We Might as Well Enjoy the Trip Down

We hung around on the summit for a while.  With all the people on the trail I was surprised how few were at the top.

Proof

It didn't get tricky going back down till we hit the snow field.  There was a path about 2' deep but the bottom was ice over rocks.  Probably no trouble for most of these folks but it kinda freaked me out. People were waiting at the bottom to get up so there was an audience.  The Lovely Wife did a little slide about half way down but recovered quick.

Going back down this was interesting.

I kept thinking tree line wasn't that far down.  But as the rocks kept going, I got a hate going.  My knees were sore, I was just plain tired, and I was ready to get off the mountain.  

Sometimes you just had to stop but that only seemed to make it worse when you got back up.

Finally the tree line and a path that wasn't full of rocks

The Kid comes back to check on us

You see all kinds of folks on the mountain

Of course in the end we made it back to the stinky rental car.  7 hours is a long time to hike above 11,000'.  Some of us were faster so we could have cut some time off, but why bother, the mountain doesn't care how long it takes you.  We were fortunate we had good weather, I'd hate to be trying to scramble down that in a thunderstorm.

We saw people running up and back down, then again, we saw quite a few folks turn back at 13'000'. Some people seemed well prepared, some looked like they were shell shocked.  We saw one girl coming through the snow field in sandals.  Lots of dogs and young kids, those guys are braver than I am.

Would we do it again?  Sure, maybe not that mountain but another 14'r.  I don't think The Kid wants to go with us anymore though.  He tends to worry about the old folks, says we scare him if he has to watch us.

We were so tired we almost didn't want to go out to eat.  Nobody stayed awake past 9 that night.  And yes, we were some other kind of sore for the next few days.  Still, the plan called for a trip to Keystone the next day.  I call these days freestyle days.  We just do whatever comes up.  The Kid wanted to do downhill so that's how we ended up in Keystone.  It was interesting.  More tomorrow.