Cimbing Pikes Peak.

For 5 years straight every summer around 1980 I set out to climb Pikes Peak on Barr Trail, why? Maybe the following will answer that question.
Barr Trail starts at the Cog train depot in Manitou Springs, Colorado. It is 12.3 miles up from an elevation of 5,600 ft to over 14,000 feet. At mile marker 6 or 7 you pass a free tent camp ground and at timber line there is an A Frame shelter. There is a small creek running along the trail so water is never a problem. Timber line is around the 11,500 foot elevation and the trail gets kind of fuzzy. There are large rocks to climb over but the last mile is called something like 12 heavenly steps, this is total bull shit. Those are not steps when they are at least 3 feet high. Dehydration at altitude is the biggest problem and dehydration leads to pulled muscles. Stretching to raise your body over a 3 foot ledge over and over causes wondrous things to happen to your leg muscles. The really fascinating thing about the 12.3 mile climb up Barr Trail is just how many hundreds of people are doing the same thing you are doing and some of them are actually running up that trail. The record for the accent on the 12.3 is 2 hours 22 minutes and 32 seconds (http://www.pikespeakmarathon.org/ ) It took me 8 hours of walking up that trail those many years ago.
By the time you reach the top of Pikes Peak you are so dehydrated and cramped up, you fear the hike back down your car at the Cog Train terminal. Total strangers upon hearing your plight over the loudspeaker will take pity and give you a ride back down to your car. There is a Marathon up and down Barr Trail on the mountain in August each year. On New Years Eve each year, there is a group of crazy people called Add-A-Man Society who actually snow shoe up that trail and shoot off fire works from the top each New Years Eve at midnight and there is a waiting list of people to join these group of people. Sometimes I really wonder about people who live in Colorado with all these endurance races each year.
I do have a theory of why men over the age of 30 get involved in these diabolical endurance events and some call it a midlife crisis. Basically it is that we as the studly sex, tend to look in the mirror and still see ourselves as 20 somethings still full of piss and vinegar as the old timers used to say. We can not accept the fact we are getting older and each spring and summer we have to set out to prove we still got it.
So what is the event in your life that tested your man hood?