The Climb....

Sorry it took so long. I got distracted. Sometimes parenthood does that, and I think that's just a little bit more important than blogging. :)

It kind of felt like we were heading into some big sporting event by the amount of people hitting the trail with us. Weird thing is that there were already a ton of people ahead of us. The difference was we headed into the dark and thick expanses of thousands of pine trees with backpacks and food, not into some arena where backpacks are forbidden and food is provided. But it was pretty cool. Spirits were high, and you could feel the energy everyone was exuding from their excitement. There was a family from New Hampshire behind us, a guy from Denver who was taking his buddy from Greenville, South Carolina just a bit ahead of us, a group of college students from CU Boulder setting a strong pace directly in front of us, and the guy behind us was here from California. Then there was us, the couple from Pueblo West who convinced my parents to stay an extra week so we could climb this mountain.

Right away we were huffing and puffing. Okay, this isn't unusual on a hike like this, so it's not extraordinary news, but usually the first half mile is the hardest, then you get a reprieve. Not on Mount Elbert. It's fairly steep for about a mile, then it does smooth out for a short distance before a very steep climb deeper into the forest where you can choose to continue to summit or fork off onto the Colorado Trail. You already know which route we took. But before we started this incline, we sat on a log and ate a snack.

We had immediate visitors. Gray Jays, a.k.a. Camp Robber Jays. Very brazen birds that beg for your food. Leave it to me to break even my own rules and put the tiniest of crumbs in my hand to see if they'd eat out of my hand. The answer: yes! And a stern word from my husband, which I brushed off. He was right, but I was victorious, so I didn't care. I snapped a couple of pictures of these two, but they're on my phone and I have to wait for the software update to download them to my Mac.

Snack finished, we loaded packs back on and started huffing our way up the hill. It seemed like it would never end. In fact, it didn't until we were above 13,500 feet! But we did stop a few times before we hit tree line at 12,000 feet, partially to take advantage of the cover of trees, if you catch my drift, and partially to rest. It seemed like it took forever to hit tree line, but that was only a little less than halfway! We already were seeing people turning around, and there was one large family group with about 5 teens that was struggling. Okay, the group wasn't, but one of the girls was really needing to go down. She had altitude sickness bad. But they pressed on. So did we.

The climb above tree line got steeper, so we started going about 20-50 feet, then would rest a moment. I took the camera out and started snapping each break.

By the time we reached 14,000 feet, the girl with altitude sickness was in really, really bad shape. Her dad kept saying "you've made it this far, you can make it to the top." He was saying this as she was puking. Again. And again, and again. We lost count of the times WE saw, but it was too much. I think she finally was able to convince someone that she had to go down because we never saw her again. I still hope & pray she's okay and that the family isn't kicking themselves now. One rule to this game: the mountain will always be there, you CAN come back. We pushed on.

You wouldn't think the remaining 440 feet would be all that difficult when you've made it this far, but you'd also be wrong. At this elevation your brain slows down due to lack of oxygen, you need more calories, and you're tired. We somehow managed to get off trail and onto a narrow game trail, or something. I even thought "huh, I don't remember hearing anything about this, but this is awfully similar to the narrows on Long's." Needless to say, we figured out we were wrong and pushed over to the trail. Thankfully it was easy! We made our first false summit and took a breather. Then we pushed on.

It was only about 150 more feet and we made our second false summit, but now we could see it we were so incredibly close to our true summit. We took another really quick breather and pushed to the top. Jeff was a bit hypocaloric by now, despite our big breakfast and snacks at breaks, so he was a tad lightheaded, but he kept on. Good man! Granted, we knew we'd be eating again very soon and that coming down would help, but still. The talus at this point was slick and the incline very steep, but we managed to do the entire climb sans poles, so we were happy. And the summit!! Oh, my, the summit....

We had a day that was nearly cloudless, so it was perfect. Despite the wind and very cold temps while sitting on top of the state of Colorado at 14,440 feet, it was smoky down lower, so our view was a bit less than it could have been, but we were able to figure out peaks from all over the state. We saw Pikes Peak quite well, the Maroon Bells near Aspen, the Needles Range to our South, and even all the way to the San Juan Range on the Utah/Colorado state line! Jeff signed the summit log while I wrote a note on my hand for pictures, I paused a moment by a flag someone had planted and thought of Jeremy Clawson (who's Utah memorial was on this day), and we posed for summit pictures. Lucky for us, we asked the one person who is shutter happy and took a LOT of pictures for us! He got three shots that we're going to have made and framed, and he made us laugh. What a fun guy!

I couldn't find my gloves the night prior, or the morning before we left, but Jeff let me use his because his baselayer shirt has thumbholes that hold his shirt over his hands for extra warmth, so he was fine. Thank goodness! It was barely 40 degrees on summit and my hands would've been frozen. I took the gloves off as we sat behind a cairn to block the wind, called family, I shed my boots to have some barefoot time, and we ate. We spent about 30-45 minutes on summit and started our descent. Bear in mind we've been drinking this entire climb, and there's no place to "hide" once past tree line. It had been a long time. So our descent started with a sprint down slippery talus and steep slopes from 14,440 feet down to tree line at 12,000 feet. Talk about exciting! How neither of us managed to fall, roll an ankle, hyperextend a knee, or some other obvious damage to ourselves at this time is beyond me, but we didn't! My toes, however? They were screaming at me not long after the other relief came.

So, our time on top was fairly short, but we made it. Of all the people we saw in the parking lot when we started, just short of a quarter of them made summit. We don't know their stories, but we know the mountain will still be there.

We made my parents giggle the next day with our groans and slow movement, the muscles were so sore. And my toes actually bruised enough that I might actually lose a toenail (they're fine now, just acted like I smashed them in a door), but it was all worth it.

Saturday is August 22. Guess what? I've got another mountain to climb! This time it's close to home: Pikes Peak. I'll be solo from the household, but with about 6 other people. I am looking forward to the donut at the summit! (explanation later) Do you think Jeff and Luke will see me wave from 14,110 feet and 40-something miles away?