My Hiking Fun

By the time you finish reading this post, you will understand that the title of this post is sarcastic.  Apparently, when choosing a hike out of a "Hike Colorado" book, I am much more ambitious then my body is ready for.  While I read something along the lines of, "This moderate 4 mile hike (one way) takes you through lovely ponderosa pines and then to breathtaking views of the North Cheyenne Canon from the top."  What that is really saying is, "Your first mile will be at a slight elevation through some trees, then you will go straight up a mountain for two miles in the sun to see some rocks and cool views, but you won't notice because you will be dying.  Then you will go back down the mountain only to turn around and go back up and down to get back to your car.  Bring some water."

When I told Joe about the hike I chose, he asked me if I was sure I wanted to walk 8 miles and I said confidently, "Yeah!  I looked at the 'easy' hikes in the book, and I think I would rather do a hike that has a little more of a challenge."  Looking back, I now see how naive I am about Colorado hikes.  I grew up in Indiana!  A moderate hike had some hills here and there, but nothing as consistent as 2 miles straight up.

During the first mile, it was quite nice.  We walked through those lovely trees along a babbling creek. We saw cute families and dogs playing in the water.  We were in the shade and oohed and ahhed at the pretty scenery.

At about .75 miles, Joe and I encountered a switch back incline and I tackled it without fear!  "This isn't too bad," I said to Joe.  "We must already be at the Mid Columbine Trail because the book said we would rise for a little at that point!"  (We started at the Lower Columbine Trail, went through the Middle Columbine Trail and then up to the Upper Columbine Trail.)  Man, if we had a video camera on us, my idiotic statement at that little climb would be in the You Tube hall of fame when the camera watched me climb the ACTUAL Mid Columbine Trail.  Before we actually hit the Mid Trail, Joe did some spontaneous rock climbing because we were feeling great!

Near the beginning of the actual Middle Columbine Trail, I took this picture below.  Little did I know that that was where we were heading!  Up!

I wish I had taken a photo at the actual bottom of the Middle Columbine Trail.  I don't think I could have though because my heart stopped when I realized what this 'fun' hike I had chosen actually entailed.  So we began to climb.  I wasn't going to give up because this hike was my choice, the day was beautiful, and Joe and I were so happy to be outside experiencing new parts of Colorado.

The trail was practically constant switchbacks as it rose and rose and rose up the side of the mountain.  I was able to average about one length of a switchback before my polar heart monitor beeped at me that I had gone above my target heart rate and I physically had troubles breathing.  Some steep inclines had me stopping probably every 50 feet.  My will was there, but my body just wasn't ready yet.  At one point I thought back to when my friend Amanda and I went to Greece and we walked up a volcano in Santorini to see the top (the volcano hole?  I don't know what that's called).  I was about 90 pounds lighter on that trip than I am now, and I remember being able to walk up the volcano easily.  As I looked at Joe and the other hikers, I saw that they weren't struggling like I was.  I have been active for 2 solid months, but at the end of the day, my extra body weight hinders me from what I want to do.  It really emphasized why I am on this journey that I am on.  I want to be able to do things without my excess body weight holding me back.

This next photo is after a particularly hard/steep consistent incline.  My 'catch my breath' breaks did help me to stop and look around and see the beauty.

When the trail finally leveled out for a little bit and went back into the shade of the trees, I celebrated that I had made it through the ridiculously hard incline!  I looked forward to enjoying some flat trails for the rest of the hike.  (Oh, I forgot to mention that the hiking book I had made it look like we would go through an incline and then enjoy some flat trails until we reached a waterfall!  It or I was wrong in my interpretation.)  In the flat part of the trail, we met some locals.  See below.

After our visit with the locals, we turned a corner and low and behold, we began to rise again!  At this point, it wasn't just my THR and lack of breath that slowed me down, but it was also my legs and feet were beginning to ache.  But we kept going.  I wanted to see a waterfall!  And we thought we could hear it.  Surely it was just around the next bend.  Right?  Wrong.  Every bend just brought more switchback inclines.  Though, one brought a decline and then another incline, which just seemed to piss me off because that meant I would have to incline again on my reward trip back to the car!

I took this next picture to show just how far we had gone up and looking at it now, I still can't believe that we continued to climb after this point.

