Mount Princeton

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The 18th highest at 14,197ft.

My 18th successful fourteener climb!

7/15/99 climbed w/ Marie C.

I picked up Marie at 5:00 a.m. and started west. On the drive we saw some deer and antelope (we they playing?) along the side of the road. I am always 1/2 happy to see wildlife and 1/2 scared that the deer is suicidal. We drove by the Hot Springs around 7:00 a.m. and continued driving past the parking lot. I was very thankful to have borrowed the Jeep. We drove up to the radio towers. When the book said limited parking I assumed more than 2 cars could fit. We continued up the trail about .1 miles and found a wonderful spot to back in. We started hiking at 7:30 a.m. The trail is wide enough for cars (it ends a Young Life chalet). I had read a few stories on another web page about many people missing the trail so I was careful to watch for it. We were also fortunate to see the party ahead of us already off the jeep trail and up the hiking trail. When you get to tree line, you can see the jeep trail head south, this is when you look to the ridge on the north. If I had to choose one word to describe the trail it would have to be rocky. Marie doesn't hike too well when she has to step on/over/around rocks. We really appreciated the dirt parts of the trail but there was not much of that to enjoy. We trudged along and arrived just below the ridge of Mount Princeton and it's southeastern subpeak, 13286ft Tigger Mountain (I haven't confirmed the name yet). This was the slowest part of the climb. There are many trails going up this talus to the top of the ridge. We finally got to the top of the ridge around 10:30 a.m. and took a short break. We continued up the ridge and were almost at the summit when I saw a plaque that I had to check out. The plaque was a memorial to a young woman, Catherine Pugin, who had been struck by lightening and killed at that very spot. She was 29 years old, my age, when she died. This really made me think about many things. After a few moments of some self-reflection and thoughts about safety on the mountain, I summited at 11:30 a.m. I was again reminded about how the weather is very different at 14,000ft. Marie and I found a wind block. We huddle by the rock pile and ate lunch. Took a few pictures (clouds prevented some good shots of nearby peaks) and then headed down around 12:00 p.m. Going down the talus was just as slow as coming up had been. We got down from the ridge and onto the main trail. Around 2:00 p.m. the rain started which slowed us down again. The rocks became very slick. At this point I was thankful that I wasn't near the top of Princeton.

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