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Ascent of Guadalupe Peak on 2011-02-13

Climber: Shawn Hinkle

Other People:

Solo Ascent

Date:

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Ascent Type:

Successful Summit Attained

Motorized Transport to Trailhead:

Car

Peak:

Guadalupe Peak

Location:

USA-Texas

Elevation:

8749 ft / 2666 m

Ascent Trip Report

Started off at 8:40 am. First section is pretty steep. Temperature was about 39 degrees when I started. Was wearing way too much layering. At about 30 minutes I hit the wall bad...nausea, shaking.

I rested, stripped down to my base layer top, drank a Gatorade and downed a PowerBar. Cooling off and fueling up made a huge difference. Sure learned a lesson here. First ascent mistakes...

Went pretty hard and felt great the rest of the way. The wind is a huge factor here. It swirls through canyons behind the peak and hits ya like a ton of bricks in places and right where your wouldn't expect it. Middle third is mostly under cover. Last third is steeper, but the views are tremendous the rest of the way.

At the top, it was easily blowing 25 mph with gusts of 40-50. Scary. I'd recommend watch weather reports closely and getting an early start. Those winds tend to pick up in the afternoon.

I was slow on the way down. Good at first, but really could have used trekking poles. I've never had knee problems, but the knees and ankles were killing me. Really slowed me down...painful too. I'd HIGHLY recommend poles for descents especially.

All in all. My first real mountain. Learned a lot!

Summary Total Data

Elevation Gain:

2969 ft / 905 m

Distance:

9 mi / 14.5 km

Route:

Guadalupe Peak Trail

Trailhead:

Pine Springs Campground 5780 ft / 1761 m

Quality:

5 (on a subjective 1-10 scale)

Route Conditions:

Maintained Trail, Snow on Ground, Scramble

Weather:

Cool, Very Windy, Clear

Ascent Statistics

Time Up:

3 Hours 0 Minutes

Descent Statistics

Time Down:

2 Hours

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