Over the weekend I climbed the hardest mountain I have ever climbed. It was killer! I honestly did not think I was going to make it. I wanted to give up several times, but I didn't want to be left alone while everyone else went ahead of me, so I just kept going! hahaha To start off our day we backpacked in 3 miles from where we had to leave the car and then made camp. By that time it was about noon, the weather looked nice and only a few clouds were in the sky, but no rain or thunder, so we then decided to hike the 8 miles round trip to the top of Mt Humboldt (14,065 ft). Within the Sangre de Cristo Range their are several 14ners (Mountains over 14,000 feet). Some of the hardest are Crestone Needle and Crestone Peak. They were once thought that they could never be climbed, but of course someone figure it out. However, those two peaks are very difficult and should only be attempted by experienced climbers, so obviously we did not do those. But they sure are beautiful to look at!
Once we got to the top of Mt. Humboldt we had gained a total of 4,200 ft elevation gain in less than 4 miles! Oh, and did I mention there was snow at the top for the last mile. Not a whole lot, but enough to make you slip in a few places. Then we also were scrambling over tons of rocks and boulders, basically going straight up the mountain following carins- not a real trail, but carins! By the time we made it back to camp we had hiked a total of 11 miles and we were exhausted. Then to top it all off I forgot a small pot to boil our water for our dinner. Good thing we had some nice neighbor campers near by that let us use their jetboil; otherwise, we would have been starving. At least Colby caught a fish and my dad, brother and Colby ate it. I could barely stand to look at it. In fact, I didn't look at it at all. Only pictures after we got back from our trip! I despise fish. And just as an added cherry on top, Friday night our campers next door woke up yelling and making tons of noise to scare away a bear in their camp! Yeah, I didn't sleep well the rest of the night.
All in all, I am still very proud of myself for conquering the mountain. I wanted to give up so many times, and I kept going. It feels good to accomplish something. I am so grateful for a body that allows me to do amazing things!
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| Setting up camp |
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| Snow capped mountains! |
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| Crestone Needle and Crestone Peak |
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| The beginning of a long ascent and that sad thing is...the top you can see is a false summit... :( |
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| We finally made it!! 14,065 ft!! |
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| A long way back down. |
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| So proud I did it! It is much much steeper in person! |
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These marmots were every where!
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| Eating lunch at the top of Medano Pass. |
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| Beautiful double rainbow while driving through New Mexico to get back to Texas :) |
