Elkanah Lamb

rdf:langString Elkanah Lamb

rdf:langString right

rdf:langString –Rev. Elijah Lamb

rdf:langString Quicker than I can tell it, my hands failed to hold, my feet slipped, and down I went with almost an arrow’s rapidity. An eternity of thought, of life, of death, wife, and home concentrated on my mind in those two seconds. Fortunately for me, I threw my right arm around a projecting boulder which stood above the icy plain some two or three feet. This sudden stopping of my acrobatic performance brought my long walking appendages around with a musical swash… spilling all the specimens I had gathered on the summit.

rdf:langString Lamb's slide

rdf:langString Elkanah J. Lamb (January 1, 1832 – April 7, 1915) was born in Indiana and moved westward through Iowa to Kansas and Nebraska during his early adulthood. He became a minister of the Church of the United Brethren and traveled through the Kansas and Nebraska frontier to preach to people in their homes or school houses. Lamb spent a year in Colorado as a missionary. During that time, he visited Estes Park and climbed Longs Peak. Lamb's slide on Longs Peak is named for his treacherous descent in 1871. After Lamb returned to his home in Nebraska, he made the decision in 1873 to move to Colorado and continue his ministry. Lamb initially preached to people he met while traveling through the St. Vrain valley, and he was later a church minister and elder. To supplement the little money he made preaching, Lamb worked as a mountain guide. Lamb was one of the first professional mountain guides in the area that became the Rocky Mountain National Park, and he was the first guide up Longs Peak. Lamb opened Longs Peak House in 1875 to lodge people who wanted to climb to the peak's summit. He and his wife operated the inn for a quarter of a century.