After a few flat trails and another incline, I was starting to use some bad language.  Literally 50 feet from the top of the mountain/cliff/trail/climb we ran into a man who had passed us going up and then back down.  We asked him if we were close to the falls and he said, "Oh no, that's still another two miles away!  You are at the top of the climb, but then it goes back down and then the falls are another mile from the base."  With tears about to fall from my eyes, I said to Joe, "I hate this!!"

So we climbed the remaining 50 feet to the top and sat down to have our snack and to decide what to do next.  The snack of cheese, crackers, and grapes helped to renew some of my energy, but I said to Joe, "If we go down this mountain to see the falls, I will not be able to climb back up it to get back to the car."  At this point, we had been hiking for 2.5 hours and we had gone 3 miles (2 of which were up hill/mountain.)  We knew there was a visitor center near the falls and a road that led to it, so we actually talked about trying to hitch a ride with someone back to our car, but it was 5PM and we were worried the cars would be few and far between by the time we got down there.  (Oh, did I mention that I did my aquatics class BEFORE this hike?  Hence the hike later in the day.  Also we had driven to Colorado Springs for this hike.)  So in the end, we decided to start heading back to the car.  Before we began our decent, Joe took this picture of me at the top of the mountain.  Though I am trying to smile,  you can probably see my exhaustion and hatred of this mountain in my face.

Joe guessed that we could get back down to the car by 6:30PM.  The decent was much quicker.  I only had to stop a few times when I needed a sip of water or when my shins and toes throbbed from the new movement.  When we reached that part when I had to incline again, I took the first steepest part at full speed.  Joe told me he was impressed and I told him that I was just ready to be done with this hike.  After we passed the point where we saw the deer, I could sense the end, though we were still a good mile and a half away from the car.  I knew the steep, consistent, switchback decline was coming.  In my mind, that half mile of straight down meant victory was near.

Most of the trail was dirt and loose rocks.  We cursed the loose rocks going up the incline, but in going down, Joe pointed out the helpfulness of the really loose parts.  If we stepped on a harder surface with few rocks, our feet would slip, but if we dug our heels into the loose rocks, we had more control.  A number of times, I used Joe for balance down the steep parts.  At one particularly steep decline, I stopped in my tracks, cursed, and said, "I can't do this!  I hate this!"  Joe simply took my arm and led me to safety.  At another time, my foot slipped on the hard surface and rocks and I yelled out, "Effing A!"  The decline, though faster, wasn't exactly easier.  I was definitely much more tense than I was going up.

Finally, we reached the bottom of the mountain!  My prayers to God, Jesus, Buddha, Allah, and the Spirit of the Cheyenne Canon had been answered.  I made it back to level ground in one piece.  We had one more mile to finish before we made it to our car, but my breathing evened out and the promise of more water (because we had run out at this point) in the car kept me going.  And finally, at 6:15PM we made it back to the car.

As part of my master plan of the day, I had researched where to eat dinner, so we drove into downtown Colorado Springs for dinner at Poor Richard's.  I chose them because they have a reputation for using all organic foods.  Joe and I shared a whole wheat crust pizza with peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes, and basil.  With my side salad with homemade dressing, it was glorious.  And since this was my night to eat out for the week, I also got a large peanut butter cookie for dessert.

Now that it is the next day after the hike, how do I feel about the whole trip?  Well, my polar heart monitor is telling me that we were on the trail for 3 hours and 48 minutes and I was in target heart rate for 3 hours and 40 minutes.  My average THR was 156 (my range is 129-176) and my max THR was 181 and I burned 2136 calories.  My body isn't nearly as sore today as I thought it might be.  The hike was beautiful and very difficult for me.  I am glad I did it and proud of myself for hiking 6 miles and making it to the top.  While I don't plan to repeat this hike anytime soon, I look forward to PERHAPS trying it again when my body is more prepared.

I am thankful for the patience of Joe and his constant encouragement and positive attitude.  I may not have continued the hike were I with anyone else.  He quietly motivates me because I want to keep going for him.  He could have gone down to the falls and back easily, but he understood my struggles and without question turned around when I needed too.

We are already talking about what adventure to go on next Monday...so stay tuned.