Mount Bierstadt, 14,065 feet, my first 14er, alhamdulillah ❤️It was such an incredible day on the trail, with hundreds of people, including many families with little children, all so friendly & encouraging. Hiking a mountain is a constant see saw between certainty & doubt, and you find yourself calling upon all of your mental & physical reserves to keep going. I passed a large group of Indians around halfway up. They asked me “Kaisa chal raha hai” in street Hindi, and I politely responded “Aap kaise hain” 😂 They told me I was carrying too much water and I told them I didn’t want to run out. I said “Upar milte hain”, my way of saying See you at the top. They called out behind me, “Yahan paas upar, pura upar nahin”, Not all the way at the top, just at the summit, and I couldn’t stop laughing. I had read the final push was a Class 2 scramble but even I gasped when the trail ran out and I looked up at a seemingly vertical wall of boulders. But after nearly five hours, I had come too far to turn back. That didn’t stop me from whining to every descending hiker, “How much farther is it?” The summit itself was magical, dozens of kids relaxing and taking pictures, with bonkers views of mountains in all directions. I thought that a summit was the ultimate meritocracy - everyone up there had earned their place there through blood, sweat, and tears. Just one year earlier, I had turned back at 13,001 feet on Quandary Peak and ended up in the ER the next day. Alhamdulillah for coming back to hike another 14er & realizing that often something seems impossible just before it seems inevitable. (P.S. Everyone, go out and hike a 14er, if I can do it, you can too 🏔️)
