The Incline

Matt had this brilliant idea that we'd hike The Incline today in Manitou Springs (just a couple of miles from our house). Their website boasts "this will test your strength and endurance". I have to say that this statement is a ridiculous understatement. That, and this mama is wicked out of shape! Matt hears me complain all if the time about the extra baby weight I haven't been able to get rid of, so he suggested this hike that we had learned about as a good workout. It was a GREAT idea to go hike The Incline, as I think I lost half of the baby weight through my pores. HAHA!
Barely into it, and I decided Matt should wear Lochlan up instead. I was already huffing and puffing and we had only gone about 100 steps.


Halfway up, I told Matt that we don't need gym memberships if we climbed this thing regularly. Actually, I didn't "tell" him, as I was gasping for air between each syllable and trying to get this statement out.
Three of many, many times that I made Papa and Lochlan stop:
alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5417420911627514642" />


Looking back down. Holy caca! This thing is steep! There are some parts where it was 50 degree angles. The whole "pictures don't do the real thing justice" is so very true in this case:




We made it to the false summit, and we knew that Lochlan was done for. We fed him a bottle which we had stored away just incase and it's a good thing we did! He was starving, cold, and extremely upset that we dragged him out on this adventure.

We decided not to go the entire way back down the steps, so we carefully made our way back down the icy, snow-packed steps to the trail head for the Barr Trail. Lochlan was having a meltdown on the way back down the steps, so as people were climbing up past us, I kept apologizing for the "lack of serenity" until they got past us. HAHA!
In length, the Barr Trail was much longer than going back down the steps, but we figured it was safer. It was really icy on the trail as well, but we made it down safely to the parking lot right at dark.
We're thinking Santa might have to leave us some spikes for our hiking shoes underneath the tree this year!
Lochlan, post-hike (cold and so happy to be home!):