Climbing Pikes Peak

[HoneyBadger]

Heading up the Barr trail tomorrow at 4:30am. Wish me luck! [Weight]

[jerrymrc]

Heading up the Barr trail tomorrow at 4:30am. Wish me luck! [Weight]
I think a few of my co-workers were doing it as well. I may be at the top supporting the tan building on your right. If you see an orange 76 Trans Am I will be there. [Coffee]

[Bowtie]

You know there is a road you can drive up, right?

J/K good luck.

[hatidua]

Start early, take plenty of water.

[Robb]

Take a camera.
I've climbed over half of CO's 54 14eers and my biggest regret is not taking my eyes off my feet and the trail more and enjoying where I was and taking more photos. Don't bust ass just to summit, enjoy the hike, stop & look around, it's magnificient above tree line.

[TAR31]

You know there is a road you can drive up, right?

J/K good luck.
Yep, and thanks to a bunch of damn tree huggers it's now paved all the way to the top.[Rant1]

[Big Wall]

Take care with the afternoon storms. Good luck!

[jerrymrc]

Yep, and thanks to a bunch of damn tree huggers it's now paved all the way to the top.[Rant1]

Yep. Oh for the days of Penn suppress. A couple of weeks ago I drove the 100% paved version and it is not the same.

Now we get to see the runoff in some places and I noticed they were building curbs to help this in some places. [Bang]

[Zundfolge]

You know there is a road you can drive up, right?


Hell there's a train you can ride up too.

Speaking of which, are you hiking up and down or are you taking the COG back down?

[cofi]

how long does it take?

[josh7328]

It's a blast! It takes between 6-8 hours to go up for most people. Bring lots of water, then refill at Barr camp. Bring lots of food too! You burn a TON of calories climbing that thing. Oh and don't do it in late October. Blizzards above timberline aren't fun... Trust me.

[HoneyBadger]

Hey guys, update: I am SORE! To start out, we got a late start because the wife's stomach wasn't feeling to good, so we didn't get to Manitou Springs until 6am. Because it was 6am on a Saturday, we had to park downtown Manitou, which was more than .75 miles from the trailhead. I didn't know that there would be any water, as I had never gone as far as the Barr camp before, so I was carrying 8 liters of water in a camelback backpack along with some other gear (small first aid kit, lightweight rain coat, lunch, etc). 30 lbs is way to much for such a long climb! We were making great progress, even jogging up sections of the trail, until about 1 mile past the Barr camp. Our feet were really hurting because we don't have good shoes, and my left knee, which has been giving me trouble for a few years, was hurting a lot. About this point, one of the laces on the wife's left shoe broke when she was trying to retie it (after the dog had chewed partway through it) and it was all bad news from there. Her shoe was sliding all over, after we did the best we could to jerry-rig it, and her feet were getting nasty blisters. We were both hot and tired, and my knee was really hurting. Because of the pain and her shoe issue, we slowed down quite a lot... definitely not 14er pace. We got to the A frame and snapped a few pictures, then went up to the tree line and decided to turn around because of our very slow pace, our aches and pains, her shoe falling apart, my knee, and the stormy looking clouds. Here's a picture she took of me at 9:45am at about 10,000ft:
http://img560.imageshack.us/img560/8761/img0266yv.jpg


We turned around at about 11:30am, exactly 10 miles up from the trailhead and at 11,840 ft according to my phone's gps, and made it back down by 4. Pretty slow because of the aches and pains.
All said and done, we hiked between 20 and 22 miles, (22 factors in to walk from the trailhead down to Manitou) and climbed about 5300ft of vertical. I'm sore, and sitting at a desk all day tomorrow at work is going to be awful!

3 years ago I climbed Mt. Harvard (14,420ft), but that was only a 7 mile trail and about 6000ft of vertical change... Pike's Peak is much harder! Next time we'll be ready! [Weight]

[theGinsue]

Bring a para cord bracket or two with you next time. You can disassemble it & either replace or augment the broken lace.

And, get that knee looked at!

Spleify sells 'em.

[tmleadr03]

You know there is a road you can drive up, right?

J/K good luck.

Gonna take the family up that road one of these days.

[TAR31]

And, get that knee looked at!

Spleify sells 'em.
He sells knees? That's awesome.[ROFL1]

[HoneyBadger]

He sells knees? That's awesome.[ROFL1]

Oh thank God! I need one of those too!

[funkymonkey1111]

Yep, and thanks to a bunch of damn tree huggers it's now paved all the way to the top.[Rant1]

how exactly was it "tree huggers" that caused the road to be paved?

to the OP--glad you had a good trip!

[cofi]

how exactly was it "tree huggers" that caused the road to be paved?

to the OP--glad you had a good trip!

Something to do with dust and erosion.....fucking gay

[Monky]

So the outcome is Honey Badger was forced to give a fuck?

Do you do much hiking? Random once in a while thing?

I'm just asking cause this sounds like the first time I went hiking.. ever.. only it doesn't sound like bleeding profusely was involved.

[TAR31]

how exactly was it "tree huggers" that caused the road to be paved?

to the OP--glad you had a good trip!

http://articles.cnn.com/1999-04-15/nature/9904_15_pikes.peak.enn_1_settlement-clean-water-act-toll-road?_s=PM:NATURE

[HoneyBadger]

Do you do much hiking? Random once in a while thing?

I'm just asking cause this sounds like the first time I went hiking.. ever.. only it doesn't sound like bleeding profusely was involved.

I do the incline about twice a month, and other mountain hikes (usually involves climbing around 2,000 - 3,000 ft of vertical over about 5 miles) about once a month. I have climbed Mt Harvard a decent list of "13ers", but this was my wife's first attempt at a 14er, and she was so enthusiastic about climbing Pike's Peak (because we look at it every day), that I just went right along. We're planning to do an easier 14er together next month, just to give her a confidence boost, and I'm going to do a little more research next time I embark on a 20+ mile hike!

[Monky]

I do the incline about twice a month, and other mountain hikes (usually involves climbing around 2,000 - 3,000 ft of vertical over about 5 miles) about once a month. I have climbed Mt Harvard a decent list of "13ers", but this was my wife's first attempt at a 14er, and she was so enthusiastic about climbing Pike's Peak (because we look at it every day), that I just went right along. We're planning to do an easier 14er together next month, just to give her a confidence boost, and I'm going to do a little more research next time I embark on a 20+ mile hike!

Make her lug some water..

Honestly, I think it took me the better part of a year to get everything I needed to take with me down.. spare this and that.. headlamps for when it takes longer than expected.. and I think by that time my boots were broken in.. [Muaha]

[mtik00]

My wife did the back side today. We've done both the front and back quite a few times. However, we've never hiked down the front side. If you ask me, it's just too damn far! We always hitch a ride back to Manitou with a tourist when we hike the front side.

I much prefer the back side. The round trip is only a bit over 10 miles, and I think it's a lot prettier.

Kudos to you! It takes a lot to turn around before the summit. Too many people don't do that. We did Mt. Princeton a couple of weeks ago. We were headed back down when the clouds rolled in. We passed quite a few people who were still heading up. We were just below the highest saddle (still pretty far from treeline) when the thunder started. Scared the crap out of me! I hope that the people we passed that were still heading up decided to turn around before then.

[O2HeN2]

My wife did the back side today.
Did you start from the Crags (http://www.localhikes.com/hikes/PikesPeakfromCrags_0000.asp)?

O2

[mtik00]

Did you start from the Crags (http://www.localhikes.com/hikes/PikesPeakfromCrags_0000.asp)?

O2

She did, yes.