May 19th
My watch alarm went off and my tent mate Andy stuck his head outside for a look. He starts excitedly yelling "We're going UP!" because we had perfect weather; cloudless and windless.
It seemed to take forever to get ready. I was wearing all of my layers:
Thin thermal underwear tops and bottoms
Sock liners, synthetic hiking socks and heavy expedition socks
Expedition plastic boots with custom fitted liners (similar to ski boots)
Expedition insulated overboots
Expedition Goretex gaiters
100 weight fleece tops and bottoms
Breathable softhell pants and jacket
Synthetic insulated pants
Goretex outer pants
Synthetic hooded jacket
800 fill Down expedition jacket
Two fleece balaclavas, one using Gore windstopper to keep out high winds
Thin glove liners
Gore windstopper fleece gloves
Expedition down mittens
Custom extra-dark wraparound sunglasses (with blue nose protector!)
Then crampons, climbing harness, a small summit pack with emergency gear and climbing gear; ice axe, pickets, carabiners etc.
We roped up and.........
Moving steadily up the hill, it is literally take a step and then 3 hard breaths.
heading across towards the Arch Deacon's Tower and the "football field". The summit is in the near distance
After crossing the field we'll climb Pig hill and then start across the summit ridge.
