Hiking alone, Part II: Pike’s Peak

Sometimes I lose perspective, and life or some challenge or setback or negative feedback sends me into the Pit Of Despair.

And then I remember that last summer, I climbed Pike’s Peak.

I (f&#%ing) climbed Pike’s Peak.

Alone.

That wasn’t even the hike I was planning that day. Which, in retrospect, probably makes it a stupid thing to have done. But I didn’t die or get eaten by a bear or even mauled, so there’s that.

I’d set out for a shorter “moderate” rated hike from the same trailhead to The Crags on the Divide, Colorado, side of the mountain. The plan was to hike shorter out-and-backs Friday and Saturday, leading up to the bigger Pike’s Peak trail Sunday if I felt up to it. I’d only been in Divide a little over 24 hours, and the elevation effect on the lungs and heart is no joke.

So, early that morning, I’d packed up water, snacks, bear spray and other necessities for a couple moderate miles, shoved on my sneakers and headed for the Crag’s trailhead.

But here’s the thing. That’s also a trailhead that leads to Pike’s Peak via Devil’s Playground.

I’d studied the maps and All Trails guides. I was aware of the challenges if I took that fork in the path: the relentlessly steep trail. A poorly marked boulder field. The infamous “rock scramble” to the summit. The potential for bears, snakes, mountain lions and hazardous people. The unpredictable weather near Devil’s Playground, so named for the lightning strikes that jump on the rock in a barren area where there is no cover. The sudden storms and wind common if you get to the top too late.

There is a warning sign before you step foot on that trailhead. It tells of all those things and reads: Do not climb if unprepared to hike back down.

They mean it. See previous blog.

I heeded the warning, and off I trekked toward the Crags as planned, huffing and puffing up the incline like an old lady who’d just gotten off the sofa for the first time in a decade. But somewhere along those minutes, not even a mile in, I started thinking, hey, this ain’t so bad. And it’s a nice day. And who knows what the weather will be like Sunday. This might be my only shot if I want to try Pike’s Peak. This seems like a good idea.

So when I got to the fork to Devil’s Playground, I took it, and up I went. And I do mean up, because once you turn onto that path, it’s a strenuous, steady 4,400-foot elevation gain over 7-8 miles.

It’s also beautiful and worth every step. Even the painful ones.

And it’s an exercise in patience and a trial of optimism.

The first miles aren’t easy, but it’s a lovely shaded evergreen-scented walk dotted with wild mountain flowers and interesting rock formations. There are plenty of places to take in one amazing vista after another.

I recall resting as I got near the end of the tree line. I’d been hiking a couple hours. I could see miles upon miles below; and ahead, it looked like maybe the surrounding summits marked the edged of the end.

They did not mark the edge of the end. I wasn’t even close.

I gradually left the trees behind, and again, when I reached Devil’s Playground, I thought I had to be near the peak. I even smugly scoffed at the tourists who had either hiked or driven that far and were queued up to take a shuttle the rest of the way. Quitters, I thought.

Turns out I was not near.

And that particular stretch is, in my experience, especially grueling. Not because it’s steep or tricky, but because the dusty brown treeless landscape that late in the hike is soul sucking.

Then there were the goats.

There’s a place beyond Devil’s Playground where the trail crosses a road before you enter a grassy field full of boulders and mountain flowers. A gang of mountain goats did not want me to go that way. The closer I approached, the more their body language made it clear they weren’t budging and they wanted me to go away. I, too, wanted to hold my ground and for them to go away; but there were more of them. Plus, they’re wild animals, and they have horns.

What I now call the Great Goat Detour, cost me time and energy. I misjudged where my detour would cross the road, and where I entered the boulder field, I lost the trail. I could see where I needed to go, but it was frustratingly difficult to find the path to get there.

I thought about making my way back to the road. It’s illegal for hikers to walk along the road there, so I’d either need to find a different way to the proper trail or give up. I was weighing my options, when by some miracle, I spotted a cairn.* I was at least generally in the right place, and aided by the cairn, I regained my way to the last part of the climb—the true end before the summit, and the only point I had dreaded in advance: the rock scramble.

The final climb to Pike’s Peak is essentially ascending half a mile up a pile of broken-up granite—a talus slope—under full sun exposure. I had read reviews from other hikers who’d hated it, and now, as I stared it down, it looked miserable.

It was one of my favorite parts of the hike.

The only way to navigate it is to look for cairns, which, in this case, means looking for piles of rocks on top of, well, a pile of rocks. Scan the scene, find a cairn and pick your route on and over the granite chunks towards it. Find the next cairn and pick your way to it. Repeat as you climb up, up, up to the summit. Each cairn turned out to be a fun puzzle to reach. I actually enjoyed it, and the views over the Colorado Springs side of the mountain are stunning.

Pike’s Peak is at 14,115 feet, making it a famed Rocky Mountain “fourteener.” You can actually drive a car part or all the way to the top. That means there are a lot of visitors (boo) but also that there are amenities (yes!), which include a little restaurant that serves fresh-made high-altitude donuts. (Supposedly, if you take the donuts back down the mountain, they flatten out. I was too hungry to test the theory.)

At the top of Pike’s Peak, I celebrated. I ate some donuts. I took selfies and explored the views.

I let myself feel proud. But just for a moment. Because as I turned around to start picking my way back through the cairns, through the rock scramble and down the mountain, I knew I still had one hell of a hike ahead of me.

*A cairn is a pile of rock created by a previous hiker to mark a good path or indicate that you’re on the right trail.