Utah Climbing Club first trip - Mountainworks

For Christmas I got a great present. I got to join a rock climbing/mountaineering club. This gift means Darren gets to spend lots of quality time with his kids while I am off having a blast! We will be climbing Gannett Peak in Wyoming and Mnt Rainier in Washington. These are the two tallest peaks in the continuous 48.

(you can see the three sets up dots I put in this pictures. We followed the ridge up to the highest peak)

Here is our first trip. Crowd Ridge, Spanish Fork Peak, 10,192 feet high,

over 5,000 feet of elevation gain in 5 miles of climbing.

(each of these pictures was a sacrifice. I had to take my gloves off for each and every one!)

We started at 6:00 am in the dark. This is Spanish Fork and Utah Lake.

The sun started to come up at 7:15. We had made a little progress but not much. The white peak at the top of this picture is just the start of the climb. When you got to the very top white peak then you were about half way there.

The clouds broke for a few seconds on the way up.

But then the rest of the day was us hiking in the clouds.

I joined this group with my friend Ang. You can barely even see her up there in the clouds. This was the last big push to get to the false summit. I was so grateful it was in the clouds. It helped to not see the climb in front of you. It took well over an hour to climb this one hill.

We finally made it to the false summit.

After 5 hours of hiking.

Having only accomplished 5 miles on this "Stairmaster to hell" climb.

(Great nickname right- It totally fits)

With the wind blowing you off your feet.

Ice blowing you in your face.

I got a surge of energy and plowed on to the real summit.

The few trees on top were totally wind blown in a horizontal pattern

Ang and I were with a group of 10 who summited together. 8 boys and us 2 girls!!!

This is us headed down. Ang will probably loose both big toe nails.

It took us about three hours to get down this steep climb.

My water was frozen

I had to chip a hole in it to drink my "chilled" water

(One guy didn't drink the whole time. His water was frozen. He got altitude sickness and extreme fatigue. He vomited the whole way down the mnt. I dropped him of to his wife, who took him to the hospital where they kept him over night with IV's)

This is half way down the mnt. It was so fun.

We just sat down and slid down on our tail ends.

(Unfortunately this made it very slippery for those who came after us)

I laughed when we got to the bottom. Looking at this hill that we started on, I had thought it was hard. I was so tired after only an hour of climbing.

Little did I know... It was only the beginning.

I am so glad I had rented snowshoes that made it possible for me to get up the mnt.

They had spikes all over! and risers for your heal to rest on so you wouldn't have to step so far down and exhaust your calf muscles.

We are going Ice Climbing next week.

Crampons, Ice Ax, and wows!

Lots and lots of wows!