The greatest of all the mountains in the park, Longs Peak, has a massive
square head. It is a real architectural structure like an enormous
column of solid rock buttressed up on four sides with long rock ledges.
On the east side a precipice of 1,200 feet drops sheer from the summit
into the wildest lake that one can possibly imagine. It is called Chasm
Lake and there is only one month in the year when its surface is not at
least partially frozen. Mount Meeker and Mount Lady Washington enclose
it on the south and north, and snow fields edge its waters the year
round.
In 1820 Maj. S.H. Long first saw the mountain that now bears his name.
The report of his expedition records that on June 30 of that year his
party caught their first glimpse of the Rocky Mountains, and
particularly noted one peak, which they referred to as "the highest
peak." Long's expedition followed up the valley of the Platte River, and
his closest approach to the peak was at a distance of about 40 miles.
Fremont found that the name Longs Peak was in general use among the fur
hunters and pioneers in 1842. The first recorded ascent was in 1868,
when it was climbed by W.N. Byers, Maj. J.W. Powell (who the following
year made the first passage of the Grand Canyon), and five other men.