no change… which I guess means I need to change, right!?!?!?
The one thing I do have to say is that I am definitely getting smaller even if I am not losing weight, maybe I need to finally do some measurements. I hate measuring but I need to change-up something to stay motivated! Stay tuned….
That said, todays hike was all over the place, I am trying to figure out how to get it all down but it was good, then bad then good….and finally good.
I will get the details out as soon as I can!
The view of our destination from the beginning
When we kind of stubbornly decided we were going to do Ben Tyler Trail (hike details here) this weekend, I knew deep down there was no way in hell we would make it to the top……. AGAIN. It is really close to Kenosha Pass and one of the areas that probably got 4-5 feet of snow over the last month and then this week we had rain all week which meant snow storms up high, but still we got up insanely early and headed out to this trail.
A little closer the curve of the mountain to the middle right is where we are trying to get to.
At the beginning of the hike we were really optimistic, the trail conditions were straight up awesome and the weather was perfect. I mean check out that sky, have you ever seen a more perfect color blue!
No gators yet
About a mile or so in, the snow really was taking over and we were trying to not comment about how deep it was starting to get. There was only one other set of foot prints in front of us and honestly we were really hoping it was someone who had made it to the top. We saw him jogging down not long before we crossed the stream for the first time and we were so excited he was actually there today (and not the day before) that we forgot to ask how far up he made it.
Crossing the creek
It wasn’t too far after this that we saw where the runner turned around, headed back and then we realized that it was time for gators. I picked up some new ones at a great price and I am so glad they arrived before this hike because I needed them today.
Gator time
Snow is getting higher
At least the views made the snow not such a big deal
We honestly didn’t take that many pictures and when we did, these are all with my iPhone or our Olympus tough camera not our canon, but the day was so beautiful I think it would have been hard to take a bad picture.
iPhone – Aaron’s favorite from the hike
After we saw where the runner turned around, it was just us blazing the trail through the snow. Which we love but man was it a workout, first a foot, then 2 and 3 when finally we got to the trail marker around 10,000 feet up.
We were huffing and puffing all through here still feeling good so we continued forward although we knew that it was unlikely we could get all that much further. It was actually getting warmer, the snow was getting deeper and more unstable yet we still had hope that we might make it up a little higher or that the snow would be a little less but finally we had to admit….the snow was too much.
Before we took these pictures, Aaron slid down almost to his waist, for like a second we wanted to try to go further and try too hard to make it to the top. But the clouds were really moving in and the reality that the snow was not going down at all hit us. We turned around and started heading back, as I have begun to learn going down is not as easy as I once thought it was, the temperature had started raising and the snow was melting pretty quickly. Only from the bottom up or so it seemed, the stress to our knees was intense.
the way back is not so great
The hardest part of heading down before we wanted too, was that the clouds almost disappeared and the sky turned this intense amazing blue that made us wish we hadn’t turned around ( even though it was the right decision) because the views on a day like yesterday would have been unbelievable. I cannot wait to make it to the top one day and we will!
Seriously blue with my iPhone no less
I feel like I had never seen this color blue in nature until I moved here and now I cannot get enough.
In the end we managed to get to a little over 8 miles of hiking with a total elevation gain of 1700ft but it took us 5 hours round trip. One stupid feeling of awesomeness hit us on the way back, there was another pair of foot prints in the snow that suddenly appeared but they turned around at least half a mile or more before we did. We got to the parking lot as they were finishing up their de-clothing post hike ritual, 2 guys younger and in better shape than us the look on their faces when they realized we went further than them was priceless. We could almost read their lips “like seriously they beat us”, it felt crazy great!
We just loved the views too much and our favorite pictures got out of control so forgive me.
It has been a weird 2 weeks here. I didn’t post at all last weekend because we left work early on Friday and drove up to Breckenridge to enjoy a weekend away and man did we enjoy it. We hit the hot tub like crazy and drank way too much, while making sure we moved our butts enough to make all the excess not so bad. When I looked at my fitbit at the end of Saturday we had walked almost 14.5 miles with a crazy amount of stairs climbed since we kept walking to and from our condo which was quite a climb up each time. I think I figured it out to be 16 flights of stairs straight up each time we went back, the last time we were laughing too hard (and were maybe a little too drunk) to go very fast but we still climbed up.
The other reason I didn’t post my weigh in last week was because of my monthly visitor, I got it on Thursday and as is par for the course I gained 3 LBS in just 12 hours. All water of course but I just didn’t want to step on the scale again until it was done. It is a chicken’s way out but I don’t care. I struggle every day with what I put in my mouth and how much, just like a recovering alcoholic I have to take it one day at a time. I knew if I weighed in on Friday it would knock me right off the wagon, to be honest I was kinda hanging half way off anyway. So even though I knew where the weight gain was coming from, I decided to take a break from it last Friday and not deal.
We had a great weekend, I just love Breckenridge so much! I got right back on track Sunday and got in a ton of exercise this week. I wish the weight loss was more but I am just thrilled that I lost at all, so yay me!
