This morning we ventured out to one of the nearest 14ers (mountains over 14,000 ft. high) in the area. Lest you think that we are insane for taking a 34 week pregnant lady hiking up to the top of a 14,264 ft. mountain, I will let you in on a little secret. Shhhhh. The road takes you up most of the way and you merely climb the last 130 ft. vertical (1/4 mile up and 1/4 mile back down) from the Summit Parking Lot to the Mt. Evans Summit.
The ascent (from Chris' phone)
And from mine
Mind you, hiking a 14er can still be a feat with the very high altitude which affects everyone differently. We are Coloradans now, so our home is in much higher elevation than most people in the country, and we didn't have problems with acclimating to the higher elevation for this hike.
Geographical marker at the very top!
(all these pictures at the top are from Chris' phone)
(And all these other top of the mountain shots with family members in the shots are from my phone)
a nice young couple who we took a picture for offered us their fun summit sign for the picture
Saw the little message of HOPE tucked between some rocks at the summit. We need that in our world these days.
We did it!
In case you actually read the information, we did, in fact, see mountain goats on the drive up. There were even some sweet little baby mountain goats too.
There is the top as viewed from the parking lot area. Right behind where Chris is standing behind his camera phone lens is an old stone structure (the ruins of the Crest House) that used to be a restaurant at one time before much of it was destroyed in a fire in 1979.
And these pictures I took are from inside that old restaurant structure. If you look really closely you might be able to see some hikers on the trail through the windows behind the girls in that shot on the left.
So there you have it! Besides Chris who hiked a 14er (Mt. Whitney) previously and Kayla who nearly hiked a 14er (Mt. Langley) with Chris last year, none of us have hiked a mountain so high. Today all of our kids (including the little one inside) summit-ed their first ever mountain over 14,000 feet, as did I. We hope there is more fun high altitude adventuring in our future.
And in case you were wondering, it was cold, despite it being nearly August. It was about 50 degrees up there and windy. For that reason, it should be obvious that the road up to Mt. Evans (the highest paved road in North America) is only open in the summertime. And as an FYI, if you hate cliffs, you probably won't want to make that drive. I'm talking to you, Mom. :)
