Quandary Peak

Today was probably the most tiring days of my vacation. I climbed a mountain, more specifically, Quandary Peak. Quandary is a 14,265 foot beast, an 8 hour hike, the thirteenth tallest mountain in Colorado. The trail started out steep going through a mildly dense forest, then came into a huge boulder field, and then an upwards free-climb through more huge rocks, each covering about 1/3 of the mountain, and each one is obviously harder than the other. As I began the ascent, it was pretty easy, me and my brother were way ahead of every1 else in my family. While this was sustained throughout the entire climb, it became considerably harder as we went on. About half way, my sister had succumb to altitude sickness, and my mom's knee was acting up (she has a bad knee), so her and my sister turned back. My brother, dad, and I kept going pushing to the peak, by the time we had gotten to the peak, it was uncannily cold for the height of summer, temperatures in the 30s. After having a small lunch, giving us the much needed nourishment for the descent, we began to retrace our steps downwards. While the descent takes less than half of the time it takes to ascend, it is equally as hard, because by that time everything hurt, especially your knees. Under the tree line, you thought you were so close to the end of the trail, but with every turn came disappointment that you had to push on through. On the flip side though, that just made the REAL trail end so much more worth it. By the time I got back to my car, i was a shell, completely out of energy, and got in the car immediately and involuntarily falling asleep to get some well earned rest.