Now the Kevin has kicked off the stories, it is time for the rest of us to tell our own tales.

First attempt

After Kevin’s first attempt at a Mitchell Winter, he infected the rest of us with the “climb it in the cold” bug. So as the end of winter neared, Kevin, Melissa, Ronnie and I all got ready to make the climb. As the rest of us were out buying gear at REI, Ronnie backed out of the trip (he had enough going on anyway, getting ready to move to The Left Coast, and all.) Personally, I had been eyeing a new pack for some time, and decided to go ahead and buy it. While walking around the store to test the fit, I started feeling sick. To he honest, I had been feeling off most of the week.

The flu. That’s it. End of story. Never made it out of bed. Forget going up the mountain.

Now, Kevin and Melissa did go on the trip, and they have some great stories to tell, but as Kevin mentioned before, they did it on the first day of Spring. It was just as cold as the last day of Winter, and the mountain was just as high, but I did not go, and it just doesn’t count! err…I mean to say that we decided to try it again next year. In fact, I swore that I would go on the trip next year, even if I had the flu again.

The next year

I had the flu again.

As I stated before, a minor thing like the flu was not stopping me from going on the trip this time. So I went, but no summit. I was slow, too. Really slow. Kevin and I had worked out the route we were going to take before we left, and that allowed me to go slow while everyone else went ahead to make camp at the half way point. I arrived about 30 min behind them, and crawled right into my bivy.

I did wake for awhile, to hang out and talk about bacon, and then right back to sleep. Twelve hours of sleep and a little snow later, I was good to go…right down the mountain.

Off to the Waffle House.