The 14er - v. 21

Not having spent much time west of the Mississippi, when Bob said he wanted to do a "14er", I was thinking along the lines of the volksmarch in Germany- do 14 hikes, attach the "I did it" badges to your walking stick. He wanted to get in better shape, so sure, I'm game.  Then when Sonya asked if we wanted to do one, I thought- hey- there must be a real thing that people actually call a "14er", and I already said yes.  It's actually a pretty big deal- as we would find out.  A"14er" is a mountain whose peak is over 14,000 feet above sea level.  To do one is to hike to the summit.

Gray's Peak straight ahead

Now, none of them is labelled "easy", but Sonya chose a "moderate" one for us.  Gray's and Torrey's is a double 14er.  Both peaks are over 14K, and there is a saddle between them that many people traverse to do 2 peaks in one day.  We started out hiking to Gray's, and ended up on Torrey's after we hiked to the saddle and picked one.


We are "flatlanders", so there were many challenges we didn't know about.  Sonya in her calm way, warned us about some of them, and we listened and heeded most of her advice...as well as we could.

where's the path?

The path is not a path that I would call a path... lots of boulders and loose rocks

The mountain claimed pieces of all of us...
We all ran out of water. 
 Luckily, the afternoon storms held off because we took longer than anticipated to go up, AND down.  
Going down hill on that non-path can be a knee and hip killer.
Altitude can really screw with your head, stomach, attitude, and lungs.
Becca recovered faster, and thank goodness Sonya could keep up with her, since Bob and I were pretty worthless!  We did notice that Bec was the youngest person we saw out on the mountain that day.

Becca and Sonya, of course were first. 

 Bob and I took at least 20-30 more minutes to summit.

Despite all of that....WE DID IT!  Thanks Sonya!!

And the payoff... is beautiful.   Now we know!