Hiking Craze - Hopefully will last long!

So, me and a few friends from around Boulder area have started hiking the Rocky mountains around Boulder. We go every Sunday and try to hit a different hike/route every time. It's fun, good exercise and you get to see nature's beauty!

It all started from the Memorial Day weekend 1st Birthday party of Junaid's son, Hamza. We were sitting there having good desi food and a fun talk about RedBox DVD rental and their system of updating their boxes with new DVDs. According to Rizwan, they probably have a way of sending code to burn DVDs over the network instead of sending employees to put in new DVDs every Tuesday (usually when the DVDs are released). There was almost a bet for Cigars for everyone since Masood and a lot of others thought that was a ridiculous idea at the moment. Everyone believed that it is quite possible, but that's not what RedBox does currently. They should however!

And then, Jarrar (who had been talking about going for a hike to Mt. Sanitas for some time) insisted that we go for this hike on Monday (it being a holiday - Memorial Day). We all pondered and finalized that we should leave at 6:00am from Junaid's place. If you are not familiar with Junaid... getting up at 6:00am for Junaid is like not sleeping for two nights. Not many people liked the idea of a hike and that so early in the morning on a holiday when you can sleep a few more hours than a usual Monday. So it all came down to that me and Jarrar and Junaid were going to go for sure. Jarrar picked me up and we went to get gas before getting to Junaid's place. While we were getting gas, my phone had fallen on the seat on Jarrar's car and I didn't hear the phone ring while talking to Jarrar. It was Junaid calling to make sure we were still coming! I realized while going towards Junaid's house that he had called and probably would be thinking that we had chickened out and were still sleeping. When we got to this house, he was standing out there waiting for us. It was a relief, since we might have backed out that days hike if he didn't come.

We got to Mt. Sanitas trail head on Mapleton Rd. after a few detours since it was Memorial Day and we all had conveniently forgotten the fact that it was the day of BolderBoulder, a 10K run which stops traffic in most of Boulder. We did get to the trail head after probably a 45 minute delay. Since it was our first hike, we got to to the trail map, thinking of getting some information about the trail before heading up. There was a laminated, new looking notice on the board... Mountain Lion activity. We highly recommend that you consider a different hike!

It took us 15 minutes and 5 other hikers passing by us to calm down and start to hike. With our picked up tree limbs we started the hike. A 3.1 mile roundtrip hike seemed like a marathon. The 1 some mile hike to the top of Mt. Sanitas is about 70% log stairs. It was tough and we stopped almost 6 times before finally making it to the summit. At the top, we were the three happiest people on earth at that particular moment!

Many many people passed us while getting to the top. That didn't stop us from getting their. The way down was too easy after the climb.

Driving back home we called our better halves and told them to meet us at IHOP in Westminster for breakfast. It took us about 4 days to recover from the hike.

That was supposed to be the only hike but while coming down, we decided we want to continue this every Sunday morning (rain or shine, or even snow!)

That was the first ever hike that we did together. After that, we went to Mt. Sanitas many more times until we got tired of it. As Jarrar puts it... "wo hike boo chor gaee". We started taking different trails and also went to our first 14er, Mt. Bierstadt. A 14er is a 14000ft+ elevation mountain. It was tough and took us 5 hours to complete. Again I have to say "At the top, we were the three happiest people on earth at that particular moment!"

So it is an ongoing activity that we enjoy every Sunday morning. Since then Abbas, Irfan, Kamal and Zaidi have joined us for some hikes. Some of them after part of the permanent group.

Here you can get the blog from Jarrar about the hikes and here you can get to the google group for our hikers group.

Our next 14ers to attempt are Greys and Torreys peaks on August 10, 2008.

By. Hassaan Fridi

Royal Arch Trail - July 20th 2008

At the Chataqqua parking lot:

(Jarrar, Junaid and Kamal)


















July 20th's Sunday's hike was on the Royal Arch Trail, a spectacular 4.3 miles loop.

