Kiki Bikes Across America

Archive for July 9th, 2009

Thursday, July 9th – Salida, CO

Today was a bit different – I didn’t ride anywhere, I instead found myself climbing a 14er, Mt. Elbert with Mike who I met yesterday at the library. He offered to let me crash at his place in his spare room, but we found ourselves camping out at the base of the trailhead to Mt. Elbert last night. We got up at 6:45am this morning and made oatmeal and then hit the trail around 8 or shortly thereafter.

It was a grueling hike for someone not acclimated to the altitude and who is just recovering from being sick a week ago. However, I was determined to make it and so I did. The hike took about 4 hours to go up (2 hrs  38 minutes of actual hiking time and 1 hr and 30 minutes or so of rest/stopped time). It was a challenge – I think the hardest physical challenge I have ever done. I can’t think of anything else that was more challenging. Biking across the country is easy compared to hiking a 14er and not being acclimated to the altitude. The lack of oxygen is really noticeable as you hike about 100 feet and then have to rest again, drink lots of water, and then continue. It was one step after the other, nice and slowly.

Along the way, we met a couple, Andy and Veronica (from Michigan and Colorado) and they were very cool, fun people. Andy owns a bicycle shop in Michigan and Veronica lives in Denver area. So we hiked with them a bit and chatted up at the summit after we arrived.

Veronica and Andy

We arrived to the summit around 12:30 or so, I think and hung out there taking photos and talking with other hikers for a bit and then headed down around 1:30. The views were absolutely stunning – amazing – unbelieveable. We were on the highest in Colorado at 14,433 feet. Info can be found here, if you are interested. The hike was 8.4 miles from the start of the trailhead up to the summit and back down (this was via the South Elbert Trail). We climbed approximately 4,000 vertical feet! I took my GPS along and tracked the entire hike, not turning it off except at the summit and when we finished.  If you want to view the track, you can see it at GPSies.com – however, the altitude is a bit off as I hadn’t calibrated the altitude on my GPS.

Me and Mike at the summit

Me and Wilderness Bob

We ran into Wilderness Bob, who’s hiking the continental divide – he started 2 or 2 1/2 months ago from the border with Mexico and is hiking north to Montana. You can follow his travels (which will be transcribed later and put online) at http://trailjournals.com/entry.cfm?trailname=8968 or go to http://www.trailjournals.com and search for “wilderness bob” to see the other journals he has for his previous hikes. He’s hiked a lot of other trails including the Appalachian Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail and tatoos each trail on his leg/thigh when he’s finished.