Mt. Elbert YM Climb

OTHER EVENTS In addition to the General Priesthood Conference in Salt Lake, our stake Young Men’s Presidency planned two youth conferences to Martin’s Cove and Rocky Ridge and a Mormon Battalion Trek in the Bookcliffs just north of Douglas Pass. An account of the excitement on the hike is contained under the 5th Ward history. We also climbed Colorado’s highest mountain, Mt. Elbert which reaches 14,433 feet and unfurled our own Mormon’s Title of Liberty which was prepared on an animal skin by Pres. Ole Dunn. We camped at the base of the mountain on a Thursday night and were ascending the mountain by 5:30 a.m. the next morning. We started with 54 hikers not counting our support staff. We have two rules:
1. No hiker was to pass Brother Larry Hall who leading the hike as our point man. This was to keep the “rabbits” from hiking too fast and racing to see who could summit first.
2. All hikers had to be in front of myself, Harold Davis and Don Cleveland-we had the drag position. We were to make sure no one was left behind.
The rabbits took off and very soon those of us on drag had every slow struggling out of shape young men. We kept urging them on by counting steps (the Cleveland Shuffle) and instructing the young men to not look up or down the mountain but just at the three feet in front of them and promised them the climb would be easier and they would be surprised on how much progress they would make. The hike was not technical but was very long and tiring-it’s rough to get energy at those higher elevations and some of our group had the symptoms of High Attitude Sickness. All of us made it to the summit except one young man who was out of shape and elected to return to base camp with some hikers on the way down after obtaining at least 10,000 feet but he was happy for what he had accomplished. We gathered on the summit and unfurled our Title of Liberty and then I lead our group signing “O Ye Mountains High” with as much gusto as we could muster breathing the oxygen short air at that elevation. Afterwards, a man approached me and said “We are a church group too.” They were Presbyterians from Kansas City. I told them the Mormons and the Presbyterians were going to sing together on Colorado’s highest mountain so our group joined theirs and I led both groups singing “Onward Christian Soldiers.” It was a great experience. We returned to base camp after being on the mountain about 12 hours. We ate our steak dinner to celebrate our accomplishment. We were going to have a testimony meeting but everyone was so tired that Pres. Chadwick agreed we should just go to bed.