It was a great adventure with amazing people. It all still seems very surreal at the moment but once I get back to Houston I’ll start work on a full trip report.

If you want to follow the climbs live you’ll have to get up early. We’ll be leaving in two teams each day. I’ll be in the first team and it will likely depart camp around 3-4am each morning. The first attempt will be Mt. Eolus on Sunday morning followed by Windom Peak and Sunlight Peak on Monday. For more details on the routes we’ll take and images of the mountains we hope to climb check out my earlier post.

I’ll be carrying a Spot Satellite Messenger on the trip since we will be far beyond cell phone range. To follow the climbs live just click on the “Track John” button to the right. I will also use my Spot to send status updates to Twitter and Facebook. Alan Arnette will also be carrying a Spot and his updates can be found here. Don’t miss his blog post about this trip either.

Before I go I want to thank the many friends, family, co-workers, and members of the online climbing community (from around the world) who have offered their support and advice. My nervous but incredibly supportive girlfriend deserves special mention. This has been a long and difficult (but extremely rewarding) process and my support network has helped tremendously. Summits aren’t guaranteed but just being in position to attempt them with great friends in one of the most beautiful spots on earth is reward enough.

The concentration of oxygen at sea level is about 21% and the barometric pressure averages 760 mmHg. As altitude increases, the concentration remains the same but the number of oxygen molecules per breath is reduced. At 12,000 feet (3,658 meters) the barometric pressure is only 483 mmHg, so there are roughly 40% fewer oxygen molecules per breath. – The OA Guide to High Altitude

I was the second person at the trail head. The weather didn’t look great, it was damp and cloudy, but wasn’t especially threatening. I expected light rain, possibly even hail, but didn’t see either during the hike. The trail itself was pretty muddy from showers the night before but that didn’t present any real problems until the final 400 or so feet.

I moved quickly through the initial switchbacks. This is an amazing beautiful trail through alpine forest, small streams and waterfalls, and small lakes. I had the trail completely to myself until I reached the highpoint. Traveling solo in this kind of territory is new experience for me but I loved every minute of it.

I didn’t really notice the altitude until 11,300 but even then it didn’t give me too many problems. I had a little less power but felt great. Very few breaks were required throughout the hike and when I did stop to catch my breath I noticed that my recovery time was much improved. The few breaks that I did take lasted no longer than a few seconds. It felt good to keep pushing up.

Somewhere around 11,400 or 11,500 you leave the treeline and Engineer Mountain comes into view. The scene is stunning and well worth the hike. My camera phone doesn’t do it justice.

First View of Engineer Mountain from Pass Creek Trail

A couple hundred yards up the meadow and you run into intersecting trails at the “T”. I was feeling strong so I took the steep rocky, and today quite muddy, path directly up Engineer. What followed was a bit of a struggle but fun. Slipping was a constant threat but my trekking poles and careful foot placement kept me moving up despite the mud. I had to occasionally move off trail a few feet but eventually made it to an awesome bit of rock that allowed amazing views of the valley and rock glacier to my left.

iew from 12,050 Feet on Engineer Mountain

It had taken me less than two hours to reach this point. That’s not record time but I’m happy with the way my body responded to the altitude. I even briefly considered moving further up to around 12,500 or so but decided that I didn’t want to tackle the even steeper muddy trail above.

I hung out at 12,100 for a while. A trio of college girls (or recent graduates) caught up with me and said they were going to the summit. I wished them luck before tackling the steep muddy descent. The descent turned out to be easier and faster than anticipated – largely because I moved a few feet to the right of the trail, into a rocky gully, and avoided the mud. Once I was back to the intersecting trails heading down was predictably easy and fast. I moved quickly and only stopped to chat with hikers on their way up.

This hike was worth the trip in itself but my main goal was to test myself and get some altitude prior to our 14er attempts. That adventure starts Saturday morning with a 6 mile hike 3,000 feet up to about 11,200. I’m a little more confident (just a little) after this morning’s hike.

