One of the things Chris and I wanted to do while in Yoder, CO was to get some good hiking in while JoeJoe was off with Grammy in California. Our goal was to see some nice scenery and get some solid hikes under our belts and boy did we. 
Our goal was to hike Pikes Peak. After looking into it we decided we would try to hike the bottom half and if that went well we would take another day to hike the top half.
Hike – 1
For the bottom half of themountain we started at the bottom of the mountain and decided to hike to the halfway point which is a spot called Barr Camp. This is the rest stop and overnight camping spot for people to rest before hiking back down or going the rest of the way to the top. From the bottom it’s a 6.5 mile hike to the camp. whew!!! The hike was beautiful tiring but not too difficult. The altitude was a bit hard since it gives me headaches. What can I say I’m a flatlander. 
Our hike took us about 6.5 hours to do a little over 13 miles. The next day…..we couldn’t walk!
Here are the pictures of the hike to Barr Camp:
Cool views on the hike through the mountains...you're just surrounded by mountains it's beautiful.In thr far distance you can see the summit of Pikes Peak....it's very far away!!
Pikes Peak Summit....we are going halfway
Really cool spots like this cave you have to walk through on the trail....really awesome and a nice spot to cool off.
Barr trail it really was a beautiful trail to follow....the trees helped to stay cool as we got closer to our destination.
Honey taking a break on a rock while I caught my breath because I couldn't breath. lol
Me resting still!
We make it to Barr Camp and eat some food and rest and we had a little vister come on our table begging for food. He was a friendly little buddy!
he was so cute we couldn't resist and gave him some food which he enjoyed right on the table by our packs.
Honey doing a supply check before heading back down. We just did 6.5 miles up now we have to go back 6.5 miles.
I was so happy to see bathrooms at the camp. YAY!
We took a moment to do the dorky shot LOL
More of the trail....it was a really nice trail. There were people running (ya I said running) the entire trail training for a marathon in August. There were some serious respectable runners.
Honey testing the waters.....yep it was freeeeeeezing!
Beautiful streams everywhere...I can't get enough of it!
Cool bridges to cross the streams.....
Climbing you can look back and see Colorado Springs....
Hike- 2
3 days after doing the first hike we decide to climb the top half of Pikes Peak. This time Tim (my brother) went on the hike with us. The total distance was the same as the bottom half hike so we planned on about the same time maybe a little more to account for the altitude. This time we are taking Crags Trail which starts about 9400 feet. This time we were going to 14,100 feet and that’s pretty high up there. Little did we know…..
We start the day early we get up at 4 am to hit the road for an 1 1/2 drive to the trailhead. We get to the trailhead and it’s 42 degrees…time to put on the jacket. I’m a cold wuss! Of course cold makes me have to pee so thankfully the trailhead had some potties. We get ready to head out…..
After getting on the trail we immediately hit a little bridge with a flowing stream. This makes me happy!! It was absolutely gorgeous. Unbelievably green and more streams which I love. I can’t help but stare at everything.
As we’re walking and enjoying the trees and streams and rocks juttin gout of the ground. You get the sense of this being a simple hike similar to what we did 3 days prior. Not a problem. We’ll be up and down and back home by 3pm with a beer in hand. HAH! As we round a corner we are hit with reality!
A straight up incline…and we already can’t breath what the Pikes Peak is this going to do for my breathing. Yikes! Little did we know! So we carry on….still holdling up pretty good.
As we get up the steep parts we head to the treeline. This is where the trees literally stop growing. You are bare butt mountain. Fully exposed to whatever elements may decide to appear as the mountain top has weather all it’s own. I had read where if you see thunderheads coming in and you’re above the treeline you need to get down to the treeline quickly. So me and my imagination of course start working full time on the fact that I am going to get hit by lightening. Maybe if I run zigzag on the mountain I won’t get hit. (magical thinking again….hey it worked in Vallecito didn’t it?)
As you can see from the pictures there is a definite tree line….when you look back you realize how far you’ve gone and when you look ahead you realize how far you still need to go. However we continue on with determination and no air to breath. As we walk along we come across a little critter…..Yeeeehaw! It’s a beaver (heh heh heh a REAL beaver) interestingly enough one of the items on my list was to see a real beaver in the wild. cross one off the list. carry on troopers…..
After visiting the beaver (hahahahahaha that’s funny in more ways than one) we carry on our way. We get to approximately the halfway point and stop for a bite to eat with the snow. Ya snow in July on this mountain….You can see in the second picture listed below the summit….still quite a ways to go. (it’s the round rocky mountain in the background)
After getting a bite to eat we hike on….still bare butt mountain is what we’re climbing. We are needing to stop often to catch our breath. Also at this point we are seeing birds very close…..we’re so high up we are catching up with the height the birds fly at. On one of our breaks we look back at our lunch spot. We also come across some pretty cool rock paths. We take the opportunity to take some picture of ourselves. We’re still feeling pretty good at this point. No problems other than breathing and “drunk legs” LOL
So we hike on and on and on….we make it to the scenic point in the trail where you can look at what they call the bottomless pit. It is beautiful and man are we way up in the sky. There is also a point where you can see the road where the many many visitors drive up the mountain which is a 2 hour drive from top to bottom. You can see where the trail follows the road however hikers are not allowed on the road. You can get a big big fine if you’re on the road and there’s a bit of a respect to it to. I put a red line on one of the pictures to show where the trail goes…..it was windy and made me nervous. I imagined myself rollie pollie-ing right down the bottomless pit….
