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October 11, 2009

Sheriff conquers Pikes Peak

Mark Millican

Scott Chitwood was 2 miles into an arduous hike up Pikes Peak in Colorado in early August when he glimpsed through the darkness the lights of the “summit house” that was his destination — 10 miles away.

“There were signs periodically along the trail that showed the countdown in miles to the summit house,” the veteran Whitfield County sheriff said. “But the longer I walked and the closer the mileage was, the farther away it seemed.”

Before August, Chitwood said he hadn’t taken a real vacation in nine years — the last one being a mission trip to Africa with his church.

“I just hadn’t taken any,” he said from his office recently. “I had attended some conferences for a break, but this was the first one in awhile just for Scott.”

Before heading to the Denver area with several friends to tackle the fabled peak, Chitwood said he spent much of the spring and summer in training by running and hiking up Stone Mountain, the steps up the waterfall at Amicalola Falls State Park, and on Dalton’s Mount Sinai off College Drive.

Still, Georgia’s high places could not mimic the altitude difference that comes with Pikes Peak’s status of being a “14 footer,” or one of Colorado’s 14,000-foot mountains.

“I used a backpack with about 15 to 20 lbs. of weights for training, and after I got comfortable with that, I wanted to push my body for mileage,” he said. “Then I added more weight.”

Chitwood said he became “acclimated” after the first couple of miles — the hike started at 3:45 a.m. in an effort to beat the afternoon heat — even after the first mile brought about “heavy breathing and sweat dripping” due to the immediate elevation gain. He also found rest stops needed to be brief.

“The longer I rested, the stiffer I got,” he said. “About three miles from the summit, I broke through the timberline and we were at 11,500 feet. From that point forward, we were totally exposed to the sunlight and wide open terrain, which turned out to be a massive boulder field with the trail hidden in and around the rocks. What I believed to have been the toughest part of the hike was not behind me, but ahead of me. Little did I know the challenge was just starting.”

Chitwood said when he stopped two miles short of the summit to take in the view, he saw hikers ahead and behind of him who had all “slowed considerably.”

“The last half-mile probably took 40 minutes to complete simply because my legs were absolutely gone,” he said. “But overall my breathing felt good and I was not feeling any serious side effects due to the altitude. The climb was very rewarding, yet probably one of the hardest physical challenges that I have ever asked of my body.”

The mountain climbing lawman — who has been Whitfield’s sheriff now for almost 17 years — said the average hiking time on Pikes Peak is eight hours, but he was able to finish in seven hours.

“The only way I know to describe the climb is to get on a stair-climber machine at the local health club and stay on it for seven hours,” he explained.

Chitwood said a 70-year-old member of the party had proposed a three-day trip through Death Valley in California next year, to include time on a bicycle and then climbing a mountain. He said his most athletic ventures to date has been 28 years of playing basketball.

... so I don’t know about that bicycle part.”

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