Mt. Bierstadt!

Before leaving Colorado, I just had to hike a 14'er. And so Derek, Brianna and I headed for Mt. Bierstadt at 5:30am, arriving around 8:00am to begin hiking the trail to the top. First we walked on a wooden boardwalk through a large bog, then up the incline on a dirt path, and for the last (difficult) part, we walked from boulder to boulder, climbing up to the summit at 14,000 feet. In terms of altitude sickness, I was only affected by a slight headache and stomach rumbling (lasting for only a few minutes) but I generally felt drunk in terms of sense of balance and weak in the legs from just before the boulders and on. It was such a strange feeling; I had to go slow and take little breaks to catch my breath, literally! Anyway, here are a few pictures from our climb:

Derek, Brianna and I after we'd climbed past the bog and up part of the dirt trail


Snow! and us. Just before climbing up that pile of boulders to the summit.


Brianna and Derek after signing the sheet at the summit to prove we actually did it!


At the summit! 14,000 feet in the air and ready to eat the best sandwiches in the world.


Derek and I with one of the views from the top. Derek is clearly elated.


I'm not kidding about those boulders! This was the pile we had to climb up/down to/from the summit. Apparantly I'm not from around here because I thought there was just a nice dirt path leading to a dirt plateau at the top of every mountain... notsomuch.


Looking back at the field of boulders we climbed, then walked along the ledge on the left, then made the final climb up the pile of boulders...


Pretty scenery on the way down... I think that's Sawtooth? Apparantly, if you're more ambitious than we are, you could climb that in the same hike.