14er Holy Cross Half Moon Trail

My bestfriends and wanted to complete a 14er and since I was living near Vail Colorado we picked the one closest to us, The Mount of Holy Cross. We didn't do much research and so were fairly unprepared. I packed eight water bottles for myself and my two pups. Each of my friends had a one large water bottle.

We should have known from the start of the day this hike was going to be rough. Our quick research led us to believe this hike took five hours total (it was five hours to summit). So we were in no rush to get up too early. We leisurely took our time, got coffee and reached the trailhead, Half Moon Trail around 8:30 a.m. Thinking we had plenty of time we cruised up the first bit of the trail.

We learned quickly this 14er was not the easiest one. We panted up the first mountain and were greeted by barks from sweet Yellow Belly Marmot families. As we summited this mountain we had a view of our 14er.

A quick downhill led us to a creek where we let the dogs drink water and conserved our water which we were already using up quickly.

After about five hours we passed tree line and began boulder jumping toward the summit. My younger dog (5 months at the time) was having troubles with the rough terrain and we were scarce on water. Tired and unprepared we debated over summiting. A hiker heading down revealed it was at least another hour to the summit and feared the dogs wouldn't make it easily (I had been carrying Remmy for the past mile).

At this point we came to terms with our situation and sided with safety rather than summiting.

Defeated yet still pleased with the scenery we headed back.

The trail back was fairly fast due to the majority of downhill.

We ended the hike just before 7p.m. and with one water bottle to spare (I saved it for the dogs).

Tired and slightly embarrassed we headed for the pub. At the pub we discovered Holy Cross is one of Colorado's harder 14ers and our lack of preparation surely got the best of us.

Even though we did not summit we thoroughly enjoyed the multitude of views, glorious wild flowers, and majestic wildlife along the way.