A few weeks went by and Keith started asking me about it, like what I would need, how long I would be gone, etc. I told him I was NOT going, so it didn't matter. He told me he really wanted me to go. He thought it would be good for me and he wanted me to go.
Still thinking it would not happen, I told Kim that Keith wanted me to go. She was super excited. Before I knew it, she brought me climbing poles to use. She asked what size of shoe I wore and said her friend had hiking shoes that she didn't want any more and wanted to give them to me - they were my size exactly and were only worn once....original price...$119.00
Then I started getting excited. :)
I prayed and had a garage sale! Guess what?? I made all but $2 (yes, TWO DOLLARS) to pay for my entire trip!
Several times throughout this summer I have told Keith that I just needed to stay home and he was insistent that I go.....even the night before I left, I told him that I thought I should just stay and he would hear none of it. :)
So I will pause right here and say "THANK YOU, KEITH, for letting me go and staying with the kids for the five days that I was gone.....I love you!!!"
Day 1:
Kim and Jean arrived at my house at 4:00 a.m to pick me up. It's a 15 hour drive and we didn't want to be driving in the dark in the mountains. :)
We had so much fun driving the first day. Just before we got to Denver, we saw a sign that said "Scenic Hwy 86". So we though, why not? We're here all day.... It added about 3+ hours to our trip, but it was still fun. :)
We stopped at a town called Castle Rock and ate at a Mexican place - friendly staff. Then we started getting into the mountains - SO exciting!!!
We drove through tunnels and saw cool waterfalls and gold mines. We FINALLY arrived at Leadville where we would be staying and Jean had to inspect the room for bed bugs with her handy-dandy flashlight. When the all clear was given we settled in and slept very well.
Day 2:
The second day (Thursday) we went to Mt. Evans. It's the highest paved road in the U.S. It was beautiful and I was very thankful we were driving because it rained/sleeted/hailed a lot of the day.
The drive up the mountain was like a zig-zag road with hair pin turns everywhere. We were so excited to see mountain goats and sheep!
On top, a storm started blowing in. Being up that high, it doesn't take long for it to go from pretty to ugly. Right before our picture was taken, they put out a lightning alert and asked everyone to return to their cars for safety - we snapped a quick picture, then ran. :)
That evening, we went and found the trailhead for Mt. Elbert, so we weren't having to find it in the dark the next morning. It's a beautiful mountain!!
Upon finding the trailhead it sent new emotions through us.
Kim = super excited....Me = kinda nervous....Jean = as always Calm, Cool, and CO-llected!
After we found the trailhead and knew where we would be going in the morning, we went back into town and ate at a little local place called "High Mountain Pies" and then drove around looking at all the unique houses there...check out the privacy fence made out of snow skies in the bottom corner. :)
Oh, yes, we also walked through a farmers market, too. We all decided they are all tree huggers out there. :)
Day 3:
We got up early, got our back packs ready and hit the trail about 7:00 a.m. We were really wanting to go earlier, but that didn't work out. There were a LOT of other climbers.
I'm guessing at about 15 minutes into the hike, we had to stop to shed our jackets. :) One thing we have learned for the next time - we took WAY too much stuff. We had no idea, so we each had food (enough to feed the entire animal population on the mountain, I think) 4 bottles of water each, first aid kit, Jean had peanuts for the chipmunks, pit stop necessities, hard candy incase we got sick.....I don't even remember what all, but it was way too much!! There were people up there with only a bottle of water just trucking away on the trail. So a word to those wanting to climb - you do need water, you do need food, but don't go over board....make your load light.
Check out Kim's bananas hanging on her back pack. :)
After about 5 hours on the trail, we FINALLY saw the summit - only to be told it was the false summit - bleh! We were so excited because we thought surely walking above the tree line would be easier than walking in the trees - WRONG!! (By the way, the trail you see below is one of the best parts of the trail. )
So up we go above the tree line. After about an hour, we notice the clouds gathering. They were still white and fluffy, so we kept on. Then they started turning and by this time some of the climbers were coming back down, so we asked the ones that we thought looked more experienced than we were if we should be concerned by them. One man said just to watch them and be ready to run back down to the tree ling - A-hem, RUN back down to the tree line?? It took us two hours to get this far above the tree lone, we're not going places very fast up here. :)
But we kept on and then more and more of the hikers were telling us that it was getting pretty nasty and advised us to turn back - some of them were even turning back. The problem with being caught in a storm above tree line is there is NO protection. One hiker even showed us the lightning position if we decided to continue. She said she was caught in a storm the week before and had to take that position....she said "basically, it's so the lightning will go down your spine instead of to your brain" "Ummmm, that sounds painful!!! "
Plus, we were about 2 hours from the real summit still.....so for us that could have meant 4 hours to the top. :D
So we all shed multiple tears - I called Keith and cried some more, then we took pictures. Thanked the Lord that we made it to 13,000 feet and started the long road back down. :(
Just so you don't think we were wimps, here's a little better perspective at what we were looking at...in the last picture, the false summit is the bump half-way up and the real summit is at the top.
It looked like we were SO close, but in reality we had a long ways to go and the clouds weren't cooperating. :(
The view was beautiful!
In all we climbed for 7 hours and 20 minutes and according to our heart rate monitor burned 5,523 calories on the hike...don't worry, we ate them all back in short order. :)
When we got back down, the summit was completely covered over with clouds and it started raining and hailing. We were still bummed! So we hung out in the little town there and had an ice cream cone and root beer float and shopped around.
Day 4:
The next morning we got up early and drove three hours to Estes Park.
Fed the already overweight chipmunks!
That evening we ate a little place there is Estes Park after finding the only hotel room in the town. Jean had brought things to go Geocaching (google it - it's SO fun). So we spent the evening/night doing that.
On the last geocache, I was on the phone with Keith and he was at home with the coordinates telling us where it was and it was EXTREMELY hard to find. Anyway, at one point, Jean and Kim screamed, "There it is" meaning the geocache (which it turned out to not be the geocache) and two men walked up with huge camera and said, "Did you see it?"
So thinking they were being funny, Jean said, what are you geocaching, too? One of them had never heard of that before, but they said they were looking for the bear - WHAT??
They said a bear lived in the brush - right where we were - and they were waiting for it to come out so they would get pictures of it.....eek!
They helped us look for the geocache and finally with Keith's help on the phone, we found it....see that rusty bolt on the bottom left? That's the geocache! A very clever person made this one for sure!
THEN we went on a bear hunt (in our car). The men went back to their campers and got their car - I'm glad they didn't decide to walk around looking for the bear.
We drove around the little shop that we were by because there was a dumpster on the other side and sure enough......
We were SOOOO excited!!!!! It was a H.U.G.E bear! One of the men said he measured it to be 5 feet tall on all fours, so standing it would have been 10 feet! Eeeeekk! We took pictures and watched him for about an hour - then scurried back to the hotel to send pictures to Keith. It was a late night but we were SO happy we got to see him.
Day 5:
The next day was an early one again and we drove home - hitting a few geocache spots along the way! It was such a fun trip, but I'm really happy to be home digging in the garden again. :)
Thanks for enjoying my trip with me!!
