On Wednesday the 13th, four people, each battling his or her own demons (fear of altitude, fear of lightning, fear of heights, fear of hiking), climbed to the top of Pikes Peak in a single day with no ill effects to speak of. Yippeeee!
That's not to say it wasn't a challenge, or that we didn't have a bruise here or a sore muscle there. I for one was leaning so far away from the edge of the trail at one point that I banged my shoulder into a rock and now have an interesting groove there. (Hopefully it will scar!) I am soooo grateful that I didn't bounce off the rock and over the edge on the other side of the trail.
Because we started at 3:30 a.m., we didn't run into humans until we reached Barr Camp, which is the halfway point. We inferred that most people split the hike into two days because Barr Camp was heavily populated (maybe 20 people?).
And now an anecdote: A troop of boy scouts left Barr Camp a little before we did. We played leapfrog with them for a while until half of their group started to lag. We went on, but each time we stopped to gulp some extra air, three or four of the boys would catch up to us. We told them to go on ahead but they all exclaimed, "oh no, you are going the perfect pace for us." We thought, wow, these polite energetic 14 year olds want to hike with *us*. How cute. How sweet. So we moved on and they would trail along behind us.
As the air got thinner, we stopped more frequently, arms akimbo, gasping for air. But when the boys ran up, they always seemed dreadfully chatty and not the least bit breathless. And still, they stopped to join us and wait for us to go on. Finally, we noticed that one of the boys was a tad impatient with the length of our rest periods. He would stand up and sort of lean forward, like he wanted us to get a move on. So I said, "Why don't you guys go on ahead, we need to rest a bit more," whereupon another of the boys blurted out, "We're not allowed to pass you."
The jig was up. We were sharing supervision duty and didn't even know it!
Colorado score: +1 (Duh!)
Mt. Kilimanjaro, look out! How long did it take you to reach the top? Has Durf recovered? Would love to hear from him and he can't claim nothing to talk about! Mt K is only about 5K ft higher...a good next challenge. Glad you are all home safe.
ReplyDeleteYou are all heroes!
ReplyDeleteWe arrived at the top at 1:00, so it took 9.5 hours with rest and food stops. Stay tuned for a couple of pix (tomorrow).
ReplyDeleteDurf did great! Durf, any comments?
How long to get back down? Were the scouts allowed to pass you going down? How many of you were carried down by the scouts? Congrats!
ReplyDeletegood job, you masochists!
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