After being cleared to start hiking again, Jim decided Rampart Lakes was the perfect destination. The hike in was all on trail, less than 3000 feet of elevation, less than 6 miles. It also offered beautiful lakes and a summit which had a trail to the top, Alta Mountain.
We headed out on Monday for a 3-day trip. Many people do Rampart Lakes as a day trip so 3-days for me seemed to give me a lot of buffer. We had no idea how my first day of hiking after the injury would go. We were absolutely giddy to find that my knees worked better than we had hoped. Downhill turned out to be the only difficult task. But in the end, we found that if things got to hard I could just turn around and hike backwards which was a lot easier than it sounds.
On Monday, we started hiking around noon. Jim had frozen a plastic container so I had an ice pack at our first break after almost 2 hours of hiking. After that, all breaks included a creek crossing where I could soak. We arrived Rampart Lakes before 6pm. On a weekend, this place would be crowded. But since we were mid-week, we shared the area with only one other tent. Jim found us a fabulous camp on top of a rock overlooking three of the four lakes.
Our evening was filled with appetizers, mountain margaritas, and mosquitoes. We woke at 7:30 am when the sun hit our tent with full force and baked us out within minutes. My knees felt pretty good so we headed out from Alta Mountain. There was a trail to the top but we forgot how bad the trail was. This turned out to be a great test of my abilities.
Jim packed snow to the summit so I was able to relax with ice packs.
As it turned out, this was our best day for views so we hung out and enjoyed.
Mount Thomson for the Summit of Alta Mountain
Wednesday was my biggest test. What would I feel like after a 2500 foot decent? We stopped at Rachel Lake for a soak. Then again at the creek near the valley floor. We I reach the car, I teared up a little. The trip had gone better than I expected. I would be climbing again very soon.
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