hiking to healthy

Weigh in day 5/10/13 -.6, 52.2 lbs down 37.8 lbs to go

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.

Riverside Trail A Breckenridge Repeater Hike 5/4/13

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.

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:

Belcher Hill Trail Repeater Hike, White Ranch Park – Golden Co 4/27/13

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

Weigh in Day 4/26/13 No Change…. 51.6 LBS down 38.4 left to go

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:

Bergen Peak Trail, Elk Meadow Open space AGAIN 4/20/13

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:

Snow is to the top of the Scenic view sign

Pikes Peak 2 — Pikes Peak viewed form the top

weigh in day 4/19/13 -.6, 51.6 lbs lost 38.4 lbs to go

I think so many people are just confused and a little lost this week after so much tragedy, I know I am. I found myself tied to the tv awaiting the details of the bombing and then details of the horrible explosion in Texas. As I watched all the horror, I think like everyone else, I was so touched by those who stepped up and helped.

Needless to say my weight problem was not at the forefront of my thoughts every day. I am of course really glad I lost this week and staying on track was as tough as always.

I am looking forward to our hike tomorrow if for nothing more than enjoying the sights and remembering that there are lots of good out there to counter the bad.

Hiking out of a Hangover – Deer Creek Canyon 4/13/13

Since I started hiking to healthy over a year ago I have been really good about not drinking on Friday nights before our hike, while it is my cheat day I never want to run the chance of a hangover hindering my hike on Saturday. That’s not to say that I still don’t get my drink on, I just wait until I have showered post hike on Saturday and then start knocking them back. This past Friday however, was special and so I drank! I had my best girls on deck to hit this place in Denver called the Green Russell, it is supposed to be like an old school speak easy with great drinks and atmosphere….and it was all that and more. Honestly I had so much fun that I didn’t really watch how much I drank and I tried to be really good about drinking a huge glass of water in between each drink. I really thought I would beat the potential for a hangover and still knock out a tough hike on Saturday. After a safe ride home I passed out at a respectable 11:00.

A few hours later I woke up and knew I was in for a good solid hang over. I was determined to not give into it so I pounded water, took two Advil and tried to fall back to sleep only to lay there for a couple of hours getting mad at myself, chanting I was going to do the hike no matter what. Then at 4AM-ish Aaron got up and said he was feeling really awful, like can’t hike awful and was going to take his meds to see if it helped. I am embarrassed to say I rejoiced and immediately shut off my alarm and fell right to sleep, clearly more concerned about myself than Aaron.

When I started waking up around 7:30, I looked at the weather and knew our only chance to hike this weekend would be on Saturday, if we left right then we could still get to Bergen Peak with enough time to get in our 13.5 miles. Unfortunately Aaron still wasn’t feeling well, so I decided I would ~~torture myself~~ do the taxes and if he was still not feeling well when I finished, I would just hit Deer Creek Canyon on my own. Surprisingly, I didn’t start drinking while I did the taxes but mostly because I really wanted to get some hiking in.

When I finished my ~~annual torture~~ taxes, Aaron was waking up from a nap and feeling up to joining me for 6.5 miles at Deer Creek Canyon (Hike Details here). Now I will admit I was still hung over when we started, but we decided to try and go for time since we weren’t going for distance or stamina. Man was it hard, I was nauseous most of the hike but then there was a moment around mile 4 when I felt that last drop of alcohol sweat out of me. It was like someone had lifted a huge weight off of me. The last 2.5 miles flew by as I finally felt better, and I really needed to get to the bathroom. In the end, we managed to finish 6.5 miles with a total of a 1300 ft elevation gain in just over 2 hours, not to shabby.

A couple of things we noticed about hiking this trail later in the afternoon on a starting to get insanely windy day before bad weather hits. First, it was surprisingly empty, something we have only experienced here when it is actually snowing while we hike. I think we passed maybe 15-20 other hikers/runners the whole 2 hours it took us. Pretty sure they were all hung over too, well except the group of pregnant women who were too cute not to just applaud and grin at, and so no one was very cheerful to be out. The other weird contingent was the dates we saw, seriously 2 couples on dates and like early on dating, where one person didn’t prepare or dress appropriately but the other isn’t going to point it out because they are not sure if they like them yet- early on. Or the one person wasn’t honest about their activity level but was trying their best to impress the other person, while also trying not to pass out because they can’t breathe heavy in fear of letting on to the deception….. It led to really fun people watching.

All and all it wasn’t what we wanted to accomplish this past weekend, and honestly has left me in a funk because I feel like I didn’t get a good solid hike in. I am trying to remind myself that at least I got out and moved but I am struggling with motivation and staying on track. This week we are getting hammered with snow, like 20 inches or more in the foothills have already fallen, with more expected tonight and tomorrow. I am thrilled to have the moisture when we so desperately need it but sad because I have no idea where are we going to hike this weekend if all the foothills got a couple of feet of snow. It should be interesting for sure!

Weigh in Day 4/12/13 -.8, 51lbs down 39 lbs left to go

Another small loss, but a loss none the less! It was a tough week for a weird reason, I wanted to celebrate reaching this milestone but my typical way of celebrating is to eat which isn’t the way to go this time. So all I focused on was not going over my calories each day and getting in as much exercise as I could. I actually just worked towards a maintain, the fact that I still lost something is great! Plus I am now officially over the -50LB mark! I feel really good today!