The hike we are doing tomorrow is one that has thwarted us in the past and may do so again tomorrow. It is a high one at over 11,000 feet and really long and we have had weather all week with rain storms for us with snow/slush above 8000 feet so it doesn’t matter where we go as all of our options will be tricky. It is likely we will not make it to the top but there is a small chance we might and so we are going to try it again. Plus our past couple of hikes have been just below 10,000 and I think the altitude won’t be as much of problem as it was last time.
Mountain Range from the path
When I booked our weekend in Breckenridge a couple of months ago I thought that we would be able to do some higher hikes by this point in time. Of course that was before the 5 weeks of blizzards and the 4-5 feet of snow Breckenridge got during April. The last storm finished dropping a foot of snow 2 days before we got there so when I asked the concierge what they thought about us trying to hike the Mohawk Lakes, he tried not to laugh at me as he told me yeah that is not happening. Our options were pretty slim given we could see the ledges of snow hanging over every mountain in sight, it would be a road or path anyway we did it.
We changed our priorities and did the Riverside Path (Hike Details here) again. We did almost 10 miles in just 3.5 hours and the day was just beautiful.
Views from the river
It is hard to actually call this a hike because most of it is along a paved path, which turned out not to be so nice on my feet and legs. In the end it is pretty easy and you can make go as long as you want it too but since our priorities changed to hot tubbing 10-ish felt like enough. The weekend was great even if the hiking was not what we wanted, the views cannot be beat!
Here are our favorite pictures from the day:
Great views from the river
Hiking to Healthy Kathy & Aaron
There is that moment every week when I commit to a trail and I always hope that the weather will let us do it. This week the trail I committed to was too high up after yet another 2 day snow storm on Monday and Tuesday. All week I debated how smart it would be to try it anyway and on Thursday I realized it wouldn’t kill us to wait a few more weeks to attempt it. We needed a good replacement that would be challenging and offer the opportunity to increase mileage easily. I remember thinking that Belcher Hill at White Ranch Park (hike details here) was one I wanted to revisit when there was no snow. It was a gamble that there would be no snow here yesterday and while we did in fact encounter snow, it was really not that bad.
It was like doing this hike for the very first time, the snow on the trail in February made for different challenges then yesterday. The make up of the trail was totally different, there were a lot more rocks to navigate through and where we tried to climb above snow before we were walking through a trench this time. What didn’t change was the amazing views we saw as we climbed up. We actually saw Pike’s peak yesterday while hiking up, unfortunately we couldn’t actually capture it on a camera even though we tried….also there were features of the trail maintenance we didn’t see before like the ramps going up and down about a mile in as we cross over a small stream.
One thing I super love about White Ranch Park is the rocks and the sand/dirt we walk through. I don’t know that I have admitted to my love of all things sparkly, but I have an old Vegas lady inside me battling to get out and cover everything I have in bling. The rocks and the dirt/sand here SPARKLE, like beautiful-glow-in-the-sunshine-I-can’t-stop-staring-at-it sparkle. I can never catch it quite right but I tried with this rock…every 5 minutes I was like oooohhhhh I want to take it home with me:
In the end, we managed to do the full Length of the Belcher Hill trail, got on the Rawhide trail to the West parking and headed to the bathroom there. It gave us an extra mile in hiking and +300 ft in our overall total elevation gain. We had hoped to go further but in the end my feet just could not take much more. Overall it took us 4.5 hours to hike almost 11 miles with a total of 2300 ft in elevation gain. We felt like we were really moving in the beginning and today going down was the hardest part. Also I was reminded that we have to be more diligent with sun screen. In the winter I was fine just putting some on my face but today we were in regular summer levels of sunshine and so back to what we used last summer. Funny enough, my hands are sunburned because I had a long sleeve shirt on and my face is pink but the rest of me is unchanged.
We didn’t take many pictures today and of those we took, for some reason there were very few good ones.
Denver in the distance about half way down Belcher hill
No loss this week so I am trying to focus on the fact that I didn’t gain anything either.
The weather this week started out very discouraging for a hiker, with more snow on Monday and Tuesday but it did warm up so nicely that by Friday I was practically bouncing on my toes waiting for this weeks hike. I would like to say that I wasn’t focused on my weight or lack of progress only on our next hike but let’s face it, I am like junkie looking for my next fix…. I need a frito lay anonymous group most days to keep me away from snacky salty foods that constantly call out to me. What I did do was try my best not to give in and think about the future hikes I want to do.
As the weather turned almost perfect, I was finally able to start really plotting out the next 2 months of hikes. It has to be really aggressive if we are going to get our first fourteener done the first week of July. I think we have been really good about challenging ourselves with distance when we can’t get altitude so I am hoping it pays off with our shortened window. I know you are all probably wondering why the rush, well I booked a week in the mountains that week and while we are closer to other 14ers, the one I want to do first is right by where we are staying and I really want to do it then. We won’t be stupid, just like in the past if we have to stop, turn around and try again another time, we will.
