Well, my altimeter was lying all along! We were much closer than we thought. At 11:30 Santosh reached the summit, I followed along about five minutes later. We hung out on the summit for a while. There were LOTS of people coming up from the Avalanche Gulch route. It was almost crowded.

We talked to the other party that had come up the East side (they said "You guys were CRANKING!" We let them believe that, but we knew they had ice to deal with and we didn't).

Original Comments

We were also fighting a fairly strong headwind as we approached the top. Here, I've waited for a break in the blowing wind, to briefly spring my arms up! You can also see the rip in my ski pants just above my left knee.
-- SPoonen, 7/17/02