How to hike CCY

So I hiked CCY today. It was a pretty crazy experience that my hiking group (Daniel, Kristin and I) broke down into three 10 step process in order to explain our CCY experience.

Finding the Trail Head
1) Start driving up Trail Ridge Road with your two hiking buddies looking for the turn off road
2) Unknowingly miss the road and drive to the top of Trail Ridge before realizing you missed the turn off
3) Start driving back down Trail Ridge looking for the trail head, but get sick and pull over and puke out of the car
4) Switch drivers
5) Continue down Trail Ridge
6) Find the turn off road
7) Drive up this scary steep narrow dirt road before finding the trail head
8) Finally pull over and get out of the car
9) Get all your hiking gear together
10) Pray for God's blessing on your hike (which has already been pretty crazy)

Hiking CCY
1) Follow the trail
2) Stop a few times to talk, have water, pray, journal, and take pictures
3) Finally get to Chapin
4) Hike to the top of Chapin and chill for a while
5) Hike down, then start the painfully long hike up Chiquita
6) Get to the top of Chiquita and celebrate
7) Turn around a see a storm coming in, put on some garbage bags and hide behind a rock for wind protection while you wait out the storm
8) Hike down Chiquita over toward Ypislon
9) Hike up Ypislon
10) Wait for Kristin to take a quick trip over to Fairchild (which she hiked in about 30 min there and back)

Getting back home
1) Start hiking down Ypsilon
2) Realize quickly that the rain has made all the rocks slippery
3) Fall a lot, twist both of your ankles while falling
4) Realize you don't really know where the trail back to the car is
5) Keep hiking over rocks in the general direction you think the trail might be
6) Look over and see more storm clouds
7) Get caught in a rain/hail storm, but keep hiking because it's getting dark and that means colder
8) Finally find the trail
9) Stop and pray, thanking God for a majorly insane adventure
10) Make it back to the car and drive back to the Y'


Quote of the Day: I want to pee on the continental divide so that my pee will be in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.