Pikes Peak Update

Thinking back… I can remember my first pair of hiking boots. My mom got them cheap off a friend who didn’t like the color. I’d never even gone hiking before, but I wore those boots to my junior high school every chance I got. They didn’t even match, most of the time, but I remember the feeling I had wearing those – I felt powerful. Big. Like I could do anything.
 

Palmer Park

I remember my first time trying to hike, soon after I started college.
 My boyfriend took me and my sister. We got our gear ready, and started on a trail in Palmer Park. My sister starts laughing uncontrollably about halfway through our hike. "What is it?" we kept asking, but she kept laughing. Finally she says, "It’s just WALKING." And she starts laughing again. She said she thought there was something special to it, since people made a big deal out of hiking.



I hiked occasionally after that, but never seriously. It wasn’t until this year that I started hiking any chance I could… I’ve hiked more in the six months since surgery than in all the years before that. I even logged my training schedule for that time. Here's a rundown of all the neat trails and parks I had a chance to explore this year:


Templeton Trail

Palmer Park:
There’s a short 15-45 minute loop I like to do in this park, where I cut from one trail to another to keep it real easy to do on a lunch break, even bringing my lunch along sometimes for a quick picnic. Then I attempted Templeton Trail – a four mile loop with awesome views of the city (and GREAT views of Pikes Peak).



Mount Culter

Mount Cutler:


I probably attempted this far too soon after surgery. Mount Cutler was my first solo hike. It’s an easy trail in that it’s easy to stick to the trail and not get lost. There’s a BEAUTIFUL spot on this trail, where you can see both the Shrine of the Sun and Seven Falls – a really neat experience to hear the bells of the shrine with the splash of the waterfall. On one day I hiked this, we even heard a Native American performance as their drums echoed throughout Cheyenne Canyon.




Quail Lake

Other trails/parks:


I took advantage of the many gorgeous trails around town here that have easy access and are relatively easy hikes, which were great for quick trips on a lunch hour or right after work. Garden of the Gods and Red Rocks Canyon have scenic trails where you can get great views within a mile. Plus we have beautiful in town lakes like Prospect and Quail that offer a one-mile loop for a light jog with great views.




Manitou Incline

The Manitou Incline:

I jumped at a chance to climb the Manitou Incline when I got an invitation, as a way to test and see where I was fitness wise. The Incline is pretty infamous around here, largely because it’s technically illegal to hike it (the land is owned by the railroad that built it, though hundreds of hikers happily trek by the "No Trespassing" sign every day). It's only a mile long, but has a 2,000 foot elevation gain, with some parts of the trail as steep as 50%. It's quite the workout. It took me an hour and twenty minutes to get to the top, and 45 minutes to hike the three miles of Barr trail down. This was easily the hardest trail I've ever attempted, and was a neat fitness test to see how ready I was for the hike I had planned ahead.


The Crags:



Crags Rock Formation

The Crags Day Hike is a four mile hike in Pike National Forrest that's in Divide and climbs toward the back of Pikes Peak. I was advised to try a hike at above 10,000 feet, since all my training this summer was below that, to help acclimate me for the high elevation hike I had ahead of me. The Crags starts at 10,100 feet with an 800 foot elevation gain and sports some of the neatest scenary of all the places I hiked this summer -- like if Dr. Seuss did the art direction for Lord of the Rings. Every rock, and tree, and mountainside was unlike anything I'd ever seen. Apparently a lot of that is due to the way the mountain formed, and it makes for great picture-taking!

Lower Barr Trail:



Lower Barr Trail

Lower Barr trail is the first several miles of the trail that goes all the way to the summit of Pikes Peak. It connects with the Manitou Incline (I have met some sturdy hikers who start their ascent of Pikes Peak with the Incline to bypass the first four miles of the trail) and has a series of switchbacks with gorgeous views of the city as you steadily rise in elevation. I wanted to try this trail with all my gear to see exactly what I was getting myself into. On my first attempt, I lasted almost exactly thirty minutes, and had to turn around. Uh-oh, I thought. I barely made it a mile. And the hike to the summit is 13 miles, and was only two weeks away. I went the very next morning, and started earlier so it wouldn't be so hot, and made it 4 miles that time before turning around (for 8 miles total). I felt slightly better about that, especially since I was able to do that in 1.5 hours. I'd read that if I couldn't make it to Barr Camp, which is 7 miles in, by 10am the day of the hike (5 hours from start time) then I wouldn't be allowed to continue. But hiking the lower part of Barr Trail gave me a better idea of my speed, as well as familiarity with the beginning switchbacks so I can pace myself better for the climb to the summit.


　
Next stop... Pikes Peak!

I’ve lived here my whole life, and haven’t even been to the summit of Pikes Peak since I was 2 years old. (They have easier ways to get up there – by car, or by the cog railway). It’ll be my first time up there as a big kid.

Considering this entire experience is something I’ve never done (I’ve never been athletic and I’ve never tried to be), almost everything, every day, was a new accomplishment for me – anytime I pushed a weight further than I’ve ever tried (first time in a gym outside of high school, first time doing weight training, first time working with a trainer), anytime I hiked longer than a mile, anytime I cut a new trail or tried a new dance move – this whole summer has been about pushing my limits and then pushing harder, almost always while looking ahead at Pikes Peak and wondering if this is the summer I’ll make it up there… if I really can go from barely walking around my living room after surgery to learning tango to walking straight up a mountain I’ve lived under my entire life…

I’ll just have to remember my sister’s take on it, so many years ago. It’s just WALKING. Take it one step at a time.