As we carry on. We follow along the trail. It is getting steeper at this point and we are really feeling the lack of air. We are walking along a path to which we can see the road where the cars drive up. We have switchbacks all the way up. My legs at this point are feeling the lack of oxygen and I am just about asking myself why I decided to do this. For being no trees and streams it really is kind of cool up the mountain. You can see the summit in the background which is the round rocky part. The part where it’s solid boulders and that is going to be our last hike up the summit. What I believe they call devil’s playground. I myself prefer to call it bullshit. I would love to say I troopered right up the last part to the summit. However I didn’t. The last part of the summit is the quickest in elevation to climb. Every few steps I was getting dizzy and thought I was going to puke. We lost the trail quite a few times which is normal in the summit section. You can see in the pictures the cairns (the big piles of rocks) which is the only way to know where to go. A few times I thought about quitting but didn’t want to look like a total “wuss” so I carried on. I welcomed lightening to strike me. I’d hike 10 steps and sit down to make the black spots go away. I wanted my binkie and ninnie and just take a nap on the rocks. I wanted to cry and luckily I didn’t. I wanted to conquer the mountain and beat the altitude. I crawled over boulders on my hands a knees……literally crawled. So I carried on….and on….and on…..and on…..
By the time we reached the summit I could not lift the camera let alone take immediate pictures. I couldn’t even carry my pack up the rocky summit portion. As we work our way towards the summit house I can’t help but feel disappointed and elated at the same time. It took us 6 hours to climb to the summit (farthest time from setting a record that’s for sure) and it was packed with people who drove or rode the train. I was mad like I owned the mountain and I had some right to it. She was mine damnit. lol (who was pretty close to tears only about 10 minutes prior LOL hmmmm must’ve forgot about that) I couldn’t breath, every muscle in my body hurt, I was hungry and I wanted most of all to sit down. We get ourselves to the summit house which is a huge gift shop of people buying useless stuff. The first thing I hear and see is a woman who clearly drove or rode the train picking up a sticke that says “got oxygen?” and she’s laughing loudly taking wide breaths and saying to her friend “get it hahaha it’s because we can’ t breath up here.” If I had the energy I would’ve choked her (in my mind I’m always more of a badass than I am). All I thought was OMG you have enough oxygen right now to laugh. argh! We finally find a table and sit down to eat and rest and hydrate. Come to find out after researching Pikes Peak we found it is the most visited peak in North America due to the train and ability to drive up it. It is also the second most visited in the world. The drive to the summit from the bottom is a two hour round trip drive. Pretty crazy drive. They even have heat guns or something like that on the brakes of cars as they go down because people burn out their brakes so bad.
After getting rested for a bit I get over my arrogant attitude (wherever that came from. LOL lack of oxygen perhaps?)and realize the beauty of where we are. I decide whether you hike, crawl, drive, fly or ride the train it is one hell of a sight to see. Amazingly beautiful. You can see all of Colorado Springs and even as one guy mentioned you can see the buildings of Denver, Co. You can see the amazment of every face there. Everyone is astonished at the massivness of the mountain. It is probably one of the only places I have ever seen where there is not one single bored look on anyone’s face. Well worth the pain and suffering. You just see the knowing look on peoples faces. You feel the discomfort of people as they look at you realize you hiked up it. It’s the same look we were giving the people who rode up. It’s the same look either way “why did you do it that way?” Then questioning comfort passes and you share the beauty of it.
Then we check the time and realize crap…..we have to hike back down. OH HOLY CRACKER JACKS!!!! I’m already sore. Before we head down we take a moment to get pictures with the sign.
Heading down the mountain is quicker and easier to breath. However it’s harder on the knees and toes. You have kind of a second breath hit you knowing you on your way to the end/home but as you go further down you realize just how far it was going up. There were a lot of statements made such as “did we really climb this part?” “Were we really right here?” “Haven’t we reached the treeline yet” “Who’s idea was this anyway” On the summit climb down Tim stepped on a rock and his foot slipped off the back of hit and he fell hard in a hole right on his back. Scared the crap right out of me. Luckily we filled our water in our camelbacks at the top and he landed mostly on that. He did hit his side and we did some double checking before continuing our descent. Skeeeerrrrrrry! :/
On the way down right after we reached the bottom of the summit climb. Honey had to take a moment to run up a hill to get to the snow. Mine and Tim’s response to that little jaunt up the hill “that’s the LAST thing I want to do right now.” Chris’s response to the run up “Oh that gave me a bit of a headache…there’s no air” the smile on his face was adorable as he threw snowballs down at us and jumped up and down saying “WOOOHOOOOO I got to throw a snowball in July.”
After a painful descent and a total of a 10 hour hike (about 3-4 hours more than we thought it would take) we made our way down the mountain completely exhausted, sore and proud. We got ourselves to the car and made the drive home hopeful to get back in time to enjoy that beer we thought we’d be having at 3pm. By 8pm we were all exhausted and in bed slumbering away not having the beer to celebrate because the thought of lifting one more thing was too much. So away we slept.
I found out later that about 15,000 people attempt to climb the summit of Pikes Peak and not everyone makes it. Not too shabby for a days work. I also found out this was rated a “moderate hike” hahahahahahahahaha what is their rating system? I can only imagine what some of the hikes are out there.
To sum it all up. I loved it. It was well worth it to do. The views on the hike are something you can only see by hiking it. It is a sense of accomplishment and something I hope to do again some day.
I climbed to the top of Pikes Peak and all I got was this blister:
If you are ever in the Colorado Springs area I’d say you have to go to Pikes Peak however you get there you just have to check it out.