What this week also gave me was a sense of excitement for what we are going to see this summer. With all this last-minute snow, our scary wild-fire problem has actually lessened somewhat and our water levels are almost normal but mostly the mountains just look gorgeous. I know it means really amazing views when we reach different summits and the wild flowers are going to be insanely abundant. Last summer was pretty spectacular and awakened in me something I didn’t really believe was there, that desire to get higher( altitude-wise), go further and see more of all that nature built in, awe struck wonder. Now I get it, all of those extreme athletes and some of them my friends who do triathlons, run marathons, bike 100+ mile races. Every time we hike, the spectacular beauty we see drives home that I will not be easily satisfied until I see all that these mountains have to offer.
Well that and my legs are looking pretty killer…..
Finally, we had a breakthrough this week with Aaron’s type 1 diabetes and the challenges we have been having on our hikes. It relates to the time we spend hiking versus his insulin pump being shut off. We hope to test it out in the next couple of weeks but the advice for high altitude hiking for type 1 diabetics is sorely lacking, until we have it confirmed time and again I am a little afraid to put it out there. Needless to say, Aaron had a pretty big success today in controlling his blood sugar on our hike so as soon as we can duplicate today’s results I will tell you all about our findings. I think this will help us get through our aggressive agenda for the next 2 months!
Here is Nugget begging us not to leave:
This week has been tough on so many levels for so many reasons and I know I am not the only one struggling to find balance and meaning. I can tell you that the only thing on our minds yesterday was getting out hiking and getting as high as we could (altitude wise of course), but with all the snow we got this week any hike was going to be challenging so we decided that it was going to be Bergen Peak …..again Details of the Hike here
Honestly, I was not optimistic about our hike yesterday but we figured let’s get all our stuff together and go as far as can. A pie in the sky hike would be to do the exact same hike we did here 2 weeks ago ( Details here), 13.5 ish miles in 6 hours with around 2400ft ish total elevation gain. The storm that hit us this past week dropped around 2 feet of snow on Bergen Peak AND we had a chance of rain later sometime this afternoon. All I wanted was a good hike that would help us to keep moving towards a 14er this summer. We started out slightly bundled up, gators on for high snow with actual hiking boots (not usual and decidedly heavier) and prepared for every thing the mountains have to offer. What we got was surprising, the snow was deep and every where but at first it was easier to move through and at just a little over half of a mile We saw our first herd of elk
After 7 years of living here we finally saw our first Elk!!! It was so super cool and we were crazy excited to see them….I even pulled out my big camera which I feel like I only carry for weight building lately. None of the pictures turned out as good as I wanted them to be but I can tell you it was awesome!!!!
We started out really slow and as we climbed up I figured if it takes the whole day, then it takes the whole day just as long as we finished before the rain was predicted to start at 4…did I mention we started hiking at 7:30? At that early in the morning the snow was perfect to walk on, but other than the occasional slide it wasn’t too bad and there had been enough people before us to create a very nice path. The traffic on the trail was really light going up we saw one other couple hiking and then one jogger. That jogger told us he spooked a bear about a 1/2 mile up the summit trail, our pace became slower and we were super attentive, stopping for any little noise. I was really torn here, scared to see my first bear and yet wondering if I could catch one in a picture. We then had the good luck of meeting up with another hiker who had just gone up to the summit and she saw no bears so we continued on. Here are a couple of pictures of what the trail looked like on our way up:
It was a beautiful day and crazy challenging, it was like walking up and down sand dunes with lead weights on our ankles and back. In the end it took us 4 hours to get to the top, which was covered with so much snow and I only fell once, thank goodness for all that snow it totally made my face plant more funny than painful. We don’t know this trail enough to walk where there weren’t already foot prints and so I was challenged in getting any good shots of Mt. Evans at the top but Pike’s peak was AMAZING!!!! When we were about to leave another hiker had just arrived and he was so nice, but he told us something new and embarrassing. Before today we always stopped at the vista point assuming it was the summit, but in fact it is not so he showed us where it was and took a picture of us so we had actual proof we made it to the summit. What a funny lesson for us, I was such a proud hiker until that moment!
Proof we made it to the summit of Bergen Peak
In the end we did just under 12 miles even thought my fitbit said 14, we are crazy insane tired like my joints have never hurt so much tired and my calves have been aching. The day was beautiful and different I couldn’t get enough of it all. I am in love with this particular hike and most times it is pretty crowded but yesterday we had almost the whole thing to ourselves. Most hikers who actually attempted the peak did the standard route up and back ( Sleepy S > Elk Meadow> Bergen Peak Trail > Summit Trail), we decided to do the loop via Too Long down from the summit trail and just enjoyed the complete solitude. By the time we headed down the snow was starting to get slushy and slidey, I took the advice I received from Didier when I did White Ranch Park with my nieces last month and took a lot of small steps it helped so much!!! I still had sore feet but no blistering like I did then…..
Here are some of our favorite pictures from the hike:
on the way up
Pikes Peak from Bergen Peak trail
Mt. Evans from Bergen Peak Trail
Snow is to the top of the Scenic view sign
Looking out from the scenic view sign
Pikes Peak viewed form the top
Another Pikes peak shot from the top
View at the top
Us half way down
Snow moving in as we hike down.
We finished just in time!
