Kevin's Blog

Lisa and I climbed Mt Elbert on Saturday. It was my favorite 14′er so far. We started about 5:45 AM. It was a little cold and foggy. We were hoping the fog would break and we wouldn’t have a repeat of Quandary Peak. We climbed until treeline. At treeline, the layer of fog ended. It ended up being from about 10000′ up to 11600′. When we broke through, it was just amazingly beautiful. It really made me take a pause, and just be in awe at the amazing God we serve. For him to have created this landscape so beautiful made me just ponder how amazing it will be to be able to be in His presence, which will be infinitely more beautiful than anything in creation. Here is a picture of the fog, with Mt Massive in the background:

We continued to climb. I was just so energized from this beautiful vista that I could almost keep up with Lisa in this section. A little ways up the trail, we ran into some ptarmigans. They were cooing, and not shy. They walked right across the trail in front of us, and were pretty playful. Here is a picture:

After watching and filming the ptarmigan, we pushed on towards the summit. The sky now was just a beautiful blue, and the lower fog started burning off. The trail here got steeper, and it was a fairly challenging hike. We crested the false summit above the steep section, and saw we probably had a 1/4 mile to go and roughly 500′ more elevation. This was a little discouraging, but I was prepared to know that there was a false summit at least. We made it to the summit, and were joined by the usual 500 close climbing friends that are required on a 14′er. Here is a summit picture:

We signed the register, took a few more summit pictures, had a quick snack, and then decided to head down. My legs were pretty rubbery from the ascent and I wasn’t looking forward to the 4.5 miles back to the car. We we got about 1/2 way down the steep section below the false summit, we heard rumblings of thunder in the distance. We decided we better make it down out of the really exposed ridges as fast as we could. It was a good thing. Right when Lisa made treeline, and I was a couple of hundred yards up the trail, there was a lightning bolt that streaked across the sky right over the trees, and immediate loud thunder. This got me to almost run to catch up below the trees (they felt safer and less exposed – even though we probably weren’t any safer there). With the weather threatening, and obvious thunder and lightning in the area, I was still amazed to see many people heading up towards the summit still. With the push to get out of the lightning, and already rubber legs, I was dragging pretty badly. We stopped for a pretty good break, and then started for the car again. I think treeline was about 2 miles. We got there very fast climbing, but it seemed forever to get get back down to the car from there. Each step steeply downhill was not fun – my shock absorbers had long sense stopped absorbing the downhill drops. 9 miles hiking with that vertical gain (or more accurately probably amount of descent) I think is about my physical limit right now. About the last half mile, it started raining on us, and the thunder and lightning started up again. This was actually really refreshing to me, and gave me a little bit of a 3rd or 4th wind to push back to the car faster. We didn’t get too wet, but it was raining fairly hard. Overall, it was a great day and my favorite 14′er hike so far. We drove back through Leadville, stopped in Dillon to get Lisa a veggie burger, and made it home to one very happy to see us dog. I’ll post one last picture, a panoramic from when we first made it above treeline. It’s not as beautiful as it was in person – but still gives you a little bit of an idea of the amazing view God had in store for our climb.

Other than Mt Elbert, no real news to report. We’re still waiting on Randy and David to work through donor kidney testing. Hospital time takes a while, but I trust God’s timing and plan for my health and know all of the details are being handled and the best outcome for me being worked out.

Kevin

Lisa and I decided to climb Quandary Peak this Saturday. It was our 3rd 14′er. We got up about 3 AM Saturday morning, and left for the trailhead. We started climbing at about 5:30 AM in the dark.

We were a little concerned about the weather. The forecast was for thunderstorms at about noon, and it had rained the night before. We were the 5th car in the parking lot, so I thought this time maybe we weren’t going to climb with about 500 of our closest friends (we did – we just got an earlier start this time). The first 2 miles, or my guess about 2000 vertical feet out of 3500 total was pretty easy. You were climbing, but it was still a pretty typical feeling hike. As we were still in the forest, it started getting light. We could see that the mountain was embedded in a cloud. There were also many fog clouds blowing through the valley towards Breckenridge. Here is a picture about half way up this section.

