When I Roll into the Wild Wild West: 14,110'

This is the elevation of Pikes Peak, arguably one of the most popular 14ers in the Rocky Mountains. People have been scaling this mountain since 1890, and because it takes hundreds of years for the tundra to grow, there are still marks from when the first wagons found their way to the top! Also, on July 22nd, 1893 Katherine Lee Bates wrote the lyrics to "America the Beautiful" after admiring the view from Pikes Peak, which means, 2 days from now it will have been 120 years!

Yesterday, we four ladies decided to drive up to the top, and Jen and I had the hopes of being dropped off part of the way up to hike the rest. As it turns out, yesterday also had some pretty serious cloud cover, and as we drove toward the Rockies I saw the tops of all the mountains in sight exceeepptt one, which just so happened to be the one and only Pikes, and you can see what we saw...

So the pictures we took of the day might not have the best colors, or even a cool view from the top, but we have some pretty rad cloud pictures! I know you're excited.

Jen and I actually didn't get a chance to hike to the top, because we couldn't actually see where the trail met up with the road. Mary Ellen had remembered when she hiked it two different points where they cross, but they were both completely clouded over. I had told myself that as long as we got a good hike in that I would order myself a bag of homemade doughnuts at the top, wah wah. Oh but don't you worry, I still had a doughnut and half a hot chocolate, which was SO necessary because the temperature up there was 38 degrees and I was wearing shorts. We actually saw a hiker who was in the bathroom drying off her socks because they hit rain and a hail storm on the way up and her lips were blue :-/. We offered her a ride back down to her campsite but she thanked us and refused the ride after stealing her boyfriends jacket and standing under heat vents.

Even though the views at the top didn't inspire me to write a song of beauty, I was still super pumped to be up at 14,110' and able to breathe and give a genuine smile because I skipped this tiny detail in the last post, but on day two of the trip I actually had a bad bout of altitude sickness. That day we had only went up to 11795', but my head was pounding, my body was full of aches and goosebumps and my stomach was trying it's hand at acrobatics. I still managed to snap a photo or two, but on the other side of the lens it was not pretty ladies and gents. So yesterday I was waiting to see how my body would respond to the extra couple thousand feet, and the result was favorable! It also made me less nervous and more excited for my and Jen's plan to hike Longs Peak in less than 24 hours...oh dear.

After our descent from the mountain we went to visit the Garden of the Gods which is basically a super cool garden of sorts that has a bunch of red rock formations, and Jen and I waited in line with the other 6 year-olds to take a picture as if we are holding up the balancing rock. No shame here.

Today is our downtown Denver day and then Jen and I split from my mom and Mary Ellen to visit Jen's friend Molly in Boulder. We will spend the night with her and then the three of us will be waking up before dawn even thinks to crack to make our way to the trailhead of Longs Peak, which is a 14er for the adventurous to say the least. Making it to the summit is heavily dependent on weather, how much snow is still on the trail, and your acclimation to the altitude, so we're going to try! Wish us luck!

Ominous?

Mountain Sheep having an afternoon snack

When we approached this view Jen turned to me and with a deep voice proclaimed "Look Simba, everything the light touches is our kingdom"...but what about that dark spot?