The High Point of My Life

Today is a big day.  I keep mentioning all the times that I have driven through the Rockies to go skiing.  Every time I have gone through there, I am mesmerized by the enormous peaks.  I always wanted to get to the top and see what an exhilarating feeling it would be.  Today is my chance.  We were going to wake up at 6 AM, but I woke up at around 5:30 AM and couldn't sleep anymore.  I tapped Steve on the little piece of forehead that was exposed in his sleeping bag and he popped right up, then we both gave our morning ritual farts (It must have been the altitude.)  After a quick tent pack up, and then letting the car warm up so the FROST on the windshield could be defrosted, we drove up to the trail head.  Now while the campsite was below treeline, the trail head was not.  When we pulled up to it, we saw Mt. Bierstadt staring us right in the face.  With the challenge lying ahead of us and our ridiculous, but practical, outfits (shorts over long underwear), we threw on our packs and headed for the summit.  The hike started our descending through a valley of marshland, and small lakes (ponds?).  The were boardwalks built over this marshland, which made the beginning easy.   This was a good warm up.  We then came to our first obstacle of the day.  There was a small creek, but because of the late snow melt, it was actually quite large and flowing.  The rocks that seemed to normally serve as the crossing were under water, but about 10 yards down stream there were 2 large branches laid between the two banks.  These branches did not look very sturdy and there was still frost on them.  As I was contemplating which route to take, Steve just went for it and took the branches.  I guess that was what I was going to do.  It wasn't as bad as I thought, but I definitely did think I was going to take a swim.  OK, obstacle #1...conquered.  Now it was just uphill trail, but the trail was very well maintained for this section.  Our surroundings were mostly brush, until we got to around 12,200 ft and then it just turned into meadows.  Even though they were not exploding with color from wildflowers, like I have seen in pictures, I was still satisfied with hiking through this high alpine meadow.  As we ascended higher and higher towards the rising sun, we kept looking back to see the view behind us.  Every time we would take break and turn around, another range of gorgeous peaks appeared over the horizon.  The altitude wasn't awful, but at times my head was throbbing a little.  When this would happen, I would just stop for a second, and take a few deep breaths, letting the relatively low levels of oxygen in my lungs and give my body what it needed.  Up and up, we kept going.  We got to the point where the sun was behind the summit again, so temperatures dropped making it a little chilly, reminding us that we were now over 13,000 ft.  The peak was a silhouette against the the crisp, blue Colorado sky, making it seemed as mystifying as I have always imagined these peaks to be.  At this point, most of the trail was iced over from the snowmelt freezing the previous night.  This proved to be tricky in some spots, but neither of us took any spills.  This snowmelt did have an origin, and we reached it very soon.  The initial snowfields that we encountered were tough because the snow was frozen solid.  Some of them we navigated around, while others we kicked into to make footholds for ourselves.  Feeling good and getting closer to the summit, we now stand about 13,500 ft above sea level.  This altitude is apparently the height that people "hit the wall."  I think most of that theory may be psychosomatic, so I tried not to think about it.  I did think Steve was going to have issues with it, but he hammered right through it.  OK we are not getting up to the ridge that will lead us to the peak.  The snowfields have been replaced by large rock fields, but we still follow the trail using the cairns that  are scattered across the mountain.  13,800 ft, it is now within our grasps.  The last push to the summit was somewhat daunting.  On one side, was a snowfield that dropped off like the end of the world, and the other was large boulders that would require some handy scrambling.  This was awesome.  Who would have thought that all those hours of my childhood playing on rocks and in the woods would be helping reach this goal in my life?  Even with my shoulder still hurting a little, I was able to scramble through the rocks with no major problems.  I could tell that Steve was feeling the same rush that I was, as we both pushed toward the top.  Then finally we heaved ourselves, over the last few boulders and there it was.  We had made it!  There was a small PVC tube for people to sign their names in as they summitted, I felt very proud to right my name in there.  I had just summitted my first 14er, and was currently standing at 14,060 ft.  The views were awesome and the feeling was incredible.  Even though I was sore and still had a headache, there was nothing that could ruin this moment for me.  A couple had summitted shortly after us and they pointed out all the other peaks that were visible from our vantage point.  Another little bonus on the summit, was that we got to see a marmot.  Steve has a weird obsession for larger, wild rodents so his life was complete at this point.  After several pictures, some video, and capturing this moment as best I could, it was time to descend.  Now descending is never that much fun, but this time it was different.  Remember those snowfields from earlier?  We'll this time we flew through those, literally.  There were paths in the snow where we unstrapped our packs, put our butts in the snow, and just went for a ride.  We were both giggling like little kids, but who wouldn't if you sledding on your ass 14,000 ft above sea level.  It was awesome.  Other people that were climbing saw us doing this, and they were cheering us on.  We are pretty sure, they will all be doing it when they descend.  I tried to take some more pictures before we got below the views, and with the sun a little higher in the sky, the shots were great.  Steve went into his delusional state, and started running down the trails.  People thought he was crazy.  When we got down to the car, our adrenaline rushes were coming to an end, and every pain and ache and lack of oxygen that we had faced for the previous 5 hours all hit us at the same time.  Now we were miserable and hurting.  But that sense of accomplishment was still there, and it will always be there.  Back to civilization we went.  Rest of the day was spent in a hotel, and then we met up with Liz (from Frederick/Las Vegas) and Caitlin (NOT from Kansas, but friend from UD.)  Liz was driving to Las Vegas to start her new job and Caitlin was traveling with her.  It was nice to see some familiar faces.  We ate dinner with them and then went out in downtown Denver, which was a very cool city.  We went to some bar where every time you ordered a drink, the bartender would flip a coin.  If you guess right, the drink was free.  I liked the idea, I liked the bar, so overall it was fun.  Steve was having a good time until he got into a secretive scuffle, and then we left.  When we left, it was pouring outside.  Now we have not had any significant rain on this trip, and last year it took us until the second to last day to get rain.  I look at this two ways.  One, Liz and Caitlin are bad luck.  But we hung out with Liz before and there was no rain.  On the other hand, Steve and I had just finished all that we had set out to do.  With this trip and last years combined, it is going to be hard for me to find things that I feel like I need to do.  Things are good, but it was cold, windy and rainy, and I wanted to go to bed.  We said our quick, wet goodbyes, and then went to our hotel and died.  Driving to Omaha in the morning, we were battered, bruised, beaten, but most importantly feeling more alive than ever after 4 days of Colorado.