I came to just before dawn to notice that the car had made no significant progress toward home. I rallied for the interstate with some scary looks at my watch. I bought one six-pack of Jolt cola before getting up to cruising speed. You remember, six times the sugar and 10 times the caffeine… or something similar. All the way back to "our" mountain, I sucked on those evil cans.

I can no longer recall what time it was when we actually got to Paradise for some stern looks by Gerry Lynch, my benevolent boss. I do sort of remember him pointing up the hill and advising us to take a little walk in a hurry. Sure enough, Phil and the other three guides had taken the folks up for the summit and we were expected to catch them at high camp for the ascent. Stumbling up to Camp Muir was not a problem; we had far more leg muscle left than brain, and we made pretty good time; fast enough that we got to join the gang at Muir for supper and bed before the anticipated alpine start.

Now my best buddy Curtis was starting to crash… he was actually beginning to hope that some of the clients would want to turn around short of the summit the following morning. Being the rookie, he figured he'd be a shoe-in for the "spin" followed by a little sack time. I, on the other hand, was beginning to feel the full effect of six cans of Jolt! I was lit up like a Saturn Rocket and wondering just how long I could go and how many mountains I could climb in one push...