Mt Elbert

hello! my dad is going to be shocked that I am actually updating this because I have been telling him that I was going to for about a week now...so this one is for you dad!
The main purpose of this post is to tell you about the incredibly cool Friday night/Saturday morning that I had last week!

So last Friday, July 10/Saturday, July 11...

• 11:3o pm: met with 6 other crazy people in the lobby of Simba Run
• 12:15 am : loaded up the cars and headed an hour west into Leadville


• 2:00 am arrived at the trail head (the drive took longer than an hour bc we got a little turned around :)


• 2:15 am : started up Mt Elbert, the tallest peak in Colorado


• 5:20 am : summited before the sun was up (the picture to the right was right before the first rays starting coming over the peaks across from us, it was absolutely freezing!)
5:47 am : watched the sunrise from the tallest peak in CO while freezing my hiney off (the smaller picture is of the 2 other people who made it up before the sun! Elisa (Omaha) and Matt (Mizzou) were my hiking buddies throughout the night)





• 6:00 am : started back down to the cars


• 9:30 am : collapsed into cars and headed back to Vail


• 11:00 am : best nap of my life :) but only for 30 minutes bc soon we were headed off to Denver for the Rockies v Braves baseball game!

Below is a completely ridiculous video of me that I took from the top of the mountain, please excuse the fuzziness at some points, it ends up focusing again...and please excuse my lack of brain functionality, it had been like...46 hours since I had slept at this point, and I was starting to feel the effects haha.






Another thing that I should share with you guys, since it was completely novel to me when I first arrived, is this whole concept of "Fourteeners." They are apparently a really big deal in Colorado, and most places out west. The name comes from them being at least 14,000 feet, and you are not considered a hardcore hiker until you have done at least one. (So now im officially harcore in case you were wondering) haha, actually people do tons of these and Elbert is probably one of the easiest, but it still sounds kinda cool to say "I have done a Fourteener"

Mt Elbert is Colorado's highest peak at 14,443 feet, but is the second highest peak in the continental US, there is one in CA that is like 65 feet higher.


My night hike up Mt Elbert was an amazing time of fellowship with my friends and just another incredible way to see God's beautiful creation. Everyday here I grow deeper in my thankfulness for the world and people He has given us to enjoy. Here is a little peek at the sunrise I got to see.