Now What John?: Pike's Peak Day Two (AKA

So, we’ve survived the night. Not eaten by bears or killed by a volcano. (My son Isaac had started a betting pool on when and where we would die on this trip. The odds of being eaten by a bear were obviously higher than a volcano but he was trying to cover all the bases. He was also auctioning off pall-bearer spots for my funeral as well. Ahh, the enduring love of a son.)

We had some anxiety about day two. Everything we had read and everyone we had talked to about this part of the trip said the same things.

· You’ve got to get to the summit before 1pm because you will be above the tree line for the last 3 miles and there are rain storms practically every afternoon. The only advice for what to do if you were caught above tree-line during a storm is to spread out so you all won’t die in one group. Wow, that’s great advice! I guess that way there is someone who can identify the bodies? We heard / read this advice numerous times. So, you can imagine our concern about getting started somewhat early.
· Take how long Day 1 took and add “X” to that. There are several factors at work here. One is that you are obviously more tired having done Day 1, second is that you are climbing further up to where the oxygen is in limited supply further complicating your ability to make it to the top. Various sources said that it would take 1 hour more than day one, or twice as long as day one, or some mathematical formula involving your weight, the lunar phase and the last eclipse of the sun.
· The last ½ mile is the very worst part of the trip. It’s called the 16 Stairs, it’s a series of switchbacks at the very top. The 16 is misleading, a switchback has two parts of it, the left and the right so it’s actually 32 parts! So, you are tired, out of oxygen and now you get to the worst part. Oh joy.

We debated skipping breakfast so that we could make sure that we got to the summit before any lightning storm killed us but finally decided that we couldn’t pass up the lure of Pike’s Peak Power Pancakes for breakfast. It was a good choice as they were awesome! If you’re feeling adventurous try the recipe. Pancakes devoured, we hit the trail.

It’s about 10 minutes in that I start asking myself several questions:

· What have I done?

· Why can’t I breathe?

· Can I make it?

· Who wins Isaac’s betting pool if I die today?

Breathing was difficult, the pack felt strange, the legs were tired. Talking about it later, I think we all kinda felt this way (well, maybe not the "who wins the pool" part) but we just kept trudging on. Before long things fell into place and you started to feel that you could indeed make it up the mountain. The first three miles of the day were much like the lower part, trees and trails, but then we made it to the A-Frame. WOW! We are now ½ way up the mountain. The A-Frame is in case you get caught in a storm above tree line, you can come back down and ride out the storm. The best part of seeing the A-Frame is knowing that you are ½ way there! From here you leave the nice shade of the trees and enter the barren rock-filled land above tree line.

For the next mile or so you keep looking up toward the summit. You’re not really sure how you can get there as it seems like one gigantic pile of rocks. You just keep putting one foot in front of the other thinking “I’m one step closer.” I was watching the elevation on my watch thinking “we only have another 2000’ of elevation and we’re there…). I celebrated the really large steps up on the trail as that meant that I was that much closer to being there. My fellow hikers started calling them “John steps”! We found the “2 miles to go sign”! There was hope! In no time at all we made it to the “1 mile to go” sign and looked back at where we had been and what we still had to accomplish. It was still just a big pile of rocks up there.

Then we found it, the sign that marked both the end and the beginning. The 16 Golden Stairs. You’re excited about the fact that you only have ½ mile to go. You’re scared because you know it’s the hardest part of the trip. Earlier that morning I was thinking about this part of the trail, thinking that we would probably have to go 5-10 steps and then rest, then force each other to go another 5-10 steps but it turned out to not be that bad. Yes, it was hard, yes the air was certainly thinner, yes it was steeper, but we just kept going. At this point we can see the Cog Railway coming to the Summit and people looking out from the top. I’m sure they were thinking “Why would someone walk up when there is a perfectly good train?”. Now the adrenaline is flowing and you know you can make it! Near the top we weave through some train folks who are wandering down the trail some and then BAM! You’re at the top. In a moment of sheer lunacy Andy & I jog that last 30 yards or so to the Summit House (on both our training hikes Andy & I jogged back the last little bit – just to show how manly we were).

From there it was photos and donuts and people asking “did you really hike up?”.

The answer is: Why yes, yes we did hike up Pike’s Peak.