Magic Carpet Ride, We're Not in Kansas Anymore, Toto...

I had only ever traveled twice outside of a city, so when I mentioned to a friend of mine that I really wanted to try to go hiking 14K+ ft mountains in Colorado and she agreed to go traveling with me ... she really had no idea what trouble we would get ourselves in to! Neither of us had gone camping more than twice ever, but we knew how to use the internet. We had everything planned out --even the trip menu and where to go for food. I packed a huge first aid kit for every possible danger. We bought supplies and even got a little bit of new backpacking gear. We were set! Nothing could stop us from attaining our goal, Mt Evans (alt. 14,260 ft). Famous last words. The first hitch was the rental car. Who knew that my legs were too short to drive a large 4-wheel drive vehicle? I had never driven anything other than a Toyota Corolla so I hadn't thought to think that short people really couldn't reach the pedals of a 4WD large size vehicle when the driver's seat was pushed all the way forward. Okay, this is what all that luggage is for, we made a pad out of clothes and I could reach the car's pedals! Second mistake: Figuring that we would save money not having a GPS we decided to rely on the kindness of strangers to tell us directions to get from Denver to Mt. Evans. A drive that all the locals told us would take 2 hours, took 8 hours. Instead of an early 6am start at the foot of the mountain, we arrived at the base ready to head up at 12pm. It was a beautiful sunny day, warm, toasty enough as we were driving that we exchanged long sleeve shirts we had on for cotton t-shirts. We agreed to suss out the mountain as much as we could, then if necessary set up camp even sleep in the rental car if necessary and continue the next day. Piling everything back into our hiking backpacks, we laced up our boots and sang merrily as we walked towards the trailhead on our way up Mt. Evans. It was glorious. Then an hour later, suddenly hail dumped out of the skies on us and snow in increasingly strong gusts swirled around us. Wait, in August?! Unbelieving, we huddled behind a rock, putting on every bit of clothing that we could from our packs. We made it another 3 hrs into the hike as the weather drenched 8 layers of clothes, when we gave up under the onslaught of the hail and snow and came back down to the car. Huddled for a while as we warmed up, we ate salami, and decided that exploring Boulder or Aspen might be a better idea for the next couple of days.