We arrived at the Barr TrailHead at 10pm, slept in the car till about 1am, paid for parking ($5/day at self serve kiosk) and started off at 1:15 am.
It's a lot of fun hiking in the night (with head lamps). Trail is in excellent condition, which is to be expected at this time of the year. We reached A-frame at day break.
After A-frame we started to take the trail up to the peak, but then decided to simply go up the gully. I think it's called the Barr Gully. The Gully is mostly a bunch of boulders. I really enjoyed going up the gully!
We came across the plaque dedicated to the memory of Bill Blair (see photo). I was honestly shocked to find it. I have lived in this area for so long and had never heard about this plaque. Google search revealed that he died from an avalanche (while skiing) in April 1995.
At the top, there were already a bunch of tourists. We decided to descend via the trail and came across quite a few Ascent runners who were doing the unofficial ascent. (The ascent was conducted the day before till only Barr Camp because of weather conditions.)
The finish is mind numbing because of the endless gentle downhill. Every time I do Pikes Peak I swear that I will never do the round trip again, but I keep doing it every year :)
