We Did It!

Danny and I decided that for our 15th anniversary we wanted to climb Pike's Peak.  Because our anniversary is in May, it was still too cold and the kids were in school blah, blah, blah... Anyway, we finally got our chance.  On Monday we dropped the kids off at my moms then checked into our bed and breakfast in Manitou Springs. (A little town right outside of Colorado Springs where the trail begins.)  We walked around the town and went into all of the cute little shops and had dinner.
Then we didn't really go went to bed early.

The next morning we woke up at four a.m. and got ready to go.  We got to the trail at five o'clock and started our climb.  The trail is 13 miles up and then of course 13 miles back down.  So we basically hiked a marathon!

The cute bed and breakfast where we stayed.

Manitou Springs

 A view of the sunrise at about 5:30 a.m.  You can see Manitou down there at the bottom.

After we had been hiking for about three hours we couldn't believe we were still so far away.  That is Danny pointing to Pike's Peak.  We still had a long way to go.  We kept saying "How the heck are we gonna get up there? Are we on the right trail?"

On the face of the mountain.  You can kind of see the trail going across the middle of the mountain.

I kept singing, "Climb Every Mountain"  from the sound of music.  It helped.

The view from the mountain.  Only about two miles left!

We made it!  We were tired but excited!  There were only a few people who hiked the mountain that day, but when we got to the top there were hundreds.  They either took the train or drove up.  They were  actually taking pictures of us and videoing us hiking up.  They couldn't believe we did it.  There were people from all over the world there to see the view from "America's Mountain"  It is the most visited mountain the North America and the second in the world next to Mt. Fuji...who knew?

My first fourteener, but not my last.  I loved it and would do it again in a heartbeat!

The words to America the Beautiful were penned after seeing the view from Pike's Peak.

(And no, I'm not pregnant...sheesh I could have at least sucked it in for the picture!)

The view from the top...although this does not even do it justice!

After we got to the top a big storm came in and lightening was striking the mountain so we had to wait for a while to get started back down.  We waited in the gift shop/cafeteria and had lunch.  I guess I got altitude sickness because I pretty much threw all of it up. (Again...not pregnant...just above 14,000 feet!)

We headed down the mountain at about 2:45p.m. and it was really foggy.

Looking down, Yikes!

It was actually a good thing it got foggy because we couldn't see too far down and get vertigo.

It was also really cold by then.  July 20th and we were in our winter gear.  Hats, gloves, coats...at least we came prepared!

We actually made it down in almost half the time it took to get up, but it hurt!  Coming down really hurts your joints.  My knee was hurting so badly by the last four miles that the only thing I could do to stop the pain was to run.  Weird huh?  I guess it's so steep and your momentum pulls you down so fast that you don't pound on your joints like when you are walking down hill.

So we ran the last couple of miles.

By then we were pretty much delirious anyway and really hyper...who would have thought after 26 miles!

Back at the beginning of the trail when we were done.  In serious pain, but it was totally worth it!

When can we go again?