(Left to right: Irfan, Kamal, Hassaan, Jarrar and Junaid)


















Jarrar on the top showing his high-tech knee braces.

Hike on July 13th

Could not take pictures, but was the biggest number of hikers that we took. We were honored to be joined by Zaidi's father, Zaidi, Kamal. My son Swail refused to wake up so he could not join us.

Jarrar

Mt. Bierstdt hike photos

Enjoying our freedom on top of the world : Hiking Mt. Bierstadt

Living in Colorado is not a mere accident of H1-B Visas or our unique assignments in the Colorado based corporates, it stems from our passion for enjoying nature, mountains and a deep sense of freedom that we feel within when on mountains. Hike to the top of Mt. Bierstadt just helped tp re-enforced these feelings in us.

Mt. Bierstadt is one of the fifty some peaks in Colorado above fourteen thousand feet elevation (14,060 feet to be exact). The mountain was named after Albert Bierstadt; a landscape painter of German origin. This was our moment of triumph when we all made it to the top of one of the fifty highest mountains in Colorado; (Left to right): Jarrar, Junaid and sitting is Hassaan Fridi. We planned at the start of this summer to do at least one 14er and we already have plan for doing at least three more.

Mt. Bierstadt is about 65 miles west (I-70) of Broomfield, Co. We began our journey in Hassaan's Wrangler Jeep at 4:45 AM and we were in the base-camp of Mt. Bierstadt by 7:00 AM ; uneven road, unknown terrain and above all lack of Starbucks contributed in the delay. Here three of us can bee seen in the parking-lot at the trail head of the Mt. Bierstadt. You can see clear skies and a glimpse of the Sun rise- This however turned into very bad weather on our way down.

We started hike at 7:15 and were back at 12:15; A good five hours hike through snow pack trails, marshy lands, thundering storms and danger of lightening and oh yeah did I mention that on way down Junaid had an unceremonious fall in the water channel we had no issue crossing when we were going up ?



I had decided to use a make-shift wooden hiking peg, which was a great help to me and at least one other lady who borrowed to cross a water channel.






At the end of our hike, Hassaan had spilled some of the gasoline from our reserve cache of gasoline (Jerrycan) in the Jeep. From the trail-head to the Georgetown visitor's center it was a twelve miles drive through very bumpy and winding roads and I felt very nauseating and had to have the door of the jeep open for fresh-air. In this picture at the end of our hike look how Jeep's doors are left open in an unsuccessful effort to get rid of pungent gasoline stench - It felt like traveling in the public bus from Gujrat (Pakistan) to Islamabad and smelling that un wanted patrol smell. This bright smile on Junaid's face only tells you how bubbly person he is and not that my annoyance with the gasoline smell was a figment of my creative thinking or he actually loved that odor which was emanating from the back seat.

Hike that started all of these hilkes

Hassaan, Junaid and Jarrar kick started the hiking trips in mid of May 2008; the plan is to continue hiking through out the year and one day be able to do one fourteener (No typo I did mean 14er).

The very first of these hikes (and next six or seven) was at the Mt. Sanitas; that was one cold day. The Mt. Sanitas' top was engulfed in the misty haze of mid May Boulder clouds; however Jarrar and Hassaan's loud discussions on mysticism seems to have made it a bit more 'misty' :)

In the first picture we are all sitting on the Mt. Sanita's top surrounded by beautiful clouds - Never to be seen again in future hikes.


In the second picture Jarrar (Right) and Hassaan (left) on the top.

June 29th (2008)'s Hike in the Chataqqua Trails

We woke up at around 5:30 am Hassaan and I went to Junaid's fueled ourselves with our regular Starbucks drinks and we were on the Chtattaqqua Hike trail by 6:45 AM. This was our first hike since Hassaan had come back from Canada.

In this picture in the back ground you can see the boulder valley and watch Hassaan and I (Jarrar) are coming up on a steep rock - it looks more dangerous in the picture than it actually was !!!




More details of the Traild at : http://www.protrails.com/trail.php?trailID=138