by Diana Winingder

Aiming for the ultimate experience I decided to challenge myself with a hike before reaping the sweet benefits these natural hot springs of Colorado have to offer. So, I decided to hike up Mount Princeton knowing that I would be rewarded with the healing hot springs at the end of the day. With my rented snowshoes, poles, and ice ax, I set out with three friends on an epoch adventure. We spent Saturday night at the Mount Princeton Hot Springs Resort located at the base of the Collegiate Mountains in Nathrop, Colorado. Well, not quite all of Saturday night, we woke at 4:30 to hit the trail. The beautiful thing about starting a hike at this hour is that if I could see what I was getting myself into I would have turned right around.

Being raised in Louisiana meant that I had never worn snow shoes, used an ice axe, hiked a fourteener, or understood the meaning of cold. Still in a daze I put on my pack and followed the small ring of Petzl light up, up, and more up. The four of us agreed that the snowshoes seemed heavy and cumbersome so we opted to carry them instead. Consequently, I pulled a muscle in my hip flexor pulling my right leg out of three feet of snow. At that moment I decided to sit down and give these bastards a try. I learned a valuable lesson; listen to the people in gear shops because they apparently know what they are talking about.

Mount Princeton is 14,197 feet tall. In the summer the 13-mile trek takes over seven hours. In the winter the hike is 20 miles because the road is not accessible by motorized vehicle despite my failed attempt. Plus, I can now tell you from experience that even with snowshoes it takes a lot longer to hike in a foot of heavy snow than on a dirt path. Our goal was to make it above tree line by sunrise and to the summit by 2:00 (I couldn't miss the Toby Keith concert in Colorado Springs). When we stopped at 7:00 to watch the sun rise through the trees I started to have doubts about reaching the summit. It is amazing how fast sweat turns into ice on your back even with expensive long underwear. The lights of Buena Vista came to a twinkling halt as the sun crept over the distant mountains.

With a left step my thoughts were of proudly straddling the jagged peak, with the right step comes dreams of heated car seats and hot springs. I tell my friends to go on ahead as a sit to eat a cold Balance bar and drink nothing out of my frozen Camelback. As bitter as I am becoming I cannot deny the beauty of my surroundings and the eagerness to reach the top of this mountain. It is a lot easier to think about turning around when you are alone. Each step I was taking meant a more painful step I would have to take on the way down. I wish I could tell you that I overcame the pain and self-pity to persevere all the way to the summit of Mount Princeton. But, at 10:55 when the first soft snowflake fluttered down into my vision I turned around on my heals, something slightly more difficult with snowshoes, and headed for the car.

The descent could have been fun, sledding on my pack, gliding cross-country style on the snowshoes, skip-running around the switch backs...and here I was using my ski poles as crutches with a grimace on my face. I mentally justified my decision based on avalanche danger and hypothermia precautions. This was serious business yet I could not help myself from laughing out loud. I knew I could keep going, probably should keep going, but there was no chance in making it to the top so what is the difference anyway?

The sparkling pleasure of sitting in a heated seat in a warm car did not last long. I could have gone into town to get more gas; it was only five minutes away. Yet I could not deny my friends the pleasure that I received upon seeing the car from the trail. By the time that they arrived two hours later I was curled up in a mysterious sleeping bag, hand warmers in my socks and drool on my journal. Hard-core Ben with chronic fatigue syndrome had not made it, super-fitness woman Ariel had not made it, and neither had Pat. We headed down the road to the pot of gold on the other side of the rainbow, Mount Princeton Hot Springs.

After changing into my bathing suit I could not bear to put my boots back on for the stroll down to the hot springs. The icy path took me past a large concrete swimming pool with a mixture of steam and foam noodles hovering around the children at play. The path lead down to the river bank where guests re-arranged rocks and pebbles to create perfect little pools with diverted hot and cool water and a boulder back rest. Hot water came from underneath the creek bed and from white plastic pipes every ten yards along the path. I found my friends stretched out in their personal piece of heaven.

The screaming pain that my feet encountered did not slow me down. There was a force, gravitational or spiritual, that was pulling me, or perhaps I just collapsed from physical exhaustion. Oh That's Good. The second I was fully immersed I understood that every painful step was worth it. It did not matter that I had not made it to the top. What mattered was that I was tired enough and my muscles hurt enough for this to feel damn good. I was experiencing the full potential of Hot-Spring-Bliss. Would it have felt good if I had just strolled out of bed and moseyed by butt on down? Yes. This good? No Way.

Looking around I saw a fat man in a skinny man's bathing suit, a mother and daughter talking about the facials they just had, a young couple, and a middle-aged foursome. They were scratching the surface of these healing waters; I was neck deep in them. I felt like I deserved this, something that goes beyond physical pleasures. As I looked around the surrounding mountains seemed a little bit bigger, the snow looked a little colder, and the water felt much warmer.