I think I can, I think I can

I crossed a big thing off my summer bucket list last weekend: Hiking a 14er. 

 

A 14er is a mountain that exceeds 14,000 feet in elevation. It’s not an easy feat and not something that everybody does, but it was on my bucket list as a new Coloradan to try at least one. Many Coloradans keep a checklist and cross them off as they complete each one. 

 

We drove up Saturday to San Isabel National Forest, about three hours from Denver in the mountain range, and camped at 10,000 feet above sea level.

 

Camping in the mountains was something I didn’t realize how much I wanted. To escape the big city and just be in nature and enjoy time with friends and be outdoors filled a part of my cup I didn’t know was empty. 

 

It was me, Jack, and four of his guy friends camping and hiking. Usually, one of their girlfriends would have come along, but they were all busy, so it was just me and five guys. It was fun to start a campfire, set up our tents, and just enjoy time as I watched them crack jokes and talk about fun past experiences they’ve had together. I even got to enjoy myself traipsing through the woods gathering downed wood as I left the guys to argue the best way to cook nachos over the fire. 

 

We escaped the 100 degree heat in Denver, but I forgot how cold it was going to be up in the mountains, and as I am always cold, I felt I did not pack well. In our tent, I was sleeping in a borrowed sleeping bag right on the ground because I also did not have a sleeping pad. Needless to say, it was a cold and uncomfortable night in the tent where I probably got half an hour of sleep.

 

We woke around 5 a.m. and packed up the rest of our belongings before heading to the trailhead for our summit adventure. It took us eight and a half miles, over six hours, and 3,500 feet in elevation gained, so we completed our Mount Huron hike tired and hungry. 

 

The eight miles was a round trip, so we hiked four miles up, up, up until we got to the summit at 14,006 feet. While the continuous and sometimes quite steep hike up was difficult, the views were endlessly breathtaking. I felt supported even though I was the slow one in the back of the pack, and we even saw a ton of wildlife. We spotted marmots fighting on the side of the mountain, little squirrels that weren’t squirrels, a quail-looking bird sitting and squawking at us from a nearby rock, and even two white, fluffy mountain goats!  

 

While the hike was fun and fulfilling, I will admit it was a lot harder than I had expected. I had known to expect some physical strains (my body was all out of fuel when we got to the top, scrambling over rocks since there was no real path at the summit), but the mental trial surprised me. Spending four hours going constantly up, hiking hard terrain in low altitude, was a battle I had more with my mentality than my body. As I had to continuously pause to catch my breath and lower my heart rate, sometimes it was hard to take that next step, and the next one, and the next one. I prayed and thought of the children’s book my parents used to read me when I was a child about The Little Engine That Could. “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can,” became my mantra as I fell behind the pack and had to pause more frequently than the guys. I even started singing the song from Hercules to myself: “You gotta get one foot in front of the other…” 

 

And eventually, I made it. Past the tripping tree roots, over the rocks and steps, above the treeline (the trees end at around 11,000 feet due to lack of oxygen), up the steep and steeper paths to the top. 

 

Now I can say I hiked a 14er. 

 

My Determination: “I’m a damsel, I’m in distress, I can handle this. Have a nice day.” — Megara, Hercules