Vacation and Hiking in Crested Butte

Last week my family and I took a week's vacation in Crested Butte to do some hiking and relaxing in the beautiful Colorado Rocky Mountains. Although we missed the Crested Butte Wildflower Festival by one week, we still enjoyed the flowers on our hikes.

As we explored the Crested Butte area and enjoyed numerous hikes, we got to spend time together as a family which I really enjoy doing. It's hard to believe that my girls are basically adults now (they are 15 and 20 years old). Bailey even got a second week of altitude camp in for her cross country training by running every day that we were there.

My in-laws even joined us with our two nephews and we all had a very relaxing time together. We even rented some paddle boards and went to Lake Irwin one day. This wasn't something that would have been very easy for me to do, so I enjoyed watching everyone experience the paddle boards for the first time in a cold mountain lake.

Crested Butte is a sleepy little mountain town with a well-known ski resort. We enjoyed hanging out in town, checking out the restaurants and shops, and also finding trails to explore all around the area, including on the ski mountain. Unfortunately, the Crested Butte ski resort was recently acquired by Vail Resorts. This means that it will be completely over-developed soon enough, everything will become too pricy and too crowded with traffic just like all the other resorts it owns. What a drag.

Later in the week, we visited a friend in Lake City and hiked Spring Creek Pass, a high mountain pass with an average grade of 7.5% at 10,901 feet. My phone told me that I climbed 50 flights of stairs that day which was quite an achievement for my withered legs. When we returned to the car, we took a photo by the trailhead sign and Janene had her arm around me and said, 'Your legs are shaking, you need to sit down.' I just chuckled and said, 'Yeah, I know.' Even so, I loved it! I am so thankful to be able to feel that exhaustion from completing a difficult hike.

New Braces and Hiking in Colorado

After about a year-and-a-half of wearing my old carbon fiber AFO braces (Ankle and Foot Orthoses), I recently got a new pair of Phat Braces which are also made of carbon fiber, but have a much better warranty and are widely used by people everywhere.  The big difference between my old braces and the new Phat Braces is that the Phat Braces are taller and stiffer (but they are beginning to soften a bit). They come up my leg to right below my knee which is further than my old braces . This makes them much more stable and it which allows me to balance and walk much easier. They also have some flexible plastic that wraps around the foot (as you can see in the image to the right) which also helps to provide more stability. The biggest benefit about them so far, however, is that it did not take my body six weeks to adjust to them. The previous braces actually took six weeks for my body to adjust and I was in pain the entire time. The company that provided them told me that's just how it goes. Through that adjustment period, I had to have at least a dozen manual adjustments to the carbon fiber (e.g., heat them up, bend out here and there, etc.), probably closer to 18 or so. With the new Phat Braces, I've only had two adjustments and my body has already adjusted to them -- literally less than a week. In fact, I have had the Phat Braces two weeks now and yesterday I did my first true Colorado hike since my injury in April 2014!

Yesterday we decided to go hiking in Evergreen, CO because we were trying to get back to the spot where I proposed to Janene 20 years ago. We thought it would be cool to go back there because later this month Janene and I will be celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary. I was a bit intimidated when we started the hike because of the elevation gain on the trail and the number of large rocks that you hike over on the trail. I did take a single arm crutch with me but it almost made things more difficult because of the angle at which you hold the arm crutch vs. the angle of the rocks on such an uphill elevation. Also, my new braces make going uphill difficult because they are still stiff, but they will soften a bit more in time. But with Janene's help, I completed the hike. Janene did make a good suggestion that instead of using an arm crutch I should consider getting some hiking poles. Because you hold them at a different angle, it could make going uphill and downhill over rocks easier for me. So, I'm going to try some out soon at REI.

Although the distance was not that great (1.7 miles), this was the most uphill/downhill I have done since my spinal cord injury 3.5 years ago -- I actually impressed myself. As proof of the level of workout for my body, my lower back and my hips were really tired after the hike and sore this morning. But I really enjoyed getting out for a hike with Janene and Bailey. So, I'm really looking forward to doing more hiking. I guess I can really start enjoying the fact that we live in Colorado again!