Looking down the incline to Colorado Springs
Preparation
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Pikes Peak, Colorado 4,300m./14,110ft (June 4th, 9th and 30th 2005)
With much warm weather in the last 3 weeks, a climb of the standard route up Pikes Peak look possible, with an early start the over 2,100m./7000ft climb would be possible in a long 38km/24mile day. I kept my gear to a comfortable minimum, taking rain gear, foot, camera, ski poles and 3 liters of water.
With a 4am wake up, I took a much reduced basel insulin dose (15units lantus rather than 30) but upped my humalog to cope with a large breakfast (5units). A quick drive and I began hiking from the trailhead (2,011m./ 6600ft.) at 4:55am (180mgdl). For the first part of the hike I took the shorter but much steeper route up the 'incline', over 610m./2000ft. gain in 1.6kilometers/1mile this took 40minutes but left me at 78mgdl so snack time. From here another the next 6,4km/4 miles include a small gain of 365m./1200ft. to Barr Camp a small hut and campsite at 3,108m./10,200ft. which I arrived at 7am (90mgdl) time for more food as the climb now steepens. The next 4.8km/3 miles take you up to treeline at 3,657m./12,000ft., 7:55am (81mgdl). Over the next 4.8km/3 miles the mountain steepens towards its summit and leaves you exposed to the elements but in a beautiful setting looking down on Colorado, I tested at just under 3,962m./13,000ft. (117mgdl) and continued to 4,145m./13,600ft. at around 9:30am, at this point the cloud level had dropped and the wind was trying to throw me off the mountain, with steep hard snow covering the trail and numb hands inside my thin gloves I deceded to leave the top 500ft for next time. I made one stop on the decent in a near treeline to have lunch 10:20am with blood sugars at 86mgdl then headed down, spliting 50/50 between hiking and running to get me back to the trailhead at 12:30 with 64mgdl.
On June 9th weather weather was much more cooperative with warm sun to summit, with cloud cover begining to build on return.
| June 4th (climb/decend time 7hr30min) | June 9th (climb/decend time 7hr40min) | June 30th (climb/decend time 6hr5min) | |||
| 4:00 Wakeup | 116mgdl, 15units lantus / 5units humalog | 4:00 Wakeup | 96mgdl, 15units lantus / 4units humalog | 4:00 Wakeup | 151mgdl, 15units latus / 4units humalog |
| 4:55 Trailhead | 180mgdl | 5:00 Trailhead | 166mgdl, (snack bar) | 5:00 Trailhead | 147mgdl |
| 5:38 Incline | 78mgdl (snack bar) | 5:42 Incline | 72mgdl, (snack bar, 1/2 sandwich) | 5:37 Incline | 64mgdl (snack bar) |
| 6:57 Barr Camp | 90mgdl (snack bar) | 6:57 Barr Camp | 97mgdl, (snack bar) | 6:37 Barr Camp | 80mgdl (snack bar) |
| 7:55 Treeline | 81mgdl (snack bar) | 7:55 Treeline | 87mgdl (snack bar) | 7:30 Treeline | 98mgdl (snack bar) |
| 8:46 ~13,000ft | 117mgdl | 8:32 12,700ft | 94mgdl | 7:57 12,700ft | 96mgdl (snack bar) |
| 9:30 ~13,600ft | Turned around | 9:46 Summit | 105mgdl (sandwich and snack bar) | 8:45 Summit | 122mgdl (sandwich) |
| 10:22 | 86mgdl lunch | 9:56 Barr Camp | 96mgdl | ||
| 12:30 Finish | 64mgdl | 12:41 Finish | 68mgdl | 11:05 Finish | 77mgdl |
Doug Bursnall.
 Summit of Pikes Peak in cloud |
 Getting into the clouds |
 Bad weather halts ascent on 4th |