drop to your side.

As someone who notoriously wigs themselves out on things they 100% have the ability to do (see: the Headwall at Crested Butte, The Highland Bowl in Aspen, Bell Mountain off Ajax, the list goes on and on) this will no doubt be the toughest part for me. The good news? Almost 100% of the times I’ve wigged myself out have been when I had skis on my feet. No skis for this adventure, so more control for your girl.

In the meantime, my training plan is as follows: hiking Grays & Torreys on Saturday, 8/10; Mount Blue Sky on Sunday, 8/11 (there will be a lot of legs up the wall time that weekend); Pikes Peak on Saturday, 9/6; Longs Peak on Saturday, 9/14 — with a loooot of yoga, stretching, walks, and rest in between.

Artiste Break

I currently have a corporate freelance gig taking up almost all of my creative time. I’ll share all of the details on that once it’s finalized (this is your reminder to put a clause in your contracts about being able to share your work for promotional purposes!!). For now, we’ve got a different update than normal. About 90% of the time when I draw, I’ll listen to Rayland Baxter’s music — something about it just scratches an itch in my brain.

Rayland Baxter has been holed up in a cabin for all of 2024 writing his new album and is taking a quick break to do a mini tour in the US. Lucky for me, one of the stops on that mini tour was in Boulder (!!) so I got to see Rayland live this past week (!!!) and meet him after the show (!!!!). I’ll be geeking over this photo for the foreseeable future and the signature he left on my poster. In the name of transparency, I need to share that there was a one second awkward pause in our conversation that will probably haunt me for the next year. Shoutout to Alex for jumping in and keeping it from being a 3 second awkward pause that would’ve haunted me for far longer.

To Go Snacks

🌋 Is the Yellowstone volcano just trying to put us all out of our collective-election-year-misery? A massive hydrothermal explosion rocked the Biscuit Basin area of Yellowstone National Park. Yellowstone Caldera, if you’re listening, please hang tight for a couple hundred more years. I like being alive.

💤 Cool branded content alert: CLEAR teamed up with WHOOP to dissect the impact of travel on sleep and stress. On average, it takes 5 days to catch up on lost sleep and 7 days to return to normal stress levels after a trip (yikes).

🎸 Is there any artist more lovable and wise than Maggie Rogers? I’m late to the game, but this interview with Zane Lowe about her life and creative process had me smiling ear to ear.

🛩️ The Front Range failed another air pollution benchmark and people are stumped on how our ozone emissions are so bad. These scientists took to the skies to try to get some answers.

Promised I’d be back in two weeks! See you next time.

- McCall 🌻

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