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| PikesPeak Pumpkin loop, CO | |
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| | PikesPeak Pumpkin loop, CO | | | |
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PikesPeak Pumpkin loop, CO
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| Hiking | 39.99 Miles |
10,091 AEG |
| | Hiking | 39.99 Miles | | | |
| 10,091 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | I don't need no stinking shuttle Part III
I seem to need some crazy goal to keep me motivated. I hiked the Superstition Ridgeline as a loop and the Superstition Ridgeline x2 the next year. So I had this idea that I wanted to do a big loop to Pikes Peak from my house.
I have had the route for a couple years and my whole crazy hiking month for me in April was to hike this in May. Unfortunately, our large amount of snow in April and May made this impossible. A lot has happened since April. Contract change and job location change. Of course the birth of our second child. Training and schedule change to name a few along with an extremely active monsoon season.
So Yesterday was the day.  I was hoping the route would be straightforward and used by others to do a loop that would allow others to see both sides of Pikes Peak in one shot. However, I would recommend setting up a shuttle (yep you heard it from I don't need no shuttle right) and doing Barr or Crags up and going down the other trail. Both sides have their Pros and Cons, but are worth doing. The mileage would be half of what I did yesterday.
Having said that my route was great and I enjoyed the hike until leaving Barr Camp for home. I tried to leave my route and bushwack straight to Crowe Gulch, but the forest is impassable so I had to follow my route. By the time I got to Oil Creek tunnel I had no motivation to go the 1/4 mile round trip to see it. I didn't take into account the high amount of precipitation this which forced me to wade through a marsh of knee deep mud which was dry when I used this route previously. At this point I was too tired to take my original route out with the extra miles and decided to follow the creek that the marsh dumps into. This was extremely difficult and unfortunately in my exhaustion looked at the topo lines wrong thinking it was a mild descent rather than an extremely steep canyon. After getting out of the canyon. I did have my first Moose sighting and filtered water as I had run out by this time. I bailed on my non preferred route which was rough, but doable and took the shortest back to connect my loop. I limped up Crowe Gulch and down Mt. Esther to complete the loop. In general I feel pretty good today and may do a little hike today just to loosen up the sore muscles. The wet mud to my knees and wet shoes for the last 8 miles made the pads of my feet a little tender, but they feel much better today.
So the only thing left for a hike like this is Ring the Peak for my area. Maybe that will be my next I don't need no stinking shuttle. 62-65 miles and 11000-13000 AEG. I'm going to need to get in better shape. I will probably try to Mountain Bike it first to make sure I don't have any surprises like this hike. 
I think I'll probably start picking off 14er's at this point because after yesterday I think most will seem easier than they would have before this hike. 
A few notes:
Crags has more up and back hikers you see the same people coming up and back. The scenery is much nicer except for walking along the toll road for a period of time. The Barr trail is out of reach for a day hike for many. In quizzing people on the way down yesterday and doing it as day hike 99% either hike it one way and get a ride down or stay at barr camp overnight and hike it from Barr Camp and back and either finish it or stay another night at Barr Camp and go down. It has interesting geology and views of the Springs. It is rougher, longer, and significantly more elevation gain than the Crags. |
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