Kathy and her son Sean joined my kids and me for the climb last week. Sean is nine years old. My boys, Peter and Benjamin, are ten and eight years old respectively. We took two days to get to the Lunch Counter at 9,200'. On day three we established a high camp on the ridge at 10,800'. On day four we reached the summit in two and half hours, then returned to the high camp for a second night. On day five we hiked down to the cars and, most importantly to three picky eaters after five days of backpacking food, to a pizza parlor.
Challenges to reaching the summit were plentiful. I lay awake the night before summit day convinced we would fail. The kids, each with effective veto power over the whole thing, all had doubts about their ability to get to 12,276' as none of them had been so high before. Earlier that day the wind on the way to high camp made for an incredible wind chill factor. We were climbing in full sunlight with goose down coats on. Earlier this season Peter had turned back on Mount Hood due to a cold wind and I could see that decision coming again. Once high camp was established the wind grew strong enough to threaten to knock anyone outside the tents on their butt. Worse, the wind chill factor during the gusts had to be close to zero degrees. The kids, however, were spared from this as Kathy and I (mostly Kathy) were the ones leaving the tents to fetch snow for making water. Unknown to Kathy and me, the uninterrupted comfort of the tents also left uninterrupted the kids' spirits (Note to Doug: leave the bivy sack at home and lug up a big, heavy tent).
Next morning, on summit day, the wind was still there and still cold, but calmer and steadier, without the gusts. Benjamin surprised me by saying he had climbed in the wind the day before and was not going to let the wind keep him from the summit. Peter nodded in agreement. Kathy reported Sean was also gung-ho. So up we went into the wind. I kept the breaks short as it was impossible to stay warm without moving. On the summit we grabbed some photos but departed hastily to make the summit phone calls back in the tents. An hour or two after we returned to high camp the wind died away almost altogether. Without the wind high camp was a completely different place, warm and comfortable. But the second night again I could not sleep as I was so surprised the wind had let up just enough and so pleased the the kids decided to tough out the wind and then made good on their decisions. Even the next day as we were hiking out Kathy remarked she could not believe we reached the summit.
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