Hiking Mt. Thomas

The beginning of the hike.
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This was the best hike ever. Jen and I along with Parker and Kavi hiked to the summit of Mt. Thomas.  Beautiful doesnt describe it. The pictures don't do it justice.  I only hope to describe it well enough.

I picked the hike.  Jen and I do that from time to time.  We pour over our hiking guides and then announce to the other person, "I found a hike, shut your mouth, I'm driving, it will be fun." Thats how we roll.  We wanted to do a really long one cause we knew it would probably be the last of the season since I was going to be out of town in the coming weeks at those football games you read about.

Taking a break.
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The guide said it would take anywhere from 7-8 hours to complete.  We always like to see how we compare to those figures. So we drive quite awhile to get to the trail head and didn't quite expect the road to be THAT bad.  It was awful but the good 'ol Exploder pulled it off.  (RIP Exploder)

The hike started our pretty easy.  Just a nice, gradual incline.  The sun was beating down at times but it was really nice.  We stopped after a couple hours to have a snack a take a breather, take pics, etc.  We stopped at a really beautiful drop off and took some photos. Parker sunned himself in the grass.  It was a really nice moment.  But on we marched, we has a long way to go to get to the summit and dilly dallying wasn't allowed.  We definately didn't want to get stuck in the dark.

Don't fall.
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On we went.  There was a particularly dicy little area that we had to cross but un beknownst to me, not near as bad as the next area to come.  The first was a really narrow little path on really chunky rock.  AND it has a goood little incline to it with big drop offs on both sides.  I didn't like it.  When we got to the top the site before us was amazing.  It was a boulder field with a narrow path cut into the side of the mountain.  The picture doesn't do it justice.  The drop off to the side was bad.

Parky likes to sun himself.
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It started off pretty good.  The path was comfortably wide enough and there was only a slight breeze.  My biggest concern was Parky's little legs falling into a crevice and breaking.  He did great though. This part of the hike seemed to go on forever.  We followed the trail which was a large arc that led us around and up to a to the next part of the hike.  One area was particularly dicey and still makes me uncomfortable.  The path really narowed down and the drop off was bad.  And of course the wind picked up at this time.  And I forgot to mention that I had been suffering from vertigo for about a week because I had a head cold and the higher in elevation I got, the worse it got.  Anyway, me made it thru that part and off to the next part of our journey.

This is what we got to walk on.
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The next leg as really interesting.  The land was flat and had prairie grass all over.  Cairns helped mark the trail and the scenery was amazing.  The flat land was a nice break from incline and rocks.

We descended a bit before our last hike to the top.  I had to jump a stream and twisted my ankle.  It sucked. On we went.  The last part was hard for me.  I was winded and dizzy and tired.  But we finally made it to the top and what an amazing feeling/view.  According to the trail guide on a clear day you are able to see clear over to Rocky Mountain National Park  to the Northeast and to the Maroon Bells South of Aspen.  It was just beautiful.  We hung out for a bit, took some pics, then headed back.  We had a longs ways to go to get back before dark.

Can you spot the trail?
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We noticed several things on the way back that we didn't see on the way up.  Not too far from the top I looked over to see a beautiful turquoise lake that we had missed before.  Then right before the boulder field we stopped to take a pic and in the distance I saw a moving black object.  It was a bear!!! I was so excited and I tried to point it out to Jen but he was back in the trees before se could spot it.  We made sure to make lots of noise as we walked as we walked past that area.

Getting closer!!
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It was getting toward dusk we we had about a half hour left.  We took a few more pics and then we made our way to the car.  Back down the rutty road and toward home.  What a day!!  I'll probably never forget it.

And for the record. It took us 7 hours exactly to do the hike.  We were proud of us.