Colorado has over 50 peaks that are over 14,000 feet tall. This summer we were all eager to try and climb one or two. Grandma Terry had been doing lots of hiking to get ready. Jen had told us about a pair of mountains connected by a saddle that made it possible to hike 2 in one day so that became the goal. Because it's such a popular summer activity, we picked up sandwiches and drove into the mountains the night before to camp and have an early start. The trick is always avoiding afternoon storms. If clouds start rolling in, you abandon the hike--3 weeks before we went a young 20-something year old was killed when he was hit by the first lightning strike of the day--no warning. We had our rental car (Dodge Charger) and it was slow going on the last 3 miles of the rocky, rutted trail, but we made it.
At this point, Makenna and I went ahead towards Torrey's. Kaeli, Jaimi and Erika had already headed that way. They rest of the group was going to head back towards camp.
Setting up camp. There was me and the kids, Grandma Terry, Jen's family, plus their friend Erika.
We were using grandma Terry's tent for the first time. It was big and nice and made us want to upgrade our own. Mueller's tent was a lot bigger and Isaac ended up sleeping there. Jaimi and Erika were in another tiny one.
SOOOO different than desert camping.
"You can learn a lot of things from the flowers...."
Isaac waited till after all the tents were set up before having his sandwich....that gave it enough time to spoil? He woke up feeling horribly sick and did not hike that day--except to hike into the trees a dozen times. Poor guy.
You can see the temp dropped when the sun went down. We were happy for all the layers. After Keystone ended up being so warm, the kids were slow to believe me that they would want warm clothes. Good thing I checked their bags and made sure they were well packed because I think we wore EVERYTHING we brought to bed. It was cold. (Alie and Jess)
View from my bathroom rock. Outdoor potties are lovely.
Ground was much softer than we are used to.
Neighbor. We didn't bother with a fire. When we got dark, we went to bed, knowing we had alarms set for 5:30 am.
My PJs. It was a cold night.
We broke down our tent and were ready to go by 6:30. Muellers left their tent up for poor Isaac to rest.
And so we began.
"Colorful Colorado"
First break or just photo stop?
Grandma Terry was the slow and steady hiker. She would fall behind, but always catch up when we stopped for breaks. She didn't seem to need breaks. She just kept plugging along.
Eventually the sun hit us and we shed a few layers.
The sky was gorgeous.
I had a loaf of bread in a bad from Costco that had looked so good. I broke off hunks of it as we went along trying to lighten my own load. We way overpacked the food.
Makenna is closest, Jen and little girls are blending in with the rocks in the background.
SNOW! Makenna and Jess went to check out the crusty old snow.
We took plenty of breaks to keep up morale.
You can see our trail meandering up the mountain.
Mountain goats above us.
Nearly there---above the plant line.
At the top of Grey's Peak.
Hooray!
You can see the ski run we hiked on a little at Keystone in the distance.
At this point, Makenna and I went ahead towards Torrey's. Kaeli, Jaimi and Erika had already headed that way. They rest of the group was going to head back towards camp.
We added rocks to Cairns.
We met these girls coming down when we had about 15-20 minutes left to go.
That's where we were an hour ago, or so.
We had to hike through snow on the way back down.
And, it snowed on us! Not much, but it made Kenna so happy!
On the bottom half, she started getting an intense headache and we slowed down. I had some Advil with me and that helped after it had a chance to kick in.
We made it.
Pizza feast for the starving.
Good-bye to Kaeli. She got on a plane to Provo a few days later to enter the MTC.
We would see more of Jaimi, but she had a busy work schedule, so not enough.
That looks amazing! So beautiful!
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