Quandary Peak

As most of you know, Jason is crazy.  (At least in terms of exercise, running, and mountains.)  On Thursday he drove up to Breckenridge, ran up Quandary Peak, and drove back down to town in time to pick up Rachel from daycare.  He ran up in 1 hour 23 min, relaxed at the top in the sunshine for 20 min watching mountain goats, and then ran down in about 30 min.

For those of you who may not know, hiking a "14er" is a big deal in Colorado.  There are 54 peaks over 14,000 ft in Colorado, and many people exist to summit all of them.  There are countless books, tshirts, stickers, etc on the topic and people will all know how many they have climbed.  Jason has climbed 8, including his Pikes Peak races, and several training runs on Quandary.  Rachel and I (Meggan) - 0 summits.

So our guide book says Quandary Peak is 14,265 feet.  The rating is 'moderate' (the lowest rating in the book, since "there are no easy fourteeners").  Elevation gain 3,300 feet.  Round trip distance 6 miles. Estimated round trip time is 6 hours.

We decided this would be the perfect mountain to be the first 14er for Rachel and I.  Friday afternoon we drove up to Breckenridge and stayed with our friend Angela and her dogs.  Rachel had a bit of a head cold and slept terribly on Friday night.  We haven't had as much luck with our travel crib lately and Rachel ended up in our bed for the last half of the night.  

Despite the fact that Jason can make these things look easy, I was quite nervous.  The last time I was at an altitude this high was in Peru in 2006 and I remember each step being a challenge.  Could we safely do this with Rachel?  Would she be ok at that altitude?  If not, could she tell us she did not feel well in time to safely descend?  I was comforted by the fact that 1) Jason had just done this and we knew the trail was snow free with a good weather forecast and 2) Jason was strong enough to take Rachel up and down easily without stressing out his own body.

Sat morning we left the house at 7am and arrived at the trail head along with 25 other cars of people on a Saturday keen to bag a 14er.  We ended up donning nearly matching outfits (oops!) and packed plenty of water, snacks, and extra layers as weather on any high mountain can change so fast.

Rachel kept saying 'hiking!' and 'mountains!' and 'snow!' as we hiked along, and greeted all the other hikers as we went.  The first 2 miles passed quite well, and then we started to climb rocky terrain and ascend more steeply.  Rachel wanted to walk, but could not, and wanted to stop to snack every few feet.  I needed to go slow and take frequent rest breaks, but overall we felt like we made good progress.

Rachel fell asleep as the real climbing began, and we started to pass some people.  The wind picked up a little and as we approached the summit, we could see some clouds starting to thicken.  The real challenge was in trying to make as much progress as we could while Rachel was still happy, and hope we could keep her asleep until the summit.  At the summit, we planned to have lunch, let Rachel get out and play, and relax a little in the sun before heading down.

Just as we were reaching the summit, the clouds were starting to look threatening.  Just as we took our pictures and let Rachel out to play, we saw lightning behind Mount Democrat, another 14er just a few miles away. At this sight, about 20 people resting at the summit packed up and headed down.  We signed the peak registry, grabbed a snack, and started down.  

Thunder sounds and lightning seemed to surround us as we started our descent.  The first line of the storm had already passed and lit up a huge portion of Pacific Peak, just to our north. Jason, still carrying Rachel in the backpack, started to make his way down quickly, aiming for the safety of the treeline.  I told Jason to go ahead and go as quickly as possible while staying safe.  He then proceeded to run past everyone else on the mountain, who were quite shocked to be passed by a man running by on rocky terrain with a large baby carrier on his back.  Rachel happily said hello to each hiker they passed and pointed out the mountains, lakes, marmots, chipmunks, and pikas around.  I fell behind them by quite a bit, although I was doing my best to make it down the mountain as fast as I could.  My hope was that we could all get to the tree line before before the rain hit.  I was not keen on hiking quickly down wet, slippery rock or getting hit by lightning.

At one point while descending, another guy running down passed by me.  This conversation followed:
Meggan: "Hey - do me a favor? If you catch up to a man carrying a baby in his backpack, can you please tell him his wife is doing just fine."
Guy: "That guy? With the baby on his back?  I'll never catch that guy!"

Some (stupid) people were still heading up the mountain, but mostly there was a train of 40+ people turning and heading down.  Several groups turned around and did not make it to the summit that day.  In fact, we were one of the last groups to do so before the sudden change in weather.

I made it to treeline without any issues, passing most people, in time to see Jason and Rachel waiting and playing.  Rachel hiked a few minutes here, since she had been stuck in the backpack for so many hours at this point.  

The rain came down lightly as we put Rachel back in and headed down the last mile to the car.  Safely back at the car, we changed clothes, ate food, drank water, watched the storm get thicker around us, and drove into town for some soup.  

Really, in the end, I think we were quite safe.  Certainly others all around us were just fine and did not descend at nearly the speed we did.  But having a crazy fit mountain runner of a Dad was a good thing for Rachel and I, as our family was able to get down to safety quickly when the weather turned.  Rachel also did a great job all day, and seemed to honestly enjoy the whole adventure, giggling with each step.

Now we have our first '14er' sticker on our car, that says 'Quandary Peak'... a mountain that the whole family has climbed.  

What sticker will we go for next?!