Pike's Peak - Barr Camp

Barr Camp is an amazing place and I give them credit for saving my life. If they had not built this lovely camp giving me a place to rest, re-hydrate, eat and sleep I might not have made it!

As you enter the camp you cross over a small bridge that leads to the main cabin. Teresa welcomed us as we stumbled up the trail. We found our lean-to and took off  the packs (ahh…). Rest is good. We got some Gatorade and a Pike Peak Power Brownie (made at Barr Camp), both were awesome. 

We used the water filter (Thanks Phil Laster!) and refilled all our water bottles and just chilled for a while. Since we hadn’t really done much walking so far, we decided to hike over to a scenic overlook. I can assure you that walking without packs is much more enjoyable than with packs. Just my opinion. The Overlook was indeed scenic and worth the walk. Back at Camp we played Yatzee on the iPad. I even got email an email signal in there a few times. 

The Camp cooks dinner, they served an awesome spaghetti with “switchback” garlic bread and “Tex-Mex” macaroni and cheese. After dinner we just chilled, read, played on the iPad and talked. It was getting dark when a guy came into the camp. He had come up from the bottom of the trail – getting ready for the marathon in two weeks. He was wearing shorts and running shoes and had one small water bottle. He rested for about 10 minutes and then hit the trail to head back down. Wow, what a man! Earlier in the evening we had seen “Shark-fin man”. He was dressed in shorts, no shirt, random bits of hiking “bling” and a helmet that had a shark fin on the top. He didn’t stay at the camp, the camp people said that he would stay on the trail somewhere. Sure enough we ran into him near the summit as he was coming back down. We made it until about 8:30pm and then hit the sleeping bag. It was cold, but not freezing. Overall we slept pretty good and Joann only got lost once coming back from the latrine!

Next…

Day Two (AKA – Can we quit now?)