Colorado, Part 4

When we planned this trip to CO, we knew that one thing we wanted to do was attempt to hike Pike's Peak, a "fourteener" right outside of the springs. At first as we discussed the idea with the Kemmerlins, we all thought it would be really fun to try to do it all together...but as we thought more about it, we realized that it was not recommended to take a baby as young as little Georgia up to that high of an elevation. And so, Amanda graciously volunteered to stay home with the baby as well as Lucas, Vera, and Owen, while Ryan, Spencer, and I took the three oldest girls up the mountain the next day.

To beat the typical early afternoon thunderstorms (which apparently you do not want to get stuck in while on a mountain peak above the tree line), we left at 5:00 AM on Tuesday and hit the trails.

The girls did awesome on the hike, especially after it warmed up a bit.

They loved finding big rocks and climbing in or around or on top of them.

After a couple of hours, however, we realized that we had taken a wrong turn. We had hiked the beautiful Crags Trail by accident. By the time we got back to the point where we should have gotten on the Pike's Peak trail, we realized that we probably were not all going to make it to the top.

Since Valerie was not feeling well, Ryan offered to take the girls and let Spencer and myself continue the hike up the mountain. They planned to meet us at the top in the car several hours later.

So off we went!

It was definitely unlike any hiking we have ever done. Even from the time we split off Crags to hike up to the peak, we felt it in our lungs and our legs. We had never hiked at this elevation before.

The views were breathtaking...

The groundhogs were confident...

And the trails were super steep.

We took it slow and chugged as much water as we could.

We made it to about 1/2 mile from the top, when suddenly Spencer was hit hard with altitude sickness. When I glanced at him and noticed that his lips were blue, I knew it was time to call it. Honestly, the views were awesome enough on the way up, it wasn't even disappointing not to make it to the peak. Especially since Spencer couldn't take more than a few steps without almost falling over.

So we stopped on the side of the road (luckily by this time, we were so close to the top that the trail was now running right alongside the road) and tried to call Ryan. However, we couldn't get through to him, so I texted Amanda who, knowing that Ryan's phone was dead, called the rangers and explained what was going on. The next thing we knew, a trash truck pulled over to the side of the road and the driver said, "Are you Spencer and Jana???"

Why yes, Mr. Trash Man. Yes we are.

And so we climbed into the truck, where the radio chatter was littered with words like "missing hikers", "Spencer," "Jana", "Ryan", and "gray Volvo." It was all very dramatic and invigorating to be so famous in the ranger network. The trash man drove us to meet a ranger, who then took us to the lodge and in a very anti-climactic conclusion dropped us off in the parking lot. Spencer proceeded to lay flat out in the parking lot for at least an hour until he could sit up without puking, while we waited for the rangers to locate "Ryan in the gray Volvo" at the top of the mountain and tell him where we were.

Eventually they found him, and he and the girls rescued us at last. Spencer slowly recovered and never really got sick again while we were there.

And the best part of the story was getting to tell Owen that we took a ride in a real live trash truck, which I am sure moved us up a couple of notches in his eyes.