7/6/16
Let's get something clear. When I say I started something, that does not mean I actually started the activity. Many of the things on my list must be researched and prepared for in order to complete them. I can't just go out to the closest 14,000 foot mountain here in Colorado and get to hiking. Here are a some of the sites I will be going to in order to prepare for our summit. Looks like there are five to ten peaks that are deemed as beginner. At first glance, I am liking Mt. Bierstadt which is pictured here. I can use the climb to highlight the famous American artist and if I can convince someone to meet us at the top of Mt. Evans, we won't have to go back down the mountain because there is a path that connects the two mountains. Always looking for a way to make things easier. My goal is not to hike down the mountain, just to hike up the mountain. Such a slacker.
http://www.coloradoan.com/story/sports/outdoors/2014/06/27/top-beginner-fourteeners/11474973/
http://www.greeleytribune.com/news/2023430-113/peak-climb-elevation-gain#
http://www.5280.com/magazine/2013/06/higher-ground?page=full
https://www.trails.com/list_922_five-easiest-fourteeners-colorado.html
http://bearfoottheory.com/best-beginner-fourteeners/
http://www.14ers.com/route.php?route=bier1&peak=Mt.+Bierstadt
http://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/colorado/mount-bierstadt-trail
7/9/16 OK, I put this on the calendar for September 24. That is a Saturday and the day before is a day off for the boys. We can go camp Friday night and hike Saturday morning. That gives us time to prepare the boys mentally and physically. Who am I kidding? It gives me time to prepare. That will be the next step...looking up what I need to do and take and where we can camp close by.
7/10/16 I looked at the National Forest campgrounds around Bierstadt and most of them are only open through Labor Day weekend. Maybe September 24 is too late. I am not a fan of camping in any extreme weather. OK, I just checked a weather site and it says the Average low is 38 and the average high is 67 in September. I'll have to chew on this one. Being cold at night is not a good idea. I guess we don't have to camp. It is only 1.5 hours to the trail head. In looking at the average time for the 7 mile trip from people who have posted their times, it comes to about 2 hours. That really isn't bad. We could leave here at 7:00 am; get there by 8:30. Summit and descend and then have lunch back at the car. That actually sounds pretty good.
I'm going to move the date to the last weekend in August. That gives us a little bit of time if the weather is nasty.
8/20/16 I think I have convinced Jeremy to take the trip up Bierstadt today. We are totally unprepared and have no plan of action. In fact, it is 9:25 in the morning and we are nowhere near ready to leave the house to go for the hike. This is going to be great.
8/21/16 Well, I can definitely check that off my list and never look back. It was fun because it was an experience I accomplished with my family, but my knees hurt. It was way more difficult than I anticipated. I always have overblown visions of what I can accomplish and how. The how is the big deal. A couple weekends ago we had three college age guests staying with us and they hiked a 14er. No clue which one, but they said it was hard and took them a long time since they had to keep resting every 200 feet. In my mind I thought, "Well, that was probably because of the altitude." Ah, no. That was because of just how hard it is on your body. Several times on the hike, I thought about people who hike Everest which is twice the height of Beirstadt and frozen to boot. No wonder there are dead people all along the route. On my way down the mountain, I just wanted to be finished. I no longer wanted to hike. I was totally over the experience. But rather than sit down, I started to go faster, even jogged quite a bit of it. I have blisters on my big toes now to pay for that and like I said before I can hardly walk up and down the stairs because of my knees, but I couldn't take it. I had a get me out of here feeling. I wanted something to magically transport me to the jeep.
On a happier note, the boys did great. They were pleasant with us. They got to the top before us. They were nice to each other. And most importantly, they didn't complain. To celebrate our summit, we went to Beau Jo's in Idaho Springs for pizza. Made all of us happy despite our physical misery.
So, I'm glad I've done it and I'm glad I did it with my family and I will never do that again. Done.
8/22/16 I am actually taking more away from this experience than I thought. Last night I was thinking about eating healthier and how easier said than done that is not to mention how hard it is to exercise now that I am working again. But I need to do them. I need to make the choice. I need to take one more step. I need to decide that I am not going to let the mountain beat me no matter how hard. I am probably over dramatizing, but sometimes each step forward is a decision.
7/18/17 We are now living in the shadow of Mt. Rainier which I just looked up is 14,411 ft. It would totally fit into the Hike a 14er category, but that is a big HELL NO! Often it is surrounded by clouds and you can't even see it. In fact, not too long ago, I was driving to Fred Meyer (the Washington equivalent of Walmart) down in Maple Valley, our new hometown, when all of a sudden BAM! there was Mt. Rainier. I had no idea it was even visible from our little town. I wanted to stop in the middle of the busy road to take a picture. We rode the motorcycle to Crystal Mountain Ski Resort not too long ago and took some nice pics along the way. Notice Mt. Rainier is still covered in snow and it is late July. Pretty sure that it never is free of snow. Heard a story this morning about a skier this week on Mt. Rainier that fell down a crevasse last week and they just recovered the body today. There are only two 14ers in Washington. The other is Liberty Cap and we will be summiting neither!
