Deer Mountain

Oh my goodness, what caused THAT grossness you may ask?

Another fun filled, crazy, tiring, day in the Rocky Mountain National Park of course!

Today, we hiked up Deer Mountain today.  Three miles up a moutain!  And three miles back down.  

Did I tell you I'm tired and sore?  

It was totally worth it though.  Beautiful scenery, plus we can brag that we DID it!  

This is at the bottom of the mountain.  Notice in this photo I do not look as hot and sweaty as the next few! ;)

So the way that you gain +1,083 feet of elevation in 3 miles is  a long series of switchback trails , all ascending, up the side of the mountain.  Its pretty rough and the dirt is pebbly, sandy, and small boulder laden.  That's what happened to our feet.  

This sign's a little hard to read on the blog, but it informed us that we only had to go 0.2 more miles to the summit!  But, I don't know what the elevation change between here and the summit was, but I almost quit and went back!  We had to stop at least 4 times on that last 0.2 miles.  The trail became a series of stairs with 2 foot tall steps you have to hall yourself over.

We were glad when we actually did finally make it to the top.  The elevation here was  10,013'  and although it wasn't even close to as high as we were yesterday, it still offered beautiful views.  It was also the first time we had been able to see the town of Estes Park from on top of a mountain.  We could even see our campsite!  On top of the mountain, we rested, ate another salami and avocado sandwich and watched more chipmunks.  

This marker was at the peak.  It says Bureau of Reclamation and 250.00 Dollars Fine For Distrubing This Marker.  

On the way back down the mountain we actually had to go back up a little ways, because we had gone through a little dip getting to the summit.  Going up on our way down was killer!  When we hit the point in the trail where all roads were pointed down I was so happy!  Allen got this picture because he wanted to remember the big grin on my face.  No more climbing the mountain!!  

This is back where we parked the truck and began our hike.  I'm pointing to approximately where we hiked.  It was a long long way.  But, even though I keep complaining, I'm really glad we did it!  Now we can say we hiked Deer Mountain!



After returning from our epic trek, we took showers to get the grime off our feet and took a nap.  And guess who stopped by to visit when we woke up?