inct" to a great degree; but human beings are not so
unerring. One man may be blest with it, but another, with equal
experience, will be unreliable. There is no accounting for the wide
difference in their accuracy, it exists--that is all we know.

There are times when even with this guiding instinct, one comes to
grief; though I have noted that grief came to me most often when I was
tired, less alert, and more prone to take chances or needless risks.
Sometimes, under stress of haste to get off a dangerous place before
darkness overtook me, I have had to leap without looking. No climber
may expect to survive many such reckless steps. It is the rule of the
mountains that you look--then do not leap. In most of life's
experiences we may make a mistake and, if wise, profit by it. But in
mountain climbing the first mistake is liable to be the last.

Mountain climbing is a game, a big game; divided as are other sports
into minor and major divisions. The minor climbs include the lesser
peaks, safe, well-marked trails that lead to comfortable night camps:
the major division includes almost everything from peeping into an
active volcano to getting imprisoned in a glacier crevasse.

Colorado offers wide variety of experience in both divisions. It has
forty-odd peaks above fourteen thousand feet, with hundreds of others
almost as high, yet unknown and unmapped. The peaks that are most
widely known, and most often climbed are Pike's Peak near Colorado
Springs and Long's Peak in the Rocky Mountain National (Estes) Park.
Pike's has long been easily accessible by way of the famous cog road,
and more recently an automobile road has reached its top. But Long's
has no royal road to its summit. Only a foot trail partly encircles it.

There are many other than these two peaks to challenge the climber.
The Flattops, in western Colorado, are not necessarily low or smooth,
though flat. The San Juan Mountains are extremely rough and rugged.
The Sangre de Christo Range is at once rarely beautiful and forbidding.
The Never-summer and Rabbit Ear ranges invite exploration, and the
great Continental Divide has no peers.

Every mountain offers its peculiar attractions and difficulties. All
mountains entice the brave-hearted and the adventurous. Occasionally
men lose their lives in conquering them and not infrequently women die
heroically scaling their slopes.

Long's Peak was early the objective of experienced mountain climbers.
F