Mike did a ton of prep to plan the perfect Memorial Day camping weekend to kick off summer in Colorado. We hope to fit in a lot more camping trips than last summer and I can’t wait. Going without a shower or running water isn’t always easy as a female, but I love being away from technology and in touch with the amazing state we call home. Many campgrounds, just under two hours from our home near downtown Denver, allow us to be worlds away with no cell service, sleeping under a sky full of stars every night. Life is good in Colorado.
In addition to a nice three mile Saturday afternoon hike (chronicled by the pictures above….yes, my husband is wearing an Indiana Jones hat and holding a knife in his mouth), we hiked our second fourteener on Sunday. Colorado has approx. 53 fourteener peaks total, meaning the summit is above 14,000 feet. Not all are accessible to novice or intermediate hikers and climbers but we plan to climb as many of the class one and two peaks as possible.
On Sunday Mt. Bierstadt was in our sights and we set out just before 8am, which is actually a pretty late start. The trek was about eight miles round trip which doesn’t sound like much, but much past 12,000 feet and catching your breath becomes very difficult. Hiking and scrambling at that altitude is a real test of your endurance and mental strength. When we were at the top I had to battle a minor panic attack after looking over the edge…there was absolutely nothing off the one side of the peak between us and a 14,000 foot fall. Scary.
Unfortunately (and kind of my luck) we asked someone to take our picture at the top and didn’t check to see if it worked because of how cold and windy conditions were at the summit. I wanted to get the heck down. In short, the guy apparently didn’t know how to use a point-and-shoot digital camera and we have no proof of being at the top. But trust me, we made it. And, the best part? Kona did all 3,000 feet/eight miles with us too! He is turning out to be quite the mountain pup.
How will you get outdoors this summer?
This looks like the perfect getaway to me! Such a bummer about the picture…I hate when that happens! Pretty impressive Kona made it to the top with you guys. I absolutely love camping, we would go all the time in SD and hope to get Ben into it when he’s old enough.