FCollinsBuckeye;1024550; said:
I've hiked up a few of the lesser peaks in Colorado, but I haven't done any of the '14ers' (14,000' + peaks) nor have I done any technical climbing.
There are some incredible views from mountain tops, however. Even the ~12,000' ones.
In my younger days I attempted to climb Popocatepetl - the 18,000 plus foot elevation Mexican volcano - on a whim. We bought boots, ice axes and crampons in Mexico city and took a taxi to the base of the volcano. After a night of very little sleep, we woke up about 3:30 and started to climb. I have a great memory of hearing - like angels - the sound of a children's choir singing in Spanish - wafting up the valley from God knows where - as we climbed in the dark. When we hit the metal Quonset hut to rest (at around 16,000 feet) I was breathing pretty good. Lots of nationalities there. Two hours later I was walking up an ice slope like the picture below (actual picture from "Popo") at what seemed like a 60% angle, where I could only take three steps and then stop and breath like a trout on land.
I hated to wuss out, but the mountain got dark and cloudy quuicker than we thought possible, so we got scared and started back down. Truth be told my ass was whooped... or my lungs at least. I had a headache and was breathing like I'd run a marathon.
It was snowing like shit when we got halfway down with bad visibility, and we heard that some other climbers were in need of rescue when we got to the lodge. Looking back, I had no damn business being there without a lick of training, and got lucky. If I'd slipped, I had only received a brief explanation on how to use the axe to slow/stop my slide, and if I'd really fallen I'd have gone over a four thousand feet drop still picking up speed.
I do remember an old German guy with no shirt and lederhosen and a Tyrolian hat walking past me and my parka and pack at a high rate of speed. Asshole!
