College Essay Format
Introductory Paragraph People are mistaken who believe
the high Rockies are hard to climb. To the traveler who has passed
through the plains of Kansas and eastern Colorado, the high Rockies
might seem like a beautiful but forbidding wilderness, approachable
by only the toughest mountaineers. It is true that the 53 peaks in
the Rockies that soar over 14,000 feet in elevation should only be
attempted by seasoned climbers. However, the peaks under 14,000
feet, the fourteeners, can be easily climbed by the average person.
Actually, climbing Colorado's fourteeners is hardly a rugged
experience because most of them take only a day to climb, involve no
more than hiking and simple scrambling, and are conquered by many
people each year.
First Body Paragraph Surprisingly, unlike expeditions to
Mt. McKinley or Mt. Everest, a climb up one of Colorado's 14,000
foot peaks rarely takes more than a day. Pike's Peak, with the
state's greatest base-to-summit elevation gain, is admittedly a
strenuous climb, yet a retired college professor in his middle
seventies makes the hike every day in the summer. A friend of mine,
Carson Black, in a day, once climbed four fourteeners, three of
which--Crestone Peak, Crestone Needle, and Kit Carson Peak--are the
most challenging in the state. Even more revealing is the
Bicentennial celebration by the Colorado Mountain Club. It planned
to have members on the summit of every fourteener in the state on
July 4, 1976. Only a handful of ascents took more than a day.
Second Body Paragraph Colorado's 14,000-foot peaks are also
fairly easy to climb because they require no special climbing
techniques. The "knife-edge traverse" on Capitol Peak is probably
the most infamous challenge, yet most hikers who carry ropes don't
use them when they see the ridge is not very intimidating. The
highest peak in the state, Mt. Elbert, is so simple to climb that a
jeep made it in 1949, and one man "rode a 24-year-old bicycle to the
summit in 1951" (Perry Eberhart and Philip Schmuck, The Fourteeners,
p. 38). I personally saw two motorcycles on the 14,000-foot ridge
between Mt. Democrat and Mt. Lincoln. Third Body
Paragraph Another indication that climbing Colorado's highest
peaks is not very difficult is the sheer number of people who
succeed each summer. After descending from Torrey's Peak one weekend
in August, I counted over seventy cars in the parking lot. On a week
the previous August, I passed fifty people in various stages of
climbing Mt. Elbert. Even years ago--in 1968--4226 people climbed
Longs Peak (Paul W. Nesbit, Longs Peak, p. 68). Its parking lot
today, to accommodate the number of climbers, is about a
quarter-mile long. Concluding Paragraph If I've shattered
your belief that Colorado's peaks are the domain of only bears and
mountain men who look like bears, consider how Zebulon Pike might
feel about Pikes Peak today. In 1806, he "predicted that the
mountain would never be climbed" (Eberhart and Schmuck, p. 6). Now,
via the cog railway or the toll highway, he could reach the summit
without moving his legs. |
