Stitches, Staples, and Smiles.

Yesterday some of my fellow students and I woke up at 4am to go attack a few fourteeners (We decided not to go to Pike's Peak, because we wanted to climb four mountains, not just one :]). 

  

The view of Kite Lake in the morning.

We prayed for safety, that the Lord would protect us, and that we would bring Him Glory.

It was a chilly morning, but oh so beautiful when we started out. As we gained elevation, we lost visibility. Soon we would be in the clouds!



We had gained about 2,000 feet on our way up to Mt. Democrat, and I felt like I was on top of the world! Woot! The clouds were surrounding us and the wind was whipping past my face. As we walked past the residual snow, I fell in love with the mountain! God's creation is so wonderful!

 

Me on top of my first 14,000' mountain! 

After descending the first peak, some decided to go back to the van (which will be important later) two went on to do one more peak, and four of us decided to go on and do the other three. We climbed up what felt like another zillion feet to Mt. Cameron. The air was thin, and it was a tough climb for me. 

The guys on top of the moon! 

 For a while, it was so foggy that I could not even see these guys in front of me! We had to call out to each other to make sure we were all still on track. 

At one point, I paused to catch my breath. I couldn't see anything, and it was silent except for the sound of the bongo drum inside my chest. Dude, it was so awesome. 

We arrived at the top of Mt. Cameron and it was unbelievably calm. It was silent and the wind was still, although we were engulfed in forever whiteness.

By the grace of God, I caught a second wind and it was on to Mt. Lincoln, our highest point of the day!

Mt. Lincoln. 14, 286'

 After bagging Lincoln, we knew that we didn't have much time left before the weather started to get bad. My sheer delight in the fact that I was walking on top of mountains made me begin to think that it was cloud 9 that was beginning to surround us, but the hail made me consider otherwise.

Mt. Bross. That made us four for four. 

We asked the couple who was enjoying a glass of wine (and you thought we were crazy!) to snap a quick photo of us, and headed down. As we headed down, I was singing and praising Jesus for the wonderful feeling of the beating of my heart, the pain in my legs, and the ability to experience it all. 

The rain made us move more quickly than we normally would have gone, but I was sure to be careful. I was trying so hard to take each step with awareness, but the gelatinous state of my legs trumped the steadiness of my feet. We were so close to the car, about to pass a cute little waterfall, and my legs decided to become a waterfall underneath my body. The next thing I knew, I had fallen sideways into a bush, and my knee was kind of hurting. 

I looked down and pulled up my pants leg. Yikes. A lot of skin came off. And then a river of blood started rushing down my leg.

"Welp," I thought, "we should probably get back to the van."

My owie, all cleaned up and ready for stitches!

 We were about five minutes from the trailhead, and the thunder and hail were getting really intense.

Praise God! Of the thousands of hikes that I have been on in my life, the one time that I fall and need to get stitches, I have an ER doctor and and ER nurse waiting for me in the van (and a Physician's Assistant just for good measure!)!

We were huddled under the raised taligate of Ryan's minivan, and Ryan was holding my leg up so that Amanda could wrap it. The other two that were still on the mountain came running back to the van at just the same moment! Suddenly, lightning struck the ground outside the van and sent electricity through Ryan (who was still holding my leg), into me, and then into Amanda! I screamed and at first it didn't register as to why I just got shocked! Crazy!

God most certainly heard our prayer that morning. He kept us safe, provided for my minor fall, timed it perfect four us all to get off the Mt. just in time, and then kept the lightning under control!

What a day! We got back to the training center, and since we have a surgeon training with us, he stitched and stapled me up and voila! 

I took a photo of myself getting stitches
on my bed at the training center!

This is a day that I will not soon forget, and I hope that I always remember just how perfect God's provision was for every aspect of the day (more than I could even fit into this blog post... sorry, it was already way too long!)