Our Centennial Celebration Climb for the CMC 100 year anniversary was a resounding success! Here we are soaking in the sun on the summit of Pigeon Peak (13,972 ft).
Front: Linda (Co-Leader), Clare (Trip Leader), Steve
Back: Nancy, Jeff, Georgia, and Erin (Leader In Training!).
On the Summit of Turret Peak (13,835 ft)
The San Juan mountains are so remote my cell phone was confused and thought we were in the Pacific Time Zone. As a result, my phone did not sound the alarm at 3:30am. We were supposed to leave base camp at 4am and instead Erin and I were dozing in sweet slumber.
Finally, my team decided they had waited long enough and (thankfully) came to wake us up. At 4:10, Erin and I jumped to action. We got dressed and grabbed some food and suddenly we were vertical…and moving forward. Since I was the trip leader, this was a particularly bad way to start summit day.
I apologized profusely to everybody and even showed them my stupid cell phone. I’m happy they woke me up instead of just going for the summit sans leader! I felt even worse because Erin didn’t get to eat breakfast and deprived of food, it really affected her hiking. At 4:15am I can’t eat much of anything except maybe fruit and pretzels, so it wasn’t a huge bother to me, food wise. (more…)