The Artist
The Ascent During high school, two friends and I decided to try and backpack all over the country. Andrew, Jeff, and I took trips to places like the Grand Canyon, Santa Fe, and the Buffalo River. After each trip the three of us would say, "we've got to go somewhere better, more challenging." So during the spring break of my junior year we decided to pack the Wet Mountains in Colorado. We planned the trip for weeks, calling the ranger station, checking weather conditions, and planning out meals for the trip. We knew the trail would be a little more difficult than anything we had done before, would, but we never conceived of St. Charles Peak being too challenging. We started out about six in the morning for the long drive to Rye, the town just at the base of the Wet Mountains. The trip to Rye went pretty well, except for a few miscalculated map readings and a couple close calls with the "low fuel" light. When we finally made it to Rye we made camp about three miles from the trai!lhead so we could get a good night sleep and start out early the next mourning. While we were sleeping a huge storm moved in and stacked good eight to ten inches of snow on the whole north side of the mountain. The next morning Andrew yelle
t of the snow, so the three of us stopped and made lunch to keep our energy up. While we were eating our macaroni and cheese, we noticed a few storm clouds beginning to roll in. Thinking it couldn't be any worse than it already was, we moved on up the north face. The higher in elevation we went, the deeper the snow kept getting. Now plowing our way through waist high snow, our feet growing colder with each step, we finally decided to make camp for the night. To setup our tents on the sloping mountainside we had to carve out about a ten-foot by ten-foot level square in the snow using our dinner plates. As soon as we got our tents set up the overhead storm clouds began spitting frozen rain and snow. We jumped in the tents and decided to call it a night. During the night the temperature dropped to what felt like -20 degrees. Afraid we might get hypothermia from the extreme cold and lack of energy, we stayed up all night talking from tent to tent trying to keep each other awake. L! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ uckily, we made it through the night. We decided to get up early and hike when the snow was still frozen so that we could walk on top instead of sinking in with every step. We got up early and ate oatmeal and breakfast bars. I don't know if it was because of the lack of sleep or just because I was so hungry, but that was probably one of the best breakfasts, I have ever eaten. After breakfast we packed up and took off for the short two-mile hike to the summit. We start
Some common words found in the essay are:
Peak Trudging, Wet Mountains, Mountains Colorado, Andrew Jeff, Charles Peak, Buffalo River, Ascent Ascent, St Charles, st charles, st charles peak, storm clouds, charles peak, can't feel, andrew jeff, wet mountains,
Approximate Word count = 1028
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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