What I did end up doing was going to the Green Russell Friday night with some good friends, I was being good-ish trying to drink a lot of water in between all of my drinks. We had so much fun and I got to wear clothes I haven’t fit into for years! The only bad thing was drinking the night before a hike, I have to admit I was a little nervous about how I would perform….

Bergen Peak Trail + – Elk Meadow Jefferson County Open Space 4/6/13

The view at the top - Mt. Evans — The view at the top – Mt. Evans

I am on cloud 9, seriously 50 pounds lost on my weigh in yesterday and then today we kicked major butt on our hike. We did Bergen Peak last August and to be honest it was insanely tough then, like I was practically in tears on the way down thinking “why the hell did I let myself get this way”…. it felt great to finish it with more of a “wow I can still do more” today.

First, we did a repeater today because frankly the weather is all over the place and I am super not confident about what we can do when the trail gets insanely unpredictable. For me, a trail I know is much easier than one I don’t regardless of what ice and snow may be present. Plus this park is amazing and it got us up to 9700 ft, we need to gain altitude and work on our lungs again, so I managed to get an extra 2 miles out of this park, which is of course not that hard. So in total we did “officially” 12.5 miles and my fitbit said 13.5 miles, which took us 6 hours to complete.

In looking for any recent hikes here, I found very few pictures showing trail conditions, so here they are. There is not much before we got to the Bergen Peak trail, then there is ice and snow periodically throughout:

but really until we got to the summit trail at the top, we didn’t need any aids. It was mostly bursts of ice here and there, but at the top is was consistently snow and ice.

And it was still not that bad, probably because we were some of the first on the trail so the ice hadn’t settled in when we passed through so we never put anything on until the way down and then it was only me wearing extra help. I imagine that after we went through it may have been a little more challenging but by then it was getting warmer and digging in was not all that bad.

The day was perfect, it started out a little chilly with some clouds expected. For the first time we didn’t over dress, even though we had more on board just in case. As we climbed there were things we hadn’t seen the last time we hiked this, like Pike’s Peak.

Pike's Peak - our peek of it lower on the trail — Pike’s Peak – our peek of it lower on the trail

When we hiked this last August,we were in the middle of a series of fires and the views were limited because of all the haze from those. I had no idea that we would be able to see Pike’s peak on a clearer day, it is 60-ish miles south of Bergen peak, so imagine my delight as looking up from our climb up to see this.

The other bonus on hiking today, there was not all that many people out this early in the season we didn’t even see one other person until we got on the summit trail and then it was 3 people in like an hour. We were almost 9 miles through the hike before traffic picked up. It looks like the lower trails have much more traffic this time of year.

All and all, it was a great hike and we felt really good getting it done in a way that made us feel so strong and confident about our future hikes.

Here are our favorite pictures from the hike, and for the record I am in love with Mt.Evans. Everyday it greets me as I go to work and tells me the weekend is going to be awesome because it means I will be up there, some where getting more views of the amazing prowess of mother nature. Please forgive my over attention to it, this hike gives you breathtaking views of Mt. Evans and so I couldn’t help myself in paying it extra homage! Do this hike if you can one day, it is worth every single step!

The view from the summit trail facing northwest

Weigh in Day 4/5/13 -.6, 50.2 LBS down, 39.8 LBS to go

A .6lb loss is not monumental but it is just enough to get me over 50LBS lost!!!!! It is a great milestone to hit and I have been bouncing around on my toes all day telling anyone who will listen, well maybe just those who know that I am working on it because it would be weird to tell strangers that. I am sure that is considered over-sharing…..

I also had an intervention from my friends and coworkers this week. The lovely ladies I walk with and work with everyday told me I couldn’t wear my pants any more, they are just too big. I have to admit I have not bought all that many new clothes mostly because I don’t want to invest any money yet, knowing that I would still lose more. I guess I will have to drop a few dollars to get some things to hold me over to more weight loss. What a wonderful problem to have.

I would like to say tomorrow we are doing a new hike, but we aren’t mostly because the time of year is awkward. Melting snow, lots of wind and random rain/snow makes planning higher altitude hikes a little tough. But we need to get higher now and so I am picking higher altitude hikes we have already done since the familiarity will help us when the ice and/or snow comes into play. Tomorrow will be a repeater but I have found a way to make it over 12 miles with lots of altitude gain and loss. We should have picked up snow shoes before they were mostly gone but we didn’t so all we can rely on are our crampons. We will not make the same mistake next winter/spring!

The above picture is just more motivation for me to stay on track and keep me honest. This is me 12 years ago right around my goal weight, actually a little more. I had just done the Avon 3 day walk for breast cancer the weekend before, which was a 60 mile walk in 3 days from Kenosha Wisconsin to Chicago. As a resting weekend we went camping in Michigan and hiked all around and along Lake Michigan all day long, we are getting back to that place again where a resting weekend means a day of hiking it feels great! Now if only I could exercise myself into better hair…..

I hope your weekend is great!