Liz and I hiked our first 14er on Monday. We went to Mt. Bierstadt since this seems to be the one most people tackle for their first. It is 14,060 feet but it’s a relative “easy”. It’s a 3.5 mile trek from the trailhead to the summit but the first mile is downhill. So it’s basically a 2800 foot ascent over 2.5 miles, which is pretty tough for this guy.
I thought I was going to have a heart attack or stroke going up but I felt better on our way down when we encountered others who looked worse than I felt at that point in my journey. We were pretty lucky since we had great weather and started at 7am to beat the crowds. When we got to the summit there was only one other group there. We ascended to the top t around 10:30am and we were back to the car around 1:45pm. By the time we were coming down we met up with a LOT of people going up so it was nice to beat the rush. Who would have thought that so many people would want to hike up a mountain on their day off? Oh, right…
Overall, it was a great feeling of accomplishment and just one of many 14ers we want to try. I think I’m investing in some hiking poles next time. And a lung transplant.
1 user commented in " Hiking Mt. Bierstadt "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackGood for you, man. Always meant to do this while I was living in Salt Lake, but never got around to it. That and about 50 other things I meant to do. I did drink alot of beer though. Course you can do that anywhere.
Hope all is well. Will definitely look up you and Trey if I am in Denver agaiin, although I don’t think my liver can take a repeat of the last time. Didn’t we rack up well over $200 in an hour, or something silly like that?
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