Our family’s idea of an afternoon stroll is a little different than most peoples. For most of my life I had no idea. I figured that it was normal to travel miles on a short walk or climb for hours on a short hike. I guess I assumed everyone did it that way. It was especially easy to believe when my 22 aunts and uncles and 46 cousins on my Dad’s side all shared the same understated measurement of distance. Of all this I remained blissfully ignorant, until recently.
I came to my awakening in Colorado Springs. When we saw the mountain they call Pikes Peak there was no question about whether or not we were going to climb it.
The city sits high up at 6000 feet where the air is clear, but rather thin. Pike’s Peak and our ‘little’ hike would take us up 13 miles with an altitude gain of an additional 7,400 feet.
It takes the average hiker at least 8-10 hours to make the assent. At the summit, legend had it, surprised and admiring tourists who had paid to take the train up would greet you with awe and listen to every step of your perilous journey with wide eyes and slack jaws. The hike could be dangerous and required waking up at the ungodly hour of 4 in the morning. But even that couldn’t stop us.
We took mostly water and waterproof gear with us. The mountain had the nasty habit of turning out hail and thunderstorms at random and a number of hikers had been struck by lightening or perished of hypothermia on the mountaintop. These thoughts were enough to keep us cheerfully engaged as we climbed.
The first few miles were a breeze. Two of my leg muscles had the indecency to get themselves pulled within the first few miles but with the help of Ibuprofen and the sacrifice of a few days walking afterward we pressed forward.
We made good time. At base camp we took an hour break and refilled our water bottles and ate our carefully prepared peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. But this was merely the breath before the storm, in more ways than one.
Our troubles didn’t start until we hit 10,000 feet. We had heard the rumors that severe thunderstorms were due to strike the mountain earlier than usual, but it had been raining every day since we had arrived in Colorado Springs and weather is a finicky thing, so we weren’t too worried. We split up for the hike, the boys taking the accelerated climbing track and the rest of us following somewhere behind.
The altitude struck first. As we approached 11,000 feet our heads started to pound and our stomachs protested. We all started to feel like Johnny Depp as he staggered around the deck of the Black Pearl in Pirates of the Caribbean. It took all of our remaining brainpower to remember to put one foot in front of the other. It was worst for Dad. Altitude sickness hit him hard and fast and disagreed with his lunch. Let’s just say there was only room for one of them and his lunch didn’t win.
When we started to hear the thunder just a few short miles from the top we decided that it would be safer to try for the top than turn back. It snowed, rained and hailed alternately as we climbed, forcing us to seek shelter in a crevice a few feet wide and only a little deeper. The temperature dropped and the thunder crashed. We were all soaked and freezing and our muscles were starting to forget the meaning of simple words like ‘hike’ and even ‘move’.
When we got to the top people looked at us like we were insane and suddenly the words, ‘dry’, ‘chair’ and ‘furnace’ all took on wonderful new meanings. None of us could walk very well the next couple of days but by then we were already on the road, on our way to another adventure.
Here is photographic evidence of our trip:
Our family would, among other things, make a great internet access commercial. We are the people you see on the sidewalk, carrying our laptops high above our heads, praying for a glimpse of a signal so that we can get our mail or load a single web page.
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