Camping and Summit

This weekend Jay and I headed up to the mountains for yet another weekend of camping! The fab MM joined us again, and newbies (not to camping but to our camp group) Brandy and Drew!  It was a gorgeous weekend and a beautiful campsite.

We headed up to the Guanella Pass area again.  We had hiked up near Mt. Bierstadt last time (a 14er) but didn't make it to the top. This time Jay thought it would be cool to try to make it to the top. 14,000 feet is incredibly high.  Did we make it? Yes. Yes we did.

I have heard from so many people how awesome getting to the top of a 14er is.  We got up there. And honestly? I wasn't exhilarated. Excited. Or really remotely happy. Getting up there sucked. It was a constant push the whole way.  I don't mind physically pushing myself. I like challenges.  This one though, sucked. Totally.  Once we got up there we didn't even get to stop to enjoy it because we had to hustle off the peak to avoid the swiftly incoming storm.  We got snowed on, snowed on at the top. Ugh. As we headed down the side of the mountain the rain started. This made every step slippery. Which I learned first hand when I got to slip and slide in the mud down the side of the mountain. Ugh.  Getting up to 14,060 feet is sucky. Going down is just as bad! Don't let the "it's all down hill from here" visual fool you. It's hard. Add in rain, thunder and wind. Ugh. Lets just say Jay and I won't be doing that again anytime soon. I did not enjoy that hike at all!
There were some pretty views:

this is the last part heading to the summit. All boulders

looking over at Mt. Evans (engagement spot!)

looking down from the top

check out the wall of rain coming towards us

The happiest we were on the hike was when we were done. I have never dropped the F bomb as many times on a hike as I did that day. Luckily we got to head back to our pretty campsite and friends and yummy food. 

I took a minute this morning to take a picture of the view from inside our tent. 

This is what makes camping so soothing to my soul.