Well, I feel simultaneously stupid and proud, which is a unique feeling.
Dad and I headed over to climb Flattop Mountain on Sunday; you can see the excitement and fear on my face in the picture we took of the sign clearly pointing to the right to take us to the trail:
So, obviously, we headed off to the left. You know, in the wrong direction. Because Dad and I share the beautiful trait of Terrible Navigational Skills.
A little over a mile down the path, all on a fairly steep incline, and asked some guy with his family which direction Flattop Mountain was.
He looked at us, confused. “About a mile and a half in the other direction, then up 4 and a half miles,” he said. “This is the trail to Emerald Lake. You’ll have to turn around if you want to hike Flattop – unless you want to climb a glacier,” he laughed.
Dammit.
I was clear with Dad I was not adding a 3 mile round-trip detour to our hike, so we thought we’d see what the glacier looked like. Um, pretty glacier-like:
Note the scale of the person in this picture – unless you want to swim across the near-freezing lake, you’ve got to climb boulders and snow all the way around to hit the top of the glacier. Which, of course, we tried.
After some bouldering and difficult navigation, we realized the other side of the glacier was likely much more difficult to get down than the scaling had been – and that hadn’t been particularly easy or safe. So we turned back. However, I’m still counting it as a win, because the bouldering and snow hiking was pretty intense, I got a great workout, and this is all on top of a 3.5-mile trail hike, so hey, I’m celebrating.
We climbed back down the boulders and I decided this was a good time to get my handstand pic in Colorado. Unfortunately, the ground wasn’t flat, and I overestimated my balancing skills:
I found flat ground near a tree and gave it another shot:
Anyway, check out a few more pics from our fun-filled trip – including a brewery, a horseback ride through the Rockies, a distillery, a trip to Wyoming for one more handstand picture, and a ghost tour of the hotel that inspired The Shining (The Stanley).
So you know what? Trip = a Success, and I count this as my mountain climb, because it was certainly an adventure, it was a challenging workout, and we went all the way to Colorado for it. Two more states I’ve never been to before – and one I probably wouldn’t go back to (Wyoming)!
Your talented hiker friend, over and out.
30 Before 30 