Pikes Peak

We got up early this morning to hike Pikes Peak with Tim. The Barr trail is 13 miles one way, so we took a different one. The Devil's Playground Trail starts from a trailhead at 10,100' and climbs Pikes Peak from the northwest, up to the 14,110' summit. The one-way distance is somewhere between 5.5 and 8.5 miles, depending on which source you look at, so we hiked around 11-17 miles today. It felt closer to 17 and considering it took us almost 9 hours it may have been.

We were above the clouds for most of the hike up. Once on the summit we could see the weather forming on the other side of the mountain. It looked suspicious so we didn't stay up top for long.

It was a very long day -- it took us 4 hours just to get back to the car. Our next hike will have to be an easier one. Hopefully this was good preparation for Tim, who will be attempting Rainier in two weeks. Good luck, Tim!

A Columbine flower along the trail