The weekend of September 20th, Liz and I visited Colorado Springs for two reasons: to catch up with our West Coast friends, who met us there, and to check how we’d react to the altitude at the top of Pike’s Peak, which is 14,114 feet above sea level at its summit.
Our friends had another challenge for us – to summit The Incline, which is a mile long staircase cut into a hill in Manitou Springs, Colorado. It begins at 7,000 feet above sea level and ends at almost 9,000 feet. The average incline is 41.5%. It took us an hour and 20 minutes, but we did it. We were amazed how much we felt the altitude but that we were able to fight through it to the top. The views were spectacular and made the climb well worth the effort.
Later that day we took the Cog Train up to the summit of Pike’s Peek. The timberline falls away at 10,000 feet and there was nothing but rock and low grass. Though it was 75 degrees at the base, it was barely over 30 degrees once we stopped at the top. No doubt we felt the lower oxygen level just walking around. With Kilimanjaro topping over 19,000 feet, this was a real wake up call as to what we will experience as we climb to the highest point in Africa.
johnamanjaro 