Summer 06' Colorado.
Early summer 06 brought me to Colorado to hang out with my sister and brotherinlaw as well as do some hiking with Kris Walhof and Andrew Hoeksema. I drove right to denver and met up with Kris and andrew. I checked out the pad then we drove over to Vail Colorado to spend the night with some friends of Kris's friend (it was a little complicated, but hey...we had a place to stay so we weren't complaining). Coming directly from Iowa to 7 thousand feet above sea level was not exactly optimal for my body, but I drank enough water to be able to function. Though i woke up quite a bit during the night it was really helpful to staythat high because Saturday was the hike to the top of mt Elbert (elevation14430 ft). We woke up at 330 and drove an hour and a half to the trail head. I just bought new boots for Alaska and a camel packwhich made me even more excited. If i recall correctly this is the first time in my life where I truly felt "crunchy". We ascended the mountain at about six and got to the top around 11. I'm not going to pretend that my sudo athleticism made the hike easy for me by any means. The first 20 min I could only take about fifty steps before I got really winded. Hiking in elevation is a friken challenge! 4.5 Miles, a four thousand foot climb at 20 percent grade! After we passed the treeline we experienced some taunting from the mountain offering us 2 or three false summits, but eventually we arrived at the true summit. After we had our hearts fil of the view, the sense of acomplishment, and the peace, we each sat down by ourselves and had some reflection time. Tired as I was, I took a little nap. By this time I was used to breathing heavy anyway so it didn't bother me to much. There is not much else I could say about my mountain top experience that hasn't been said about most others, but I will say that something inside me awoke when I was up there...and it did not leave for the rest of the summer.
The way back down the mountain was much easier on the lungs but much harder on the knees. We got down in less then half the time it took to get up...minus the stop for water when I took a 20 min nap again and sun burned the shit out of my lips. We made it to the bottem, took some pictures, and went back to denver. I drifted in and out of sleep for the two and a half hour car ride home, but when we got there still had the energy to go to a Denver Outlawz professional lacrosse game in Mile High Stadium.
I went to Milikan the next day and spent the rest of my time relaxing watching 24 (to which I become hoplessly addicted) , reading, going to the coffee shop to go online, and of course hanging out with my sister and brother inlaw. All of this seemed to be some kind of preparation for Alaska where I headed the next weekend.
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