Finally a summit day!!! After coming so close at Mt. Elbert and then getting washed out at Mt. Ida and pretty much anything else we thought about trying the past couple days we finally made it to a summit today. Our morning began early – 5:00 and we were at the trailhead and ready to go by 7. Since our target for the day, the Estes Cone, shares a parking lot with Long’s Peak we were lucky to snag one of the last spots in the lot. Even better everyone was in a super mood and eager to hike from the get go.
Estes Cone is only a few miles from Twin Sisters Peaks where we hiked last year and the similar geology was evident all the way up. We travelled through pine forest early then transitioned to a mix of rocks and trees that got progressively steeper. Since today’s summit was quite a bit lower than last year’s we got to skip the whole coming out of tree line and seeing the peak looming over us. As soon as we cleared the trees, we were there.
We took our time scrambling around the different rocky outcroppings at the top until settling on the one that seemed to be the highest. I think we all wanted to make sure that we made it to the absolute highest spot on the mountain. We enjoyed the view, took a bunch of pictures and even got in a snack before heading back down.
The trip back to the car flew by. I think we only made one real stop to enjoy our PBJ&C’s. Molly and Zoe joined Ellie and I in our run at the end of the hike to the amusement of the ranger stationed there. Since we had been moving so quick the whole day we managed to finish the entire 7 mile hike just after noon.
We foolishly thought it may be a good opportunity to stop by the visitor’s center to pick up a couple things we wanted. At least the visitor’s center entrance was located before the park entrance so we were able to avoid a bit of the mile long line. There are a LOT of people here this weekend. I think we’ll have to get up early again tomorrow if we want to get a hike in.
The rest of the afternoon was spent grocery/beer shopping, swimming, doing laundry, and now enjoying the calamari we promised Ellie for making it to the summit. I’ve been trying to convince everyone we should go see the cowboy singer in the park tonight. Secretly I’m just hoping for a dinner that doesn’t suck though. It’ll hard to be upset with anything that happens though after sitting on top of the world.