The initial couple hundred feet was pretty tame dirt trail but I eventually found a steep, rocky, section that took me pretty directly up another 400 feet. The hiking was easy from then on but beautiful. Most of Durango was in view directly below me.

Steam from the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad train as it pulls into town.

Locals apparently spend a lot of time up here. There were several structures built from dead wood and stone – like these impressive chairs.

I eventually picked up about 1,000 feet of elevation before heading back to the hostel. Friends and family think I’m nuts for hiking the same day I arrived but it felt great to get moving – not too challenging at all.

Today will be a full rest day but there may be another hike Thursday. There are some easy trails nearby that pick up a couple thousand feet to 12,000. Whatever I do will be relatively easy because I don’t want to go into Saturday’s 6 mile +3,000 foot hike, and the climbs that follow, tired.

Planning for summer climbs has been heating up and it looks like things are starting to settle. Wetterhorn was an initial thought but it looks like a hike into the Chicago Basin with potential attempts at Mt. Eolous, Windom Peak, and Sunlight Peak are in store. Most of the group will be attempting all three but I will probably attempt Mt. Eolus (Class 3) and Windom Peak (Class 2). I’ll post more details soon.

First, my former climbing partner Jermaine doesn’t have plans for any attempts in the near future. A new job and other issues require most of his attention. So the story of two out of shape guys getting fit and climbing mountains is now the story of one guy getting fit and climbing mountains.

Some of you will also notice that I’ve also merged a lot of my blog and social media channels. This site is still about climbing, and learning to climb, but it will also serve as my personal blog. You may see non-climbing content from time to time.

Twitter updates will continue but @TeamNSC will be phased out in favor of @johnwlittle. My tweets are not public but I approve most requests to follow – especially from fellow climbers.

Hopefully, these changes will free up some of my time and allow me to post regular updates. I definitely have more to say about training and the mountains ahead.

I leave for Colorado Thursday morning. I’ll have a couple of days in Leadville before meeting up with Alan Arnette for an early Saturday morning attempt at Belford and Oxford.

The first attempt at these mountains, earlier this year, was a posthole nightmare that took us to only 10,600 feet before turning back. We won’t encounter snow that deep or rotten on this trip although some early snow might make the trip interesting.

I’ll update this post periodically before the climb.

Final Pre-Climb Update
The weather forecast for Saturday’s climb is excellent. We were both able to safely cut some our heaviest gear since cold and excessive snow won’t be a problem. This helps.

We probably won’t be able to communicate once the climb starts since the area is somewhat remote. However, we will be carrying a SPOT Satellite Messenger that will allow you to track our progress via the link below. The SPOT should be active by 6am when we hit the trail. Its signal may not get out at times so don’t be alarmed by whatever you see.

Thanks again to the many of you who have been supportive of this effort.

Routes
Mt. Belford – Northwest Ridge (Standard)
Mt. Oxford – From Mt. Belford (Standard)

Satellite Tracking
SPOT Messenger Updates (?)

Twitter
TeamNSC – We’ll be sending periodic “OK” status updates to this Twitter account from our SPOT satellite messenger in addition to any other updates we can get out.
Johnwlittle (John Little)
Alanarnette (Alan Arnettte)

We may not be able to respond to messages during the climb but we might be able to read them so feel free to send them on. We’ll reply when we can.

Photos
Photos will be posted on Flickr

Weather
National Weather Service

I’ll post a full trip report Monday. Many thanks to all of you who followed along and offered advice and support. The adventure will continue.

“Getting to the top is optional, but getting down is mandatory. A lot of people get focused on the summit and forget that.”
- Ed Viesturs quote

I’m going to lead you through a few of features of the site, and tools we use, to help you get started.

Social Media
Our Never Stop Connecting social media toolbar at the bottom right side of each page is your primary gateway to the community features. One of the really cool things about these tools is that they not only help you track our progress but through them you can establish your own connections to climbers and other cool people worldwide.

