I've been asked a few times about what it's like hiking at high altitude. Here's a few random thoughts I have after only climbing two 14ers.
First off, the views are incredible and very motivating. Much more motivating on the way up. In the case of climbing up Antero, we followed a rough jeep road up to 13,800' at which point we departed the road and started hiking the ridge.
The ridge is by far the most fun and most tiring. It usually involves a lot of boulder hopping...with the occasional boulder moving when you land on it. Nothing like a little extra challenge when you don't need it. The ridge also has one of the steepest grades as the final pitch to the summit is usually a straight shot up. It looks a little deceiving though. From pictures you'd think that one wrong step would send you tumbling down, but that is not the case. There's plenty of room to maneuver around.
One funny thing I noticed on this trip. Commercial airliners sound much louder when standing on the summit. Two flew over in the 30 minutes we were up there. Seems to make sense seeing we're about half the distance to their cruising altitude of 30K feet.
I forgot to add that once you get above treeline, you'd think that "moon-like" landscape would be boring. There actually a lot of life up in the tundra...just nothing big. We came across many small flowers nestled in the rocks. We came across many birds & a marmot. What's a marmot?? It's a gopher like creature that prefers to live at higher altitudes.
ReplyDeleteWoody, thank you for the description - it was interesting and the closest I'll ever get to any peak.
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