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.
Personal life
Lamb was born on January 1, 1832, in St. Joseph County, Indiana to Samuel Lamb. He was named for the Biblical Elkanah, which means "whom God possessed". The Lamb family moved to Black Hawk Purchase in Iowa in 1842. They lived along the Des Moines River, one mile from a Native American village. Lamb grew up on a farm.
Lamb married a woman named Welta Jane on August 24, 1853. In the spring of 1857, the Lambs moved with a group of people from Dallas County, Iowa to Linn County in eastern Kansas. In 1860, Lamb spent a brief period prospecting for gold in Colorado with his cousin, Enos Mills Sr., and then he returned to Kansas. Lamb and his first wife had a son, Carlyle, about 1862. The Lambs lived in Kansas until May 1866, when they moved to a 160-acre homestead in Saline County, Nebraska. His wife died in 1867. Lamb remarried on September 29, 1868, to a widow named Jemima (Jane) Morger, who had three sons.
Minister
Lamb decided to become a minister of the Church of the United Brethren after he moved to Nebraska. He was an itinerant preacher on the Nebraska and Kansas frontiers who gave sermons in schools and sod houses. His work was dangerous due to the tension between the people of European descent and the Native Americans for land and food, which resulted in deaths and kidnappings. Lamb attended a Church of the United Brethren conference in Colorado, about 200 miles away, in the spring of 1870 with W.J. Caldwell and John Elliott. He spent a year in Colorado, including a visit to Estes Park in the fall of 1870, where Lamb held church services in a log schoolhouse. He then returned to Nebraska.
In 1873, Lamb moved his family to Colorado and was assigned by the United Brethren Church to minister to the people in the St. Vrain valley. He preached to settlers along the foothills and its creeks, traveling many miles in a day.
Lamb was an early settler and minister of Estes Park. He is said to have founded the United Brethren Church in Loveland. Lamb became a church elder who continued to preach into his mid-60s throughout the summer and fall months.
He published the book Past memories and future thoughts: reminiscences for over thirty years, from birth up to April 17, 1870, when I was ordained by Bishop Dickson by 1905.
Longs Peak
Lamb assembled a party in 1871 to climb Longs Peak using the Keyhole route, which has become the most popular way to ascend to the summit. Of his party, he was the only one who made it to the top. During his descent of the North Couloir, he returned along the east face, but reached a treacherous, steep point where he could not return to find an alternate route. He made his way across a very narrow ledge, ironically called "Broadway", that was hundreds of feet above Chasm Lake and at the base of the couloir. He then came to a steep slope, later called "Lamb's Slide", which is an , 70 degree slope of ice and snow on the east face. From there, he slipped and slid down the mountain until he was able to grab a protruding rock. Lamb cut ice away with his pocketknife to create a foothold, breaking the knife in the process. He was able to get down the mountain safely and did not try the route again for 32 years, when he had safer equipment. Author Phyllis Perry said that the route was used for ascents, the next descent was made in 1903 by Enos Mills. Lamb became the first professional guide of Longs Peak.