Now came the hard part. The top part of the trail to the summit got very steep, and was also very rocky like most of the trail above timberline. It follows a spine up to the summit. We started, and Lisa quickly left me in the dust. I was feeling pretty good to begin with, but that changed pretty quickly. I started feeling just a little bit sick to my stomach, and a little bit dizzy. Probably mild altitude sickness. But, this just killed my pace about 1/2 way up. I had to stop frequently and sit down and get my equilibrium back. This made me probably the slowest person to summit that day, but I persevered. Lisa eventually got worried and started back down, and we went up the last couple hundred yards together. It was cold and foggy on the summit. We couldn’t see anything. We signed the register, took a few obligatory pictures, and quickly started our descent.

I felt much better on the descent. We started running into many of our “friends” on the descent. There were probably 200-300 people coming up. We took great sympathy on them, got out of the way (since uphill is more difficult, and we remembered the pain at least I had a few minutes earlier in that direction). When we got back down to the flat section right before the steep summit section, the fog broke (although the summit stayed in a cloud pretty much the whole time we were there). This is where the final picture I will post was taken.

You can see the trail get steeper and the final steep climb to reach the summit in the picture. We kept descending, and made it back to the car about noon. After 5 cars at the start, there were probably 200 lining the dirt road when we got down. It was unbelievable. We went over Hoosier Pass, and went home through Alma and Fairplay. It was a good climb, and a good experience.

Today, Sunday school and church went well. Lisa and I went and played disc golf at the badlands this afternoon. It was a great weekend.

Dialysis went smoothly again this week.

God blessed us with a great week. I am grateful – and just rest in His love, mercy, and grace, regardless of my circumstances. What a great God we serve.

Kevin

Before Mt Bierstadt – big news. On Thursday, I was medically cleared for a transplant. So, with God willing, hopefully a transplant will move forward quickly.Lisa and I climbed Mt Bierstadt today. We left home about 5:30 to get to Guanella Pass. We were the last ones to get a spot in the parking lot at the trailhead and set off for a summit attempt. It was a little cold and cloudy when we started. The first 3/4 of a mile or so is pretty easy and not very steep. Here is Lisa at a pond fairly close to the trailhead:

After this easy warmup section, the climb began. This was the consistently steepest trail I have ever hiked. I’ll split the climb up into three sections. The first was a climb through meadowy tundra that didn’t have a lot of rocks. This wasn’t too bad, but it was straight up the side of the mountain. Lisa did great and as usual could leave me in the dust hiking if she wants. I felt pretty good here and we quickly climbed and passed a lot of people. The trail was crowded – it seems when we climb a 14′er we like to do it with about 500 of our closest friends . Here is a picture of me in this tundra environment:

Now came the part that I just did not enjoy at all – the rocky tundra. This was still straight up, and a bunch of rocks got added into the picture on the trail. Probably if this would have come first, my opinion would be opposite. I think I was just getting worn out at this time. Lisa pushed on at record pace up the mountain. I really started to struggle here. It just looked like we had a long ways to go still, and it was just brutal. I didn’t think I was going to be able to make it. But, I trudged on – taking 10 paces and then stopping for a quick rest. Slowly but surely, I persevered through this section and we made it up to a saddle. The saddle was right before a boulder field that led you to the summit of Mt Bierstadt. Here is a picture in this section:

I was dreading the top section. I thought of the boulder field at Long’s Peak immediately and thought it was going to be painful. Boy was I wrong. This boulder climb was a ton of fun. It just reenergized me and I caught a second wind. It was definitely my favorite part of the climb. Lisa ditched me in this section. I took a hard way around a couple of boulders, and another group took the easy way, and she got swept to the top in the group. I gave her a hard time. One of the people in the group had a ZZ Top beard, so I kidded her that she was infatuated with it is why she didn’t wait for me. Here is a picture of us on the summit with Mt Evans in the background:

We signed the register, and ate some snacks and rested on the summit. Then came the descent. The descent was good, but both of us had pretty rubbery legs. We made a lot better time down than up, and got back to the car just a little bit after noon. God blessed us with a great day.

I would give some advice to anyone considering this hike. The guide books rate it as a novice hike / 14′er. This is true technically – it wasn’t difficult technically. But, someone might really under estimate how steep this climb is. Physically, I would place it intermediate, and just warn you to be prepared for a steep physically demanding climb. I think most people can do it – but you’ll do it better if you are mentally prepared for a very steep trail and not thinking it will just be a walk in the park.

Kevin