It's Official-I Still Don't Like It!

It's unfair of me to say I don't like something unless I've really tried it. I've always said, since I was young, that I hated hiking. I even remember saying it two weekends ago when I was hiking with some friends. But all the hiking I've done in my 27 years has been "easy" hiking. I guess you can't call it real hiking because it was only a mile or two and took less than an hour to complete. A real hiker would laugh in my face if I mentioned hiking the trails I've done. So, when my friends suggested climbing a 14er this summer, I agreed to do it. What was I thinking?

I've mentioned before that I don't like saying NO. I give in to peer pressure because I never want to miss out on anything. If I say no, then my friends will still do it while I'm at home doing homework. So when they asked me to climb a 14er with them, my immediate response was YES! I had no idea what I was getting myself in to, but off to the store I went to buy hiking shoes, hiking socks and a backpack. It's been an expensive summer for me. Now that I have the gear for biking, hiking, camping and some other sports, I guess I can call myself a true Coloradian.

For those of you who don't know what a 14er is, it's a mountain that is over the altitude of 14,000 feet. Denver is called the mile high city because the altitude is 5,280. The base of the mountain we climbed was around 11,000, and the top of Gray's Peak is 14,270. We climbed over 3,000 vertical feet in four hours. Shannon, Jeff, Mike, Sonya, Kari and I left my house at 5:30am. We were on the trail by 7:40am. Our plan was to climb both Gray's and Torres, but once we got to the top of Gray's, I knew that conquering both was more than I could handle. The others were up for the challenge, but it was getting cloudy and an unsafe time to climb (have to be careful of lightening storms).

Looking down at what we just climbed.

Kari and Sonya going through some of the rocks.

Taking a rest before the "hard" part begins.Because the air is so thin, I was lightheaded and having a hard time breathing. I had a bad headache throughout the day, and I could only go about 30 feet at a time before stopping to get my breath back and rest my legs. My calves felt like they were on fire. Like I said, it took me four hours to get to the top. Going down was super difficult, too, but in a different way than going up. It took us two hours to get down, and it hurt my feet, ankles, hips and knees. Add a full bladder to the mix, and I was one miserable soul. As you'll see from the pictures, it's super rocky, so it was hard to climb over rocks.

Me, Sonya, Kari, Mike, Shannon, Jeff-Finally at the top!

Looking down at our course.

More rocks...Mike and Jeff appear to be having fun.

I will admit that finally making it to the top made the hard, hard journey worth it. We got some pretty cool pictures. I can't say, however, that I will ever climb a 14er again. This is probably my first and last one, but I told my friends to ask me again next year and maybe I will have forgotten the pain and misery by then. God's nature is beautiful and amazing. I just wish there were more ski lifts to get us to the top to enjoy it!

Yay! I made it.

Now that I've hiked a 14er, I can officially say, "I don't like hiking!"

I have more pictures coming from Kari and Mike, so I'll add more pictures once I get them. Make sure to check back soon.