Oh Sweet Incline, How I love thee, let me count the ways, one....one....I guess just one.

Somehow in addition to picking up golf this summer, Laura convinced me that hiking 14'ers is also a great Colorado past time that everyone should get into doing. For training for this "summertime stroll in the park" Laura suggested (I swear it was her idea) that we climb the incline in Manitou Springs once a week after work. Which sounds like a great idea until you are standing at the foot of the thing:

That's 2000 vertical feet in just under a mile. Not to mention it's from like 6800 to 8800 feet, not for you lowlanders. That's a lot of freaking stairs. And they aren't all evenly spaced and nice. oh no. The part on public land (shown here) is pretty well maintined. The part where you are technically trespassing is not. Oh no.

The incline is an old cog railroad near Pikes Peak and is pretty popular training location for local athletes. The record for this puppy (by Matt Carpenter) is 18 minutes. The dude is insane. Here is a link with more information: http://www.hikingintherockies.com/hiking/hike%20reports/manitouincline/manitouincline.htm


Anyway, we started off pretty slow, wondering what the heck we were trying to prove.

After you get about halfway up, it's really just going through the motions. About this time, I couldnt' turn around and look down, so don't expect many more pictures of "the view" because I swore I was going to tumble to my death. But here's Laura still somehow managing to look like she was having a good time:



But an hour and half later we finally made it to the top! Hooray! I couldnt' believe we did it on the first try! There is a bailout point about 2/3 the way up, but by the time you got that far, you may as well keep going.

Not sure who that chick is that insisted on ruining my picture, but I was too tired to care by that point. You can tell by the fact that I can't even hold the camera straight. Anyway. If you have never climbed a mountain, it's the strangest feeling in the world. You hate just about every second of it, then you get to the top and are ready to sign up to do it again. Best feeling in the world to accomplish something you didn't think you could do! And to show our enthusiasm, we even ran halfway down the trail that leads back home. So yes, we are going again next week. Anyone is invited, email me, I'll give you time and dates so crazy internet stalkers don't show up conveniently at the same time. You know who you are.