Wow. I have lived in Colorado for 18 years, and I've never summited a 14-thousand foot peak until today. It absolutely blew me away (literally and figuratively).
The CU Hiking Club and I departed from Boulder early, around 5 am. We drove out past Breckenridge to the Quandary Peak trailhead, where we would hike 6.75 miles and gain 3,450 feet, bringing us to our ending destination on top of Quandary- 14,265 feet above sea level.
We started off in the trees, making good time and new friends and eventually came to tree line. This is where we saw our first false-summit. After what seemed to have taken us forever to reach the top of that disgraceful hill of falsehood, our eyes turned to yet another... false summit. This is where it became challenging.
I've done my fair share of hiking at high elevation— normally somewhere between 8,000 and 10,000 feet. I've done my fair share of long days—ranging anywhere from 8 to 17 miles. So the night before we set off, I wasn't scared or intimidated in the slightest. But damn, did that change when I saw the second slope we had to tackle, only leading to another... "false summit".
I started feeling a little queasy at this point, probably around 11,000 feet, so I drank lots of water and ate some salty-snacks. There was no way that I would be defeated by altitude sickness. I had grown up at 7,800 feet. The queasiness eventually wore off... leading me to my next problem. The gradient of the slope was so steep, that my legs were aching. My achilles and calves were straining with each step. Somehow I followed the pack of the hiking clubbers to our second summit.
The last leg of our journey looked even bigger. A huge face we had to climb, seemed endless. As the others took off and I remained in the back, I began questioning my life decisions. We were at about 13,800 feet when the elevation hit me like a wall. I couldn't breath. My legs burned. The wind almost knocked me over several times. My fingers were frozen. But as I stopped for a breather and looked below me, at the hill I had already conquered, and as I looked around at the 360-degree view of high peaks, I told myself it'd be worth it.
The end was near, I could see the mountain starting to flatten out a little. I looked ahead at my future view, my top of the mountain, and the wooden staff marking the summit. My emotions kicked in and tears came to my eyes! Look at this incredible world we live in, and this incredible feat I am about to accomplish!
As I met my new friends at the top of our mountain, I dropped my bag, whipped out my camera and immediately began shooting. I didn't need rest now, I had photos to take and mountaintops to explore. We continued to awe at what we just accomplished, pointed out the peaks surrounding us and bathed in the high-altitude sunlight. Eventually we started our descent, back down the steep slopes, back into the trees, and back to Boulder.