https://imgur.com/a/Pn3npBb Full album with descriptions of the features.
I made my attempt at the Keyhole Route today. Goddamn. 16 miles with 5 of them scrambling over boulders. I had shit sleep, ate like 600 calories the day prior, and didn't drink enough water even though I drained a camelbak and two gatorades. By the time I got to the top of The Trough, a 500ft vertical scramble, I was so dehydrated that I vomited twice while looking at The Homestretch from that teeny tiny hole at the top. 100 feet to go, wasn't going to start vomiting and potentially passing out at a 45 degree angle 14.2k' up. Now I have to do it either next week or next year.
Technically the shitpost came from the mountain because for a brief moment I had a signal and tried to make this post instead of enjoying the majesty of nature in one of its most sacred places.
edit: I also got lost coming back on The Narrows and got to confront a fear of heights by climbing over boulders hundreds of feet above granite slabs. Won't do that again.
I had plans for those things but then they kept getting interrupted. And I ordered the wrong kind of burrito so my caloric strategy was ruined. Normally that's not an issue with dayhikes around here but even the Keyhole Route is so much more climbing than it is hiking. The physical aspect of it was so much more than I was anticipating. Now I've got to treat it like a prolonged 5 mile scramble with very little uninterrupted ground. All the muscles I built for hiking stresses did nothing for the real toll of that route. With subsequent 14ers I'm getting a climbing gym membership before I attempt anything more technical than this.
What'd you use for guidebooks/planning?
Only googling route descriptions and watching videos. Colorado at least has /r/coloradohikers and a few posters like The Virtual Sherpa who do good overviews of the mountains on youtube. Other regions with hiker cultures probably have similar communities, if not on :reddit-logo: then proper forums.
For guidebooks on that region specifically I've got a few so far but nothing dedicated to the ecology, geology, or wildlife of the park yet. All are fascinating though:
Plants of Rocky Mountain National Park
Wildflowers of the Rocky Mountain Region
Plants of the Rocky Mountains
Falcon Guide's North American Mushrooms
You probably already ran across this by googling, but if you haven't, Hiking Project has a ton of great info. There's also Mountain Project that's climbing oriented if you get into that.
Hiking Project is the only hiking website I like for general route info. AllTrails hides so much behind paywalls and ProTrails usually has half the information.