Another 14er

This weekend was quite fun. And I got a lot into 3 days.

Day 1, Friday: I did some parkour with some friends from work. There is a great place with walls and rails and grass and everything.

Day 2, Saturday: After camping, we woke before dawn and began out assent of Mt. Sherman. It was amazing. I am in love with the trail to Gray's and Torrey's, but I think this hike may have trumped it. It's beautiful. And fairly short (just over 5 miles round trip). And also fairly easy. There were all sorts of old mining buildings, and the day was quite clear and perfect temperature. Really, I don't think I've had a more pleasant time. We summited about 2 hours after starting, so around 8am. We had Liam's sister's tiny dog and she did wonderfully going up, but had to be carried back down. I wore my new (to me) Merrell trail gloves. There were great. Nice and light and thin. I was worried that the bit of arch support they do have would hurt me, but it really didn't. Only the shape was a bit odd so that my arch got poked by a few rocks above where the sole ended. I think that Vivobarefoot still has the minimal sole down best.

Day 2 ended with steak, beer and Ewan McGregor (in Jack the Giant Slayer).

Day 3, Sunday: Almost attended Colorado Springs Pride, but they charged to park. Almost drove up Pike's Peak, but the traffic was awful. Instead, napped, ate.

Not looking forward to going back to "real life"

reflection and mine and summit.

Zorro up the ridge. 

trail gloves at the summit

Liam with Zorro at the summit. 

carrying Emma down. Sherman in the background.

Remember how I have an addiction to minimal footwear? Yeah, I got another pair of shoes to add to my collection.

I now have 3 pairs of Vivobarefoot. One pair is slightly on the small side and I wear them to work. One is for winter hiking, and the other are new and I shall likely use them for parkour/exercise/everything. I have a pair of Unshoes sandals that I use for playing in the water and also for hiking. I have a pair of Cushe shoes that aren't quite minimal, but they have a barefoot feel. They're the casual walkabout shoes. And my newest addition is a pair of Merrell trail gloves. I got them for an incredible price on ebay. I have decided to delegate them as hiking shoes, but I'm not sure if they'll actually pass the test, I may resell them. You see, for a barefoot shoe they have a very high arch. Unnecessary. It sort of hurts. So we'll see. Headed for another 14er this weekend, I'll test them on the decent. Great thing about minimal shoes is that they're a breeze to carry around.

I wonder if I can paint a picture with a few words here.

We were up before dawn. And it was chilly, not in a debilitating way, but in an invigorating way. We had hiked this trail several times and shared it with several people each time. That's because it's a popular 14er hike; fairly easy and close to Denver. We were hiking Torrey's Peak. As I said, it was invigorating.

And I thought we were making decent time. I was in my unshoes sandals. (fantastic for climbing, but I changed into vivos for the decent.) So some think I'm a bit odd for baring my toes on a 14er. Then we spied him.

He was tall. And he was wearing flip flops. But those actually weren't the first things I noticed about him. The things I noticed first were his leg warmers. They were pink leopard print and shaggy. A close second were his pants. Er... underpants? They were small and tight and bore a red and orange flame pattern.

He was loudly lamenting that his flip flops were just fine, except that he'd chipped his toenail polish. And indeed, his lime green lacquer was in quite a sorry state.

His fabulosity (my own word) actually may have outshone the exultation of summiting my 5th 15er. Alas that I didn't get a photo of him. I'm sure he would have loved it had I asked.

I do have other photos of the hike though.

Columbines with Torreys Peak

Summit of Torrey's Peak

Summit of Torreys. Grays on the left. Unshoes on the right.