If we have a favorite networking tool it would have to be Twitter. You can see our most recent updates there in the section immediately above the social media toolbar. Twitter allows us to socialize and learn from cool people like @alan_arnette, @helenebarrette, @selves, @kittell, @theclimbergirl, and many others. Sara Lingafelter (aka @theclimbergirl) just posted an excellent piece called Twitter 101 for us outdoorsy types which explains why this relatively small community finds tools like Twitter to be so useful. If you haven’t tried it yet now’s the perfect time. It’s super easy to get started. If you’re still hesitant check out Twitter in Plain English for a super fast, non-technical, video overview.

Flickr is awesome as well. There are so many great climber-photographers and many of them host their work there. Great photography is the draw here but do not underestimate the greater Flickr community – it’s amazing! Climbing, gear, and photography advice started flowing in as soon as we started posting photos. We’d love for you to connect with us on Flickr so that we can see photos and videos of your adventures too. Online Photo Sharing in Plain English provides another great video overview of Flickr and similar services for those of you who are new to the topic.

Our Facebook group is another great way to stay connected and make new contacts. We’ll push some of our photos and videos through the group but it’s also a place where you can discover people who share your interest in climbing. You can even share your own content with the group. Join our group, start connecting with the other members, and you’ll find your personal network growing as well.

Subscribe
You’ll find a link to our Twitter updates here again but there are some additional features. One is the standard RSS feed for those of you who would like to be kept posted through your favorite RSS reader. Our RSS feed collects updates from the website, and our Flickr site, so subscribing to it will keep you pretty well informed. If you don’t already use an RSS reader Google provides a pretty good free one. There is, of course, a great introduction to RSS concepts in the video RSS in Plain English.

We also have a FriendFeed account. The cool thing about FriendFeed is that it allows you to see virtually every update we make anywhere right away. It even, like almost every service we’ve mentioned, has it’s own RSS feed for those of you who really want to stay on top of everything.

Your Stories
Never Stop Climbing is not just about us. We really want to hear about your adventures and successes. We created a section called We Never Stop just to collect those stories. We’ve been blown away by the initial contributions and we hope that they continue to flow in.

Contributing a story is as simple as using this form. Once received, we’ll review it, and let you know if it can be added to the mix.

Start Connected
We haven’t covered every possible way to connect here but this list should be enough to get you started. All of this can seem a bit daunting if social networking concepts are completely new to you but jumping in headfirst is actually the easiest way to get comfortable with the tools. Embrace them, make your own connections, and you’ll quickly understand their popularity. We look forward to seeing out there.

The best part of this project has been, without a doubt, the connections we’re making with climbers around the world. Our next climb is a perfect example of that.

We’re just getting started here but climber Alan Arnette has been a major source of support for us – providing much needed feedback, climbing tips, contributing a post to We Never Stop, and even volunteering to be the subject of our first climber interview. Now he’s offered to host our next climb – a valuable learning opportunity for climbers in our position.

The plan (it’s still evolving) is for the two of us to meet Alan and two of his experienced climbing buddies (Patrick and Robert) in April for camping and crampon/ice axe assisted climbing in the snowy Collegiate Peaks section of Colorado’s Sawatch Range.

Day 1
Drive to the trailhead and hike, likely with snowshoes, to a camp at 11,500 feet.

Day 2
Climb a long ridge to the summit of Mount Belford (14,197 ft – 4,327 m). We’ll break there before making our way over the saddle to the summit of Mount Oxford (14,153 ft – 4,313 m). From there we’ll make our way back to camp for the night.

Day 3
We’ll be climbing early – up a fairly steep snow wall before turning up a steep, somewhat exposed, ridge and heading for the summit of Missouri Mountain (14,067 ft – 4,288 m). We’ll return to our initial camp from there.

Day 4
Break camp. Search for steak and beer.

Needless to say, we’re pretty geeked out about all of this. It’s the perfect challenge for us at this time and fantastic learning opportunity. We also expect it to be a hell of a lot of fun. You can’t ask for more than that.

Stay tuned for more updates as planning and training continues.

Note: The photo of Missouri Mountain is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License by szczepan1990.