altitude and prepare a bit. By the time we had done that, the small window of opportunity was gone. The weather can be brutal up there in the wind, winter, and colder fall nights. So, we waited unitl next summer. Unfortunately, by this July, I didn't really care if I hiked it or not. I have done a lot of things during my time here in Colorado, and I didn't really feel like I would be missing much if I didn't do this. However, David and Emmy, Jeff, Kendra, and Jeremy were all going. Claire was waiting on my decision because she was as enthusiastic as I was. Because Jeremy was 
going, I felt I needed to go - you know, not be the loser who won't try something in our relationship. :) Jeremy told me to just stay home if I didn't want to go, but I didn't listen. So, on Saturday, July 19 at 9am, we started our journey from La Jara toward the mountain. We had to stop to get gas, change 
backpacks, and some other miscellaneous stuff. We finally arrived at the parking spot at 11am. We (Jeremy, me, Kendra, Claire, and Taylor) rolled out of the car and placed our 25-30 pound backpacks on our backs - yuck! You follow "the most difficult 4-wheel drive road in Colorado" for the first day's hike. It was horrible. This road would take us to Lake Como where we would camp that night. The road was rocky, steep, and never-ending. I hated every step of it. Poor Jeremy was with three reluctant - and not always very encouraging - hikers. Each hiker we passed gave us bad news - "Still a long ways to go", "After the stream, you have 1100 feet of elevation to go. It steep and bad." Until finally, we sat down a rock to rest thinking we 
could go no further, and a hiker coming down said, "Don't stop now. You only have about 15 more minutes!" We 
slowly rose from our resting positions and continued on our way. Claire let out a scream for joy when we finally saw the lake at 5pm - almost 6 hours and 6 miles after the beginning of the trek. We set up tents, laid on the grass, fly fished, ate freeze dried (and very yummy) suppers, and enjoyed the view. It was beautiful at Lake Como. Jeremy caught his first trout (see pic to the left). We crawled into our sleeping bags and waited for the 5:30am wake up call.*
At 5:30am, Will (volunteer at La Puente), Jeremy, Claire, Taylor, Emmy, and I emerged from our tents, wiped the sleep from our eyes, tried to eat some breakfast, filtered water, and then began part two of our trek to Blanca. We started walking without the really heavy bags and discovered what a gift losing about 25 pounds can be! This part of the hike was beautiful. We passed three more lakes and hiked on the rolling trail. We thought this was going to be easy until we arrived at the boulder field. This was no normal boulder field. This was the whole side of Blanca. It lead to Blanca Peak, Ellingwood Peak, and Little Bear - All 14ers! We slowly picked our way up the side of the mountain. Will - our fearless leader - was like a mountain goat and went straight up. I
freaked out a bit and started trying to follow the cairns. This gave me little goals and helped keep my mind and stomach settled. We arrived at the high point of the saddle between Ellingwood and Blanca. You can see the crew (minus me who is taking the pic) on the saddle - note drop off on the backside of us! The other picture is of the ridge to Ellingwood Peak and then the backbone of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains behind it. The view into the valley was awesome. It was lush and green. I am not really sure that my 
camera captured it, but I tried. The San Luis Valley was flat and went on forever! Jeremy summited Blanca after resting awhile. I decided that maybe I didn't want to walk along the ridge (you can see the Blanca ridge behind us in the group photo) and would consider the saddle my summit. Claire and I hung out there and waited for the remainder to summit and return to the saddle - about 40 minutes round-trip.*
When the group returned, we headed back - destination: the car! The hike from the lake to the summit was 3.2 miles one way. The boulder field was surprisingly easier on the way down because we could follow the "trail" down. We continued hiking, refilled our water up at the first lake, and continued hiking. We finally made it back to the campsite (total hiking for the day: 6.4 miles) about 2pm. We tossed off our small bags and flopped down on our sleeping bags. I was exhausted! We laid down for about 10 minutes before packing up camp. We left about 3pm for the final leg down the dreaded Jeep road. My feet hurt, the pads of my big toes were rubbed raw, between my shoulder blades was going numb with pain, and I was miserable. The road never seemed to end. When we finally hit treeline we should have been relieved; however, this was the exact moment the thunder started and the rain began falling. We continued hiking. The rain turned to small pellets of hail. The thunder cracked; the lightning flashed. Most of us took cover for a bit. The storm did not let up; we decided to keep going; we were already wet anyway. Finally, after 30 minutes the storm let up, but the cold breeze continued. We were miserable and dragging our feet, trying not to trip on the rocks. We arrived to the car - such a pretty sight - but I had no energy to even be excited. We ordered pizza, which we were too exhausted to eat, watched a re-run of Seinfeld, took some Advil, and went to bed.
*
I will never again hike Blanca Peak. I guess I would recommend it for the views after/at Lake Como. I am still working on being able to say that I am proud to accomplished such a feat. I am just happy - three days later - to finally be able to walk without limping, although there is still pain that shoots through my tired calf muscles. Jeremy, of course, may paint a little better picture (as would one or two others in our group), but this is my account of Blanca Peak.
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