A climb up Breckenridge’s beloved backdrop
This post was originally published in student Ali Gringas’s blog “See What I See”
A year ago this time I posted an entry about hiking Baldy Mountain with three of my friends. Unfortunately we got to just over 13,000 ft and decided we were exhausted.
This year however, I not only made it to the peak, but I also had plenty of energy to spare! I’ve been working really hard this year to eat right and stay in shape, and it really paid off. Unfortunately I didn’t bring my GoPro like an idiot, but here’s our adventure in iPhone photos and some of my friend Kate Payne’s photos.
Remember that when I state a phrase like “a couple hundred feet from the peak,” that’s vertical feet – not how many feet we actually climbed, which can sometimes be 6x the vertical feet. Another misconception about climbing a mountain is that you climb up on the way up, and down on the way down… but that is so not true. On top of the switch backs below treeline, there are a ton of what I like to call mini mountains on top of the actual mountain, so you’re constantly climbing up and then back down while gaining altitude. This makes climbing Baldy really fun, but I guess also exhausting for some.
Check out the link to Ali’s blog to view more photos!