Mt. Evans! 14,258 feet above sea level

Katie's good friend Erik Ieuter from Midland, MI is visiting us for the week.  One of Erik's goals in life is to climb every 14'er in Colorado.  A 14'er is a peak above 14,000 feet.  So he flew in Tuesday, and first thing Wednesday morning he and I set out for Mt. Evans.  We got off the Georgetown exit and began making our way over Guanella pass.  We got most of the way before getting turned around due to a rock slide.  This changed things for us.  Now we were going to have to head to a different trailhead to complete the hike.  Instead of the hike being 9 miles round trip, it would be 14 miles with about 4200 feet of elevation gain.  No biggie.  So we drove back to Idaho Springs and took the road up to Echo Lake.  We hiked from Echo Lake all the way past Summit Lake to nearly the peak of Mt. Spaulding before a huge storm rolled in and we were forced to turn around.  Erik was getting shocked through his metal hiking poles, and the wire in pinky (from surgery) was making buzzing sounds.  It began to snow harder as we made our way down to the parking lot at Summit Lake.  I asked a couple who was getting in their car if they wouldn't mind driving us down to our car since they were going that way, and they agreed.  We were bummed we didn't make the summit.  We decided that we would go back the next day and attempt it again from Summit Lake.  So Thursday morning we set out again from Summit Lake, and made it to the summit of Mt. Evans about two hours later!  It took two days, but we did it.  It was a beautiful hike, and we made it to the top right before some weather was rolling in.  Good times, but I am sore.  Erik, however, woke up at 3:30 a.m. this morning (Friday) to go climb Huron Peak.  He's crazy.