14,229ft. & 14,155ft.

Sawatch Range

33 & 34/58

Maybe I was tired, maybe I hurt, maybe both. But as I sit here reflecting on these climbs and everything they were and weren’t, I don’t have a whole lot to say. I didn’t take many photos, comparatively. It wasn’t particularly long or hard, but it wasn’t easy, either.

A friend once told me the odds of being above the clouds are highest on these peaks. I was excited about that possibility, but there wasn’t a cloud in the sky this day. Not one.

The thing that means the most about these mountains is the group I obtained them with.

Last summer, I met this guy on Mount of the Holy Cross. It was my first solo backpacking trip — I had trekked in three miles to give myself a head start at the summit (and, okay, to say I’d been backpacking solo) — and due to a combination of exhaustion and mosquitos I had fallen asleep in my tent without dinner the night before. The important part of all of this is that I was weak and extra-slow as a result.

As I made my way up the mountain the following day, a guy my age caught up to me. We made small talk for awhile before he continued on his way and I figured he’d summit and start heading down long before I made the summit myself.

Nope. I took my final step onto the summit and there he was. “I thought you’d want someone to take your photo up here,” he said grinning.

I sacrificed time on the summit to hike down with him and we became instant long-distance friends. He lived in Kansas City at the time, but he’s since moved to Colorado.

I visited him at work on my drive home from Mount Princeton and mentioned my back condition. He listened and then in a different thread of conversation mentioned how his, chiropractor, girlfriend would be moving out to Colorado in a few weeks. We made tentative plans to hike and I continued my drive home.

Unbeknownst to me, he reached out to his girlfriend shortly after our time together and later bombarded me with a welcomed list of helpful suggestions. Without having met me, she also scoured my hometown for a best-fit chiropractor for me, phone calls and all. I’ve been going to the chiropractor she recommend ever since. I’ve considered her a friend ever since, too.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: the people I meet through mountains are my favorite breed of people. I hiked Shavano and Tabeguache with those two (and two others). And the time with them was the best part about that day.