Incline Hike

It's Thursday and I am super sore! Good sore though. I did some Pilates last night for our YW activity and boy was I out of my element! It's funny how you don't know the muscles you haven't worked out until you put them to use and afterwards you hurt like crazy! I guess it's time for me to start doing some Pilates too. LOL.

Anyways speaking of being out of my element, I'm finally posting some pictures from our "incline" hike. It just took me nearly a month to do so. Don't ask me why cause even I don't know why it took me this long to post it.

Anyways.... so in Manitou Springs (just west of Colorado Springs) there's a side of the mountain that was used before for a railway to take people up to Pike's Peak. You can read more info on the history of the "incline" here. The funny thing about this is that it is one of the most famous hikes in the area and yet you are actually NOT ALLOWED TO HIKE THERE. Yes there is a no trespassing sign but it seems like people don't really care about it. Of course you go on your own risk and that's exactly what we did.

It was a great sunny day and the kids were still off of school (from Winter break) and we have been cooped up in the house since we got back from California. We didn't have anything major going on so I suggested that we finally take up the challenge and do this hike. The "challenge" of this walk is that it is STEEP. It's only a mile but it is a bunch of stairs. Just imagine that!

I took a picture of the family just before we started our walk. After a few steps Mitch took over the camera and so most of the photos from here on out was from him.

Although it was a nice sunny day, we didn't anticipate all the snow that would still be on the steps of the incline. This made it tougher to climb especiallly that we just had our tennis/running shoes on.

this is about on the halfway mark. It was a beautiful view but honestly by this time I was already crying (so to speak). There was a trail on the halfway mark where you can stop going up, take the detour and head back down. My main plan was to just "try out" the incline today. I was only planning on getting to the halfway mark. But Mitch had other plans and so we pushed along. Grrr!

See the steps up ahead of us? We not only had to deal with snowy steps but uneven and somewhat dangerous parts as well. But I have to say I was most proud of the kids, they grumbled and whined (like I did) but they still plugged along. Such troopers!

We were getting closer to the top here. As you can see the bottom view was getting smaller and smaller.

and when we've reached the top.

We found a hiker that was willing to take a family photo of us once up on the top.

It took us 2 hours to hike up and then because the steps were so steep and icy we had decided to go down through another route. And just when we thought that our worries were over (we were going down hill after all) it wasn't! There were spots of the trail that was still very snowy and unfortunately very slippery as well. Here's Marcus getting swept off of his feet.

We tried to be careful with the snow but it can be decieving. So when we would feel our feet slipping from underneath us, we would quickly grab a hold of the fence.

Finally after about 4 hours we made it down! We started at about 11 am and got back to our car close to 3 pm. We saw a sign on the way down to the end of the trail and it said how many miles it was to go to the top of the incline which was 4 miles. So with our 1 mile up and 4 miles down, we had walked 5 miles that day. Our longest hike with the kids ever!

After that, we had a late lunch/early dinner and called it a day.

My thoughts after finally saying I have done the "incline hike".....it was butt kicking, super tough and something I don't think I'll be doing in the near future BUT I'm glad I did it, that I had my family experiencing the struggles and the accomplishments with me and that we had a great workout for that day.

The "Incline", you love to hate it but you know you'll be a better person after it. :)

Till next time,

Grace