What a day! It didn't start out the way I wanted, but I had a great time anyway. I took my kids to the Utah football game on Thursday night and by time I got home and got my stuff together I was in bed at 11:50 with the alarm set for 1:25 AM. It took me about 10 minutes to fall asleep and then I had a wrong number call me at 1:15 AM, so I got a little over a hour of sleep.
It took me 3 hours to drive to the trailhead to meet my friend and we were off hiking just at 5:00 AM. We made great time and were at Gunsight Pass in just over 3 hours. My left ITB was hurting a little bit already, so I took some Ibuprofen and we had our first break at the pass.
We good time over to Anderson Pass as well and my ITB pain subsided some. At the pass we took a short break and then headed up to Kings Peak, the highest point in the state of Utah. There were some threatening clouds building, but nothing serious yet.
After about 15 minutes I hit the wall and the lack of sleep + the altitude nearly brought me to my knees. I was totally exhausted and felt terrible. I slowed down considerably and about 5 minutes from the top I sat down to get my heart rate down and I fell asleep within a minute. I heard someone coming down from the top and that woke me back up and I had a little burst of energy that got me up there. This was my 6th time on the summit and it felt great. I laid on the summit rock and actually fell asleep again for about 20 minutes, and was awakened by some thunder far off in the distance.
I attempted a 'peak jump', and that was a mistake that made my ITB start hurting really bad. We tried to go fast back down to Anderson Pass, but I was lacking energy and my ITB was killing me, so it was slow. I felt a little better going back to Gunsight, but my ITB was still sore. More ibuprofen at the pass and then the long slog out was really really hard. My knee hurt and the lack of sleep was really felt.
The last few miles I was in a trance like state and kind of fell asleep while I was hiking, only to be startled back awake when I would pass someone hiking in.
The ice cold drinks in the cooler were fantastic and I downed a Red-Bull to help keep me awake. It was an amazing day! I'll be back. | 