King's Peak

I'm hoping to catch up to my photos from this summer. I attached this fun shot of my summit of Utah's highest point, King's Peak (13,528'), on August 1st. It was four days into my 90-mile trek across the spine of the Uintas with my brother-in-law Steve. This summit was a fortunate opportunity-- a storm pounded the mountain throughout the morning, pelting us with rain, hail and threatening lightning. After several delays, waiting out the storm, we reached Anderson Pass at 12,500'. The window of opportunity was short as another wave of wind and storm circled. Steve stayed back to conserve energy in the thin air while I set out to ascend the summit ridge as fast as I could. Several climbers ended up turning back as the storm outpaced them. I reached the summit with Josh Carter from Petzl USA (a climbing gear company). This photo is courtesy of him. He snapped it in a moment when a spot of sun cut through dark clouds, just before the temperature plummeted and snow blew. I was able to contact Melissa on my descent-- she reported that back in Salt Lake Valley it was sunny and 94-degrees.