Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Curtis Gilbert

Hot-diggity! As of this weekend, I’m nine for 10 climbs this year. The one climb that I didn’t summit, I actually made it 75% of the way there, but I pooped out. (Turns out I was on the cusp of a two-week illness.)

In the spirit of climbing things I haven’t done before, I picked Curtis Gilbert for last weekend’s adventure. Dave and Glenn hadn’t been to the area either, so it was a triple-first.

Originally, we planned to climb the Conrad Glacier (hoping to help some basic students graduate), but no students signed up and none of us felt a pressing need to climb a glacier. As a result, we ditched the rope, harnesses, pickets, etc. With light packs on our backs we skipped our way up to Warm Lake, where we bivy’d before a speed ascent of the Klipton Ridge to the summit. We got there so much earlier than planned that we napped on the summit for a full hour and a half! Yummy! We even had time for a swim in Warm Lake (which isn’t as warm as you’d think) on the way back down.