After some discussions, we decided to head towards Outpost Peak, which is just north of Vail. To start out the hike, you use Pitkin Lake Trail. This trail is 8.5 miles out and back with 2,864 feet of elevation gain. One thing the trail map doesn't tell you is that the first mile sucks. Most trails ease into the elevation gain but this one starts up with a lot of steps very quickly. After the initial mile or so of uphill, you then have some fairly level spots where you can regain your breath before the next uphill slope starts.
So we followed this trail until we got about .5 miles or so from the lake. At that point it was time to start heading upwards. The picture below shows the view from the bottom to our destination, the red little square.
It's at this point in time that I felt like I had never worked out a day in my life and Nick absolutely destroyed me scrambling up the mountain. However after quite a few breaks, I finally made it to the top. The next picture definitely doesn't do it justice because I feel like it was a lot steeper than what it shows but either way it was a beautiful view.
After a quick snack, it was time to hit the ridge and make it to the summit. The next picture shows the final destination. This part was a lot of fun for me since I haven't done much scrambling and it was nice having views on both sides the entire time. The only downfall was that the snow made it a little slick and hid some much needed footholds for me.
Here's another picture looking back the opposite way of where we came from and also has a nice view of the lake. (Thanks Nick for sending me an updated pic with the names on there.)
After my spirits were up from making it to the top, I then got to experience the fun downhill portion of scrambling over loose rocks and bushwhacking through the trees. While it was definitely not as physically tiring, it was brutal on the ankles zig zagging back and forth trying to keep a foot hold. It was also nice getting to see another viewpoint from the mountain and we got to go past a nice little creek and a lake on the way back to the trail.
All in all it was a wonderful day. The weather couldn't of been any nicer and I got to experience a lot of new things. Even though I was exhausted at the end of the day, I can't wait until the next hike. So thanks again Nick.
On a side note, I recently purchased a Garmin Fenix 2 for hiking/trail running and this was my first time using it. Overall I was fairly impressed with the watch Below is a quick overview of the hike and the various items it tracked. The elevation was within 100-200 feet the majority of the time which was pretty good in my opinion. Obviously the temperature is not very accurate as to the real weather conditions since it was the temperature of the watch on my wrist. The only statistic that jumped out at me as being quite a bit off is the distance. I believe our total mileage was more around 10.5 vs. 11.93, so I'll need to do some tuning to try to dial that in more. I also think the 1,303 calories is completely insane because I felt like I burned well over 2,000!
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