Make a bee-line for tree-line...

More Colorado... more hiking... more adventure. We had a day off while at national staff conference and took advantage of the day by going on a long hike. We went with some of our good friends and headed out at 4:30am for Rocky Mountain National Park. For some reason, I never get car sick anywhere, but when heading to the Park. Two years ago, I felt super nauseous... and this time.. not too good.. As we drove around this snaking road up and around and really high, I decided I should probably get out briefly to help with the car sickness - just to walk around. Instead I got out, took ten steps, and ended up throwing-up. Not what I was planning... before a 11 mile hike.

Eventually, we made it to the trail head for Mt. Ida. It was pretty neat as we knew we would hike some of the Continental Divide. It started as a beautiful day and super cold.. so cold we wished we would of had gloves. We hiked and hiked and hiked.. and almost all had some form of altitude sickness.. and got pretty wore out from the elevation change. For much of the time, we were above tree-line...which basically means, no trees.. but on this trail it also meant, no nothing... for most of the time (not even rocks). The reason I tell you this now, is there is quite a story later where I will mention the tree-line.

The nothing-ness above tree-line...

So, pretty tired.. we kept trekking for the summit. As we were getting higher and higher, we noticed more and more clouds and were getting more and more hungry... and less and less energy... and feeling the effects of altitude sickness. We saw several people going back down and advising us they were turning around because they didn't like the look of the clouds. They didn't want to get caught above tree-line in a storm. We weren't at the summit yet, but knew we needed some added energy and decided to eat. We made a group decision that indeed the clouds didn't look good and even though we were like a 1/4 mile from the summit that we should take others' advice and head back down the mountain. Oh, and the reason we left so early in the morning is because you want to summit and get back below tree-line before 2ish, because storms can blow in quickly and you don't want to get stuck above tree-line, because as I mentioned before... there is nothing.. no trees.. and in our case no rocks... no nothing. So, you are basically the tallest thing for miles and thus lightning can strike you way more easily.

So, back down we headed... and lo and behold in blew the storm.. way earlier than most storms typically blow-in above tree-line. It began with rain, which I could handle. Then it began hailing... and hailing.. and hard hailing.. and then I heard it.. the loudest crack of thunder in my life and down I fell. No.. I didn't get struck by lighting.. but knew lighting and thunder tangoed and knew that I was the tallest thing for miles.. and so my body reacted to that truth by falling instantaneously after the thunder. I have a good bruise to prove it.


I was scared.... yup.. really scared. Praise the Lord that I have the greatest husband ever, who immediately started claiming Bible verses and praying. We were literally face-down on the side of the mountain giving adoration to the Lord, praying that He would protect us, protect our friends (who are pregnant), and spare our lives. Joe told me later that he was the most scared he ever was in his life.. but knew I needed him and so didn't act scared. We finally arose after what seemed like the longest 15 minutes in my life. Then we ran... ran.. ran so fast... even though 20 minutes prior we all thought we were so tired that we couldn't walk another step. God gave us His strength and adrenaline. We ran almost all the way down.. it took us 2 hours to get down the mountain when it had taken us 5 hours to get up! We were freezing from the hail and pooped.. but so thankful for the Lord's protection!