A Leadville experience.

6/20/2010
Dear Diary,

Today, Jean took me up to Leadville to train. She said on the first day we’d go from Halfmoon to Twin Lakes, with maybe a climb up to somewhere called Mt Elbert. After a little trouble finding the new route, we headed down the jeep roads. There were no markings or numbers on these forest roads, dear diary. Although Jean had never been on this new section, we did manage to take the right jeep road to the Colorado trail. We ran on the trail until suddenly we came to a paved road! We had missed a turn. A passing cyclist said it was 3 miles to Twin Lakes, but luckily, dear diary, it was only 1.5.

We filled up with water, and headed back to the Colorado Trail by the right route this time. It was steep! We got to the trail, and then we saw why we had missed the turn – it had logs put across it. We laughed, and kept going. The wrong way. Again. Before too long, Jean turned us around (I was getting a bit dizzy) and got us going in the right direction.

Part way along, she stopped and waited for me, then asked, “Do you want to run more, or hike?”  I had already agreed to the Mt. Elbert (whatever that was) climb, so we started hiking up. And up. And up. We were already at 10,000 ft, dear diary, so how much farther could it really be? Then Jean says, “You know, Mt. Elbert is more than 14,000 ft high.”

“No, I didn’t know that. Of course it is.”

Actually, it was more like,

“No,” gasp, gasp, “I didn’t” gasp, gasp “know that.” Wheeze. “Of course” gasp “it is.”

“And,” says Jean, “It’s the highest peak in Colorado!”

The nice deaf man resting by the side of the trail mimed to me that the peak was too slippery to get to. But we went anyway. And this afternoon, I learned to posthole. There weren't any people at the top but us. We only saw a handful hiking up or down that day. Jean said that today, only the HARDCORE people made it to the top. She says now I can say I am HARDCORE as well as agile.

We saw several Marmots. The first thought he was an Adonis, and posed quite nicely with Jean. “I am too  gorgeous, you must admire me.”

The next was pretending to be a rock. “I am a rock,” he said, “You do not see me.”

After summitting (my first fourteener – hey, it counts even if it was totally unintentional!) and signing the register, we headed down.

After reaching the Colorado trail, we realize we were both out of water with 5 miles to go.

I was thirsty, Jean was thirsty, but we ran. More than 9 hours and 28.5 miles after starting, we were standing by our car. Which I had left unlocked.  Luckliy, dear diary, nothing was taken!

We ended the night with a plate of tilapia and pasta, followed by a starlit icy soak in the pond in the backyard.  A perfect EXTREME SHEEP vacation.