The Incline at Manitou Springs

One Saturday morning our plans got canceled so we were trying to think of what we should do instead. We have always wanted to try to hike the incline, but hadn't had the opportunity yet so we decided last minute just to go! It was already 10:00am and it was at least a 2 hour drive down. But we packed up and did it anyway! The Incline is a mile hike, straight up a mountain, and it was ALL stairs. Straight up. It was INTENSE! This is not a hike for the faint of heart. We took it slow, Josh even carried Sky on his back the whole way up. People would look up and see him with Sky on his back and just think he was a little crazy but mostly awesome for managing to climb with her on his back. I was pretty proud of him too! I looked over at him and sweat was just dripping off of his face, and he looks at me and says "I think I have sweat more in this hike than you have in a lifetime." HA! I don't sweat much (and yes I do workout!) so that was pretty funny to me. And it was probably true! We took the Barr trail down the mountain because walking down the stairs would be too dangerous with Sky on his back. It was a pretty hike down, and we were going pretty fast but it still felt like the way down took forever. It was definitely longer than the mile up :) It was a challenging hike, we had to take our time, take lots of stops, and just keeping looking forward a little at a time to motivate ourselves to make it up a little bit at a time. I was feeling in a little "rut" during the week and this was just the challenge/exercise/experience that I needed to rejuvinate me.