I hiked my first 14er yesterday

There are 54 14ers, or 14,000 foot peaks, in Colorado. We made a trip up to Ben’s family vacation house in Vail and decided to do Mt. Holy Cross, which was a quick 45 minute drive. Was it easy? Certainly not, but also not the toughest thing I’ve done on this trip. It’s amazing the difference a 30 lb backpack makes when hiking.

Mountain of the Holy Cross is 14,005 feet above sea level and accessible via a 11.5 mile out and back trail and some scrambling at the end, making it an Moderately Easy Class 2 summit. With 5,600 feet of elevation gain I was certainly feeling the elevation the entire 3.5 hours it took us to summit, while my superman boyfriend barely seemed to be out of breath most of the time.

As we descended the summit around 600 feet above tree line we were hit with a hail storm and saw lightning strike within a half mile away. Praying that we wouldn’t be struck by lightning and trying to remain calm, I shuffled down the trail as fast as I humanly could without falling.