Uncompahgre is one of Colorado's "fourteeners". It is over 14,000 feet high.

Outside Lake City, CO a narrow path allows hikers to scale this monster. Even though I was a regular jogger in relatively good physical condition, the thin air made hiking with my camera gear and tripod feel like I was running a marathon. Ascending from 80 degree temperatures below the tree line, it was somewhere around the upper 40's when I took this shot looking south from Uncompahgre.

The exhilaration and freedom of mountain hiking is euphoric. The physical exertion, the clean wind upon your face, and the feeling of being above the world and its problems brings Heaven closer. Perspective and orientation are challenged. The peak in this picture is massive. It appears close, but is not just "a skip in the park" away.

I'm a tenderfoot, literally, and in mountain hiking experience. I read warnings about thunderstorms and lightening when hiking in the mountains, but I don't know much more than that. This was a sunny afternoon in September and stormy weather was not on my mind. Things change quickly. After this picture was taken, a lightening bolt shot out of the clouds you see here. The hazy streak above the peak area is rain falling. Even though the sky was relatively clear, it was enough to send me scurrying down the bare, treeless mountainside as fast as I could move. It's not comforting to be the tallest object on the slope and carrying a metal tripod.