Location: Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

If you ever fly into Denver, drive to Colorado from the East, or live in the Colorado – you know Longs Peak. It is that 14,000 foot mountain that anchors the North end of the Front Range, with a distinctive profile and summit. If you have been to Rocky Mountain National park, you have seen the unique sides up close – the jagged “Keyboard of the Winds”, the huge “Notch” that makes up the climbing Beaver, and of course the immense East Face Diamond. If you are a climber, mountaineer, hiker, or skier, it provides some of the best known objectives in the lower 48. Personally I can’t even begin to count how many photos I’ve taken of Longs, or the books I’ve read about its history, time I’ve spent plotting adventures on and around it, or hours actually on it. I had planned this photo, taken from nearby Mount Lady Washington, for months. While I am immensely happy to have captured it, I also know one of my favorite nights in the mountains was spent in this alpine bivy, with no objective except to watch the stars fade into sunrise over Longs Peak.