It has been a little over a month since I was at the summit of Jade Mountain and a friend reminded me I’m a blog slacker. I’ll have to provide a brief summary rather then my long winded ramblings as I’m catching a plane tomorrow and have to pack etc.

Day two
After a long night on the most uncomfortable bed ever we woke up early dreading breakfast. Mike and I ended up opening a can of Pringles I had borrowed from the minibar at the hotel we normally stay at by our factory and then I downed a power bar and some craisins. We hit breakfast and it was as bad as expected. I had toast and peanut butter and couldn’t really seem to bring myself to try much else. I think it was the black eggs that did it but normally I would have at least tried something. Maybe it was the thought of two days on a mountain without access to a toilet though.

So we headed outside and immediately I got looks. It was like 55 out so I was in shorts and a short sleeve shirt. The guide was even worried at this point but I let everyone know that I was good. We caught a ride for about 30 minutes up the mountain until we were at the kickoff point of our climb. Here are some photos of the first day.
5 hours later we were at the lodge we would spend the night. Talk about the bed the night before, here all we had was a wooden shelf on which each climber was allotted a spot approx 3 feet wide to set the sleeping bag. I guess they figure the body heat keeps each other warm as it was around 40 degrees with no heat for the night.
We had plenty of time left as it was only 1:30 so we convinced our guide with the help of translator to let us summit a lower peak which was only a 2 hour hike or so. Most everyone was tired or wanted to just relax so it ended up being only three people from our group of 12 and one other younger climber from another group asked if he could join us. We were more then happy to have the company. It was getting dark when we got back so we watched the sun set and hit the solid wood planks for the night. Day Three

2:15AM and very little sleep later we were awake and packing up. As we would be back here after the summit on our way back down Mike and I choose to leave all our gear and travel light. Camera’s, water, and a backpacking cup for some coffee/tea that the guide would make along the way. I don’t have any pictures of the climb because we did it by head-lamp but we made it to the West Peak just before sunrise. This was the most beautiful part of the entire trip. I will remember this for the rest of my life. This is when the pain started. We now had taken around 4 hours of climbing and had to backtrack down and then climb up to the main peak which was 2 hours. With the last hour being the hardest climbing of the trip. After some time at the top (we let the rest of our group get about a 30 minute head start down) we started the trip back off the mountain. This would take us around 5-1/2 hours total for a total of 11-1/2 hours of climbing in the day. One of the guys started mocking me on the way down telling me to run the rest of the way (with full pack). I wasn’t in the mood and told him that if he bet me $1 that I couldn’t I would run the entire 3k that was left. Apparently this didn’t translate into Mandarin properly as he didn’t understand. Well we got to where we could just see the end of the trail so it was around two tenths of a mile left and by this point we were ahead of the rest of our group. Mike looked at me and asked if I was going to run it in. You should have seen the look on the faces of the guys at the bottom as they watched us run down the trail in packs (not the safest thing either with the cliff on the side). They thought we were two of the craziest Americans ever. Then I found out there was a smaller peak that would only take us about 1-1/2 hours climb to reach. At this point we were far enough ahead of our group that I thought we could make it and get back about the same time as them. Unfortunately Mike was dead tired and could hardly stand. The guide wouldn’t let me climb alone and he had to wait with Mike so three peaks in two days is all I could do.
Oh and here is a tour bus we passed.