Guard rails are good.  Especially at 14,000 feet.  Apparently the people that built the road to the top of Pike’s Peak thought guard rails were optional.  The drive to the top is extraordinarily beautiful and I can see why it is the most visited mountain in North America.  As you drive up the narrow, winding roads you get a sense of how small you are and how hard it must have been for the pioneers crossing the Rocky Mountains.  Our books teach us that Lewis and Clark left their boats and many of their supplies behind, trades with the local Indians for horses, and crossed the mountains on horseback.  Looking across the landscape I wonder how a horse could make it across.  These are some big mountains.

On the way up we passed a snow drift about 4 feet tall where people were stopping to carve their names.  We also passed Devil’s Playground, a rock formation where lightning tends to bounce around during thunderstorms.  Then came the treeline at 12,000 feet – no more trees.  When we started the temperature was in the 80s.  At the top – 34 degrees!  When you reach the summit you’ll find a lookout, of course, and a plaque explaining how Zebulon Pike discovered the mountain (although he never actually made it to the top).  There’s a gift shop and a small restaurant where you can get a famous Pike’s Peak donut.  We got ours for free with this coupon.  You can also hike on the boulders around the summit.  There are a couple of really interesting places to go – one is a metal triangle on an outcropping.  The boys had fun rubbing their hair then holding their hands close to the railing and watching the spark jump from their hands to the metal rail.  They didn’t realize at the time that they were essentially playing with lightning.  A storm was brewing and the charge in the air was really building up.  Dangerous. 

Not long after the boys made it back from their hike it started to snow.  I mean really snow.  As we made our way to the car a local runner asked if we were heading down the mountain and if he could hitch a ride to Devil’s Playground where his car was parked. 

I didn’t feel very good on top of the mountain.  In fact, I was so dizzy and my vision was so blurred that I couldn’t hike with the boys.  I wasn’t sure if it was altitude sickness or my own illness, and I didn’t want to say anything because I didn’t want to scare anyone.  There were EMTs running around the gift shop, so I figured if I passed out somebody would notice sooner or later.  Earlier we had considered hiking from Devil’s Playground to the summit.  Thank God we didn’t.  For one thing, the longer we were there the worse I felt, and it wasn’t just me.  Later Mason got sick too.  Halfway down the mountain we had to stop for him to puke.  If we had hiked up we would have gotten caught in that snowstorm unprepared.  Yuck.  So, although we were eyeing the trail on the way up saying, “Oh – we should have done that,” we were glad we didn’t in the end.  Bill told us it was best not to hike at altitude unless we’d had about 3 weeks to get acclimated.  Later we tried an easy hike at about 8000 feet and again I had the same trouble.  Maybe I just hadn’t had enough time in the high country to hike, but it was so amazingly beautiful I just couldn’t help myself.  I kept on trying.  My best experience turned out to be hiking the Flatirons in Boulder.  I’ll tell you about it soon.