~Mt. Elbert~
Many weeks ago, my friend Nicole decided to put together a 14'er hike. The entire summer, we talked about what mountain we wanted to climb and jockey'd back and forth about when to sneak it in (mostly because Nicole likes to take about 15 "vacations" over her summer vacations and it takes putting ourselves directly into her appointment book at the salon in order to pull her away from the business that she ADORES)
This was it.....Nic took the leap and made a reservation for us to stay at the Alps Motel in Leadville on Friday night, so that we could get an early start to our hike in the morning. As we drove into Leadville on Friday night, we wondered what this little town/itty bitty MOTEL would offer us for the night. What a pleasant surprise! Leadville is a great little place, with a ton of old buildings/homes/history and people, not to mention our itty bitty MOTEL with no a/c but a fan in the window, that smelled JUST like my grandma and grandpa's cabin as a kid, was the best night of sleep I have had in a long while.
We got up at 5:15, packed up our stuff and headed out towards the trailhead. However, the very friendly VERY knowledgeable old man we spoke to when we checked in the night before had missed a tiny detail or two when giving us the local scoop on how to get to the trailhead and we got a little turned around. Fortunately, we did find out that the Fish Hatchery looks like a cool place to visit (when the sun is up) and will check it out next time we are in town.
The trailhead for Mt. Elbert was easy to get to with just a few bumps and pot holes and Nic navigated it like a pro. Nothing difficult like what Chris Lawrence encountered on a previous hike, but I'll save that story for my comedy blog. We realized that the mountain was going to be busy, when we were greeted by a parking attendant and barely able to snatch one of the last 3 spots available,and it's a huge lot. Come to find out, Children's Hospital was having a charity summit climb. Cool idea. LOTS of hikers of all abilities heading up in groups of 5 in a race to the summit. WE were not racing anyone........
We began our hike knowing that this was going to be a long day, because the trail is 9 miles long with about 4,100 feet of elevation gain in the first half. The first portion of the trail is wooded, as with most of the other 14'ers we've collectively climbed and we expected this. It's also a fairly steep incline through that area, which kept us thinking that we were getting a good piece of our 4,100 gain out of the way before even leaving treeline.(HA!) I remember just wanting to get out of the trees and hopefully encounter some sun and change of scenery after a couple of miles. Each time we could see the sunlight coming through the trees around the corner of the trail we'd be like "ok HERE we go" then the forest would eat up all the sunlight again and we would stomp out another 30 min or so wondering when the much needed "change of scenery" would arrive.
About 3 miles in, it happened......the forest opened up into a great view of our mountain (we thought) And I looked to Nicole and said (famous last F@#$%&* words) "Psshhhh...we GOT this"! We stopped to fuel, hydrate and recover our lungs/heart rates a bit before the big push. Nicole had been fighting a sinus infection/illness for weeks but really wanted to knock this out. She was doing all the right things with hydration, nutrition and meds leading up to the hike and was feeling a lot better, but was feeling the burn in her lungs early on, yet she pushed forward never complaining for a second......
We took off up the steep inclines of mostly rock/dirt, the whole while watching the peak and the size of the people we could (or could not) make out WAY up there, seemingly making their final ascent to summit. Because, I mean really, we had already completed 3 miles of our 4.5 mile ascent.....how bad could it BE? We met and spoke with a ton of super friendly hikers along the way.....in hindsight it should have been a little odd to us that not one of them spoke of climbing this mountain before. It really felt like we were all doing it for the first time. We found ourselves taking 50 steps at time then stopping to recover for a few seconds, which seemed to be a common theme as we leap frogged back and forth with many of the same people all the way up to about mile 4 (ish) which seemed to take a lifetime. During the steepest portions of the first big push, I doubted myself within my own mind, probably hundreds of times.....I even found myself praying for rain and lightning so that we could quickly descend this monstrosity of a mountain before certain death. Alas....clouds, but no lightning, so we continued on.
Nicole and I kept in close contact with each other the entire time about how we were feeling and any changes in our physical ability to move forward. Many times Nicole would respond with "my lungs are burning, but keep going".....it was around that 4th mile that I checked in with her and asked "how ya doing, Nic?" and she responded "I'm feeling some dizziness". We stopped and rested for a bit and her color seemed to get a little better, so we thought if we go slow and break frequently, her lungs will be able to recover in between our chunks of what were now 20 steps at a time, and she could still make it to the summit. Which she wanted so badly!
The trail then got incredibly steep. And when we stopped to rest I looked over at Nicole her color was not great.....Knowing in my mind that her lungs where not going to carry her any closer to the top of this mountain (but damn straight her heart and mind would.....at any cost) I just asked "what do you wanna do Nic?", she simply stated "I am going to stay here and you are going to finish it". What a great friend she is..... I had a lump in my throat already, because I knew how badly she wanted to make this climb, but I headed onto the trail.
I headed up what I thought was the approach to the "final push" which took me around the side of the mountain (the one I THOUGHT was my peak) on a narrow path which made me feel thankful that Nicole was not putting herself at risk by trying it while feeling crazy dizzy, only to realize that behind that mountain was another....and THAT was my peak. At this point I was feeling poorly myself, trying to rush so that Nicole would not be waiting for 2 hours on a rock for me to return, and a bit of an emotional wreck. I kept it together as my fellow hikers (descending.....I know this because they were happy....I mean REALLY happy) would pass by, they would offer words of encouragement and I would smile and say thank you so much, and after they had passed by, tears would stream down my face. To say that I doubted myself hundreds of times during this hike would be an understatement. The kindness of absolute strangers overwhelmed me and it was a pay it forward kind of moment as I promised myself to give that same energy to others when was I fortunate enough to summit and ascend this beast of a mountain.
I made it to the "real" final ascent by working hump to hump, paying no attention to the summit and just working the ground in front of me. When I took my first steps to the long narrow summit, (compared to other summits I have done, this one was kind of a knife edge....very narrow and long with a flag of sorts at the far end) the first flat ground I had seen in what seemed like 5 hours, I smiled (cried a little) and worked my way through the couple dozen elated hikers who were taking their most awesome crazy summit pics. I so wished that Nicole was there with me. It was stunning.....and literally felt like being on top of the world. Part of its stunning visuals where the black clouds building around us, which made it feel heavy and SO quiet. Within about 5 minutes of summiting, I am listening to the hikers around me talking about the weather, and realizing that everyone is getting to the descent as quickly as possible to avoid the looming storm. My love affair with the summit was cut short by my absolute fear of being struck by lightning, and I hit the trail again, in search of my best friend.
When I reached Nicole, she was smiling and ready to high five me in support of my effort to finish it up.....I cannot even tell you what a good feeling it is to have a friend who is this fantastic. I bypassed the high five, hugged her and told her how much I wanted her with me and how much it hurt doing it alone and most of all thanks for waiting. I needed to see her smiling face and felt such relief to be reunited on that trail. She was feeling better and so excited for me.
We spent the next number of hours getting off the mountain together, feeling more and more respect for Mt. Elbert as we left......a LONG difficult day, and one I'll not easily forget. For those of you ultra fit folks out there, I envy what you seemingly achieve so easily and with grace....There was nothing graceful about this day, in fact it was kind of a train wreck but now that I have recovered a bit I am so proud of what we both did in moments that were an absolute test of who we are...........
Mt. Elbert ~ Colorado's Highest Peak ~ 14,433~ Aug. 24, 2013
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