Bobbie Heisterkamp postcard collection
Colorado Historical Society
Courtesy of Rocky Mountain National Park
French trappers traveling through the area saw the twin peaks of Longs Peak and Mount Meeker. At a distance, they looked the same height, and they named them Two Ears.
Major Stephen Long is said to be the first to spot the great mountains on behalf of the U.S. Government on June 30, 1820.
American Indians had climbed Longs Peak a number of times setting traps for eagles in order to harvest their feathers. Until 1868, however, no white man had set foot on its summit.
After staying with the Estes family, William Newton Byers, founder and editor of the Rocky Mountain News, named Estes Park after these permanent settlers.
Byers had ambitions to make the first recorded ascent of Longs Peak. From the Boulder Field, Byers and a companion reached the top of Mount Meeker, and they looked across at the nasty ridge that connects Meeker and Longs. Lacking the proper climbing equipment, they retreated.
Byers foolishly predicted that no man would ever reach the summit of Longs Peak.
The story now turns to one of our greatest explorers, John Wesley Powell. He lost an arm fighting in the Civil War, but this did not stop him from going west in 1867.
He climbed Pikes Peak and returned the following year setting his sights on Longs Peak. He hired a respected mountain man, Jack Sumner, to guide him. Sumner happened to be Byers’ brother-in-law, and when Byers got wind of the expedition, he joined.
In August, a base camp was set up at Grand Lake. After two days of riding east through virgin territory, the party reached the foot of McHenrys Peak. They climbed the ridge that connects McHenrys with Chiefs Head Peak.
Next, they walked over the top of Chiefs Head and encountered a knife-edge ridge leading to Pagoda Mountain. They could see the ridge between Pagoda and Longs Peak, but were forced to retreat.
Again, Byers was defeated in his attempt to climb Longs Peak, and maybe his prediction that it could not be climbed was correct.
Powell would not give up and in a second attempt, the party went over the Continental Divide to Wild Basin and camped above Sandbeach Lake. They arrived late in the afternoon, and L. W. Keplinger volunteered to reconnoiter the route above the camp by following Hunters Creek.
He managed to get around a couple of tight places and arrived above the East Face just 200 feet below the summit. Alone with nothing but a thousand foot drop below him and with night approaching, Keplinger retreated. He came so close to being the first white man to reach the summit.
The next morning, the party climbed the peak using Keplinger’s route and arriving on the summit at 10 a.m., Aug. 23, 1868.
After building a rock monument and christening it, the Powell party spent three hours gathering specimens to lend validity to the fact that this was a scientific expedition.
After his successful first recorded ascent of Long Peak, Powell went on to explore the Colorado River. He and his men were the first to run the numerous rapids in Grand Canyon.
Byers, now satisfied, continued to publish the Rocky Mountain News.
As for Keplinger, the lake immediately below the south face of Pagoda Mountain is named for him.
Kenneth Jessen has been a Loveland resident since 1965. He is an author of 20 books and more than 1,600 articles. He served on several Loveland boards and was an engineer for Hewlett-Packard for 33 years.