[Fletcher]

My success rate is usually pretty good. I had two failed attempts from this past summer that I recall. The one that stung the most was timing out on the West Ridge of Forbidden. We were so close, but I know we made the right call. If we would have continued, we likely would have been caught on the route in the dark. I went for Olympus back in July despite a questionable forecast. Our summit push was postponed by rain, and we didnt get to the moraine until 1pm. With threatening clouds surrounding us, we bailed.

[Malachai Constant]

I backed of Mt Spencer along the JMT a hundred yards from the summit when I heard thunder and rain started coming down in sheets.

[Bedivere]

Keep in mind, I'm not much of a peakbagger... I screwed up the route up Mt. Maude on a day climb which cost too much time backtracking so I had to abandon the attempt and still didn't make it back to the car by dark. At least I was on the Phelps Cr. trail by full dark. I'd climbed Maude before and have again since, so no biggie. Malachite Pk. back in the late '90s - chased off from a couple hundred feet below the summit by a roving thunderstorm cell that decided to float over us. Didn't seem prudent to continue with frequent lightning and pounding hail. My biggest disappointment was a ski/climb of Baker several years ago. Got within about 1000' of the summit but that was inside a lenticular that had formed over it. I learned what it's like inside lenticulars that day. With almost no visibility, steady 30+ MPH winds and dropping temps we decided to try again another day but it's never worked out again for me. I really want to get it done one of these days...

[Brushbuffalo]

Early on in my climbing, my mom, brother, and I set out to do a day climb of Mt. Daniel. This was in about