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Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Summer of 2012 Ute Peak Hike

    Back in July , I was going to call this "When in doubt go higher." A line off of a local free paper called the Mountain Gazette dedicated to the out door mountain life.
    Things change. What can I say; "I'm a Libra and prone to procrastination."
That could fill pages on another post! ha,ha!
      Anyway, I had been inspired back in late winter to hike a 14'er. by the movie "Blind Site".  So I planned to hike Grays peak the first week in August.
      I thought early on I needed to be prepared, that it wouldn't be that easy. I planned to do moderate to difficult hikes to prepare. I did the hikes over a six week period. I didn't notate the exact dates.
    The first hike was Ute peak. Rated most difficult.
         It wasn't planned, well maybe in the back of my mind it was. I had been wanting to take this hike for some time, but knew it was difficult.  Pre-season I was walking 5 miles a day, this wasn't much further.  It is close to the ranch and in a beautiful area. I just got up early one Thursday morning and decided that I was going to hike it.
      I got there about 9 am, a beautiful morning. The trail starts out by going through a tunnel under a giant conveyor from a local mine but then goes into a beautiful forest. Dense with trees, no beetle kill. It goes on like this for a while and I'm thinking this isn't too bad. Its slightly up hill kind of moderate. After a while your starting to go up some pretty good inclines but then they would sort of level out. Never really getting completely level, always going up. My will and motivation started giving my mind and body pep talks." Telling them that this wasn't so bad! We can do this! If we can't do this then how are we going to hike a 14'er. My mind and body slogged on complaining from time to time, but wanted motivation and will to be right.  Some of the views through the trees were beautiful! The trail just kept getting steeper!!! Motivation and Will kept the troops going uphill.
            This hike was supposed to take 5 hrs, round trip. It was around 1. I was near the tree line, it was still kind of a long up hill through open tundra to the top. Mind and body lured motivation and will to a grassy spot in the shade for some lunch and then sucker punched them into a nap. I WAS TIRED! I took about a 30 min nap. I drank some water ate a power bar. Will and motivation tried to rally the troops but clouds were rolling in and mind and body were way tired. There was no way I was going to make that last part of the climb today. I headed down the trail under threatening skies and thunder. As always, I got back to the car in record time. Although I'm going to tell you going that steep down is almost as hard   as going up, maybe harder on the knees.
      I have never been so physically and mental tired after a hike and I was out of it for the next two days.