Mountains are cool

I just finished reading Into Thin Air a second time (well I read it first then listened to the audiobook.) Even though it is a book about tragedy on the mountain it gets me way motivated to climb some mountains. Good thing I live in Colorado! I want to summit at least 2 new 14ers this summer and climb Mt Sneffels, the 14er I've already done, (14,150Ft) again.

Into Thin Air is a story about the 1996 tragedy on Mt Everest, so doing my normal geeky research on current interests I came across this blog of a man doing a solo attempt of Everest. I checked daily and he recently summited (well pretty close, apparently it would have been waiting in line for 3 more hours to actually stand on the summit because there were so many people up there) and is on his way down. He put up audio recordings of himself pretty often, it is very cool to listen to. The day before he summited he hiked all the way from camp 2 to camp 4 (most make a camp 3) and with only a few hours rest took off for the summit (keep in mind he did this solo, with no oxygen.) The recording he made after the camp 2 - 4 hike is amazing you can hear that he is WORKED and his mind is not functioning all that well (there is very little oxygen in the air at 26000 Ft and your cognitive functions all but cease to exist.) Check out the site here. Be sure to check out the Audio Posts!

Also a Good friend of mine, Brendan is in Peru right now and he will probably be climbing some good mountains soon. He is keeping a blog of his journey here, check that out too!