Mt. Bierstadt

Ever sense I moved to Colorado, I have wanted to hike a 14er (a mountain peak over 14,000 feet- there are about 96 in the US, and 53 of them are in Colorado). Ben never had any interest, but- lucky for me- I now have Audra!

She is the best locally grown native I have! She is always up for doing an adventure with me, and she is honestly the BEST person to go on adventures with! She is up for pretty much anything, she maintains a super positive attitude, and she never whines or complains. She is seriously the perfect Adventure Partner, and I already have plans to travel Europe with her someday.

Anyway, a few weeks ago I said, "hey, Audra, do you want to hike a 14er with me?" I'm pretty sure she had no idea what I was talking about, but she said yes.

I have a friend who took her kids- including an 8 year old- on a 14er last year, so I asked her for tips and Audra and I made plans.

We originally wanted to go last Friday, but the weather turned bad- and weather is an important issue. You really need to be careful about lightning storms. That's one reason you also need to go early in the morning.

We left at 4:50 AM and got to the trailhead at 6:20.

And we started.

It started out lovely- nice and winding through a meadow. There was a stream to cross and bridges to go over marshes. It was lovely.

And then it got steep. Like really, really, really steep. The thin air also definitely took a toll- we had to take a lot of breaks. We kept telling each other, "We can do hard things!" Achieve Hard Things is the motto of our ward this year, so we used that a lot.

Once we got about 2/3 of the way up, we ran into ice and snow. It wasn't terrible, but it was very slippery and we really had to watch our steps- I did not want one of us breaking an ankle up there! That would be very bad!

Then we got to the peak. But, in order to get to the top, we had to go over a hundred yards of ice and rock! I couldn't believe it! It was tempting to turn back, except we had just given everything we had to get this far. We couldn't come this close to turn back!

So, upward we went! I didn't love this part. It was pretty scary.

There were people who had ice clamps on their shoes, and admittedly that would have been really nice. But, what I wish we had most were gloves. I thought about bringing them but in the end didn't, and that was a mistake.

Onward and upward!

Finally, WE MADE IT!!!! This was honestly one of the most physically exhausting things I have ever done in my entire life.

Selfie mode turned our sign around- Mt. Bierstadt, 14,065 feet, June 22, 2020.

The view from the top is amazing.

And, there were several marmots  wanting to eat our food:

On the way down, we kept looking up at the peak thinking, "oh my goodness- we climbed to the top of that!" It's an incredible feeling knowing we did that.

But, our legs definitely burned on the way down! My fingers swelled up like sausages- something about the altitude.

Once we got back into the car, I told Audra I needed to take a rest before I could drive us more. We were both so physically exhausted!

We drove down to Idaho Springs for lunch. I wanted to go to Beau Jo's, but there was a 45 minute wait, and after what we just did, we weren't going to wait that long for food! Instead we went to a sandwich shop which was really good.

We came home and both took long baths!

I don't know if I would call this "fun." I honestly don't know if I ever want to do something like this ever again- I'm not lying when I say it was so, so, so hard. But, the feeling of accomplishment? Unbelievable.

I love that I got to share it with Audra! That's the only way I would do it again- if Claire and/or Camille ever wanted to do it.

I'm so glad we did it- but now I want to die.