Wrath of the peak

Well, reporter Dave Philipps and photographer Christian Murdock should be hiking away from the summit of Mount Rosa toward Pikes Peak as I write. I'm not sure how much they know about the storm that is supposed to be headed their way. I'm sure they know it was chillier last night than in recent evenings.

I'm certain Dave knows because he had to hike BACK UP to the cave on the side of Mount Rosa last night.

Yep. The peak threw a wrench into our well-oiled gears, much as it did Zeb 200 years ago. Though I'm not sure how well-oiled Zeb's plans were. He was pretty much winging it.

Anyway, as we wrote last week, Dave tested transmission from the cave. It was a cold and windy day up there, but I got his e-mail, no worries. As the team snuggled in after sunset Sunday, however, the battery on Dave's laptop went dead. He'd written his story for today's paper but couldn't send it.

Curses! Historian and lawyer John Murphy had already bopped down the mountain. Fortunately, a friend of the climbing team had driven up Gold Camp Road and hiked up to the cave to meet them. Dave hiked down from the cave, borrowed the friend's car, drove downtown to The Gazette, dumped his story into our computer system here, then drove back up Gold Camp, parked and hiked BACK to the cave. In the dark. After already spending about 10 hours on the trail bushwhacking up the side of Rosa.

I've been hoping for "weather" - the better to test our crew's mettle against Pike's gang - but I was also hoping for smooth transmissions of stories and photos. Ah well, Pike had no socks and we have a bad battery. Something was bound to happen!

Hope you're enjoying the tale so far. Dave and Christian should transmit from Barr Camp this evening - before Teresa and Neal kick them out into the wilderness for the night.

If you've got a powerful telescope, train it between Rosa and the peak - you might see the ants as they march along.

(Thanks to Steve Garufi -see the Gold Camp Road link - for all your fun work in the area!)