*major edit in response to the comment made by Akyra that I agreed with:

" looks like a cool place... the cliff is a little dark though. I'd prolly tweak it a little in photoshop so the lighting would be a little more even.

my response: This is a shot that will possibly be resubmitted in the future, the shadow falling on the entire cliff face is from the thunderstorm we were running from.... I agree though, it really would be much better with more lighting"

for reference the original can be viewed by clicking on the following link: [link]

I climbed the mountain this summer, and re-shot this photo... this time we made the summit despite the snow present in the trough, and in placed on the ledges.

The Western face of Longs Peak as seen from the bottom of the Trough - taken 9/22/07 - uploaded and processed at Syncretism Studios - Copyright 2007 Syncretism Studios and Trevor Williams - All Rights Reserved

previous description:
This was taken from the Trough on Long's Peak in Rocky Mountain National Park, and one of Colorados more difficult 14 er's... every time I attempt the summit of this thing my respect for it grows... this was the third attempt this year, and we made it 1/4 mile from the summit (about a half hour climb) and had to turn around due to weather... again... what you are not seeing in this photo is the storm behind me, and the trough is around a 35-40% grade on weathered granite, which becomes a slide when wet (there is classed non-technical, though numerous people have fallen to their deaths from this area of the mountain due to its difficulty and lack of technical classification which leads to people seriously underestimating it) so had we not turned around, I probably would not be posting much anymore, though I am incredibly frustrated considering it took 6.5 hours to get to the point where we had to turn around... ahrg