Climbing Pikes Peak

[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:



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!

[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.

[HoneyBadger]

He sells knees? That's awesome.

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.

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/n...d?_s=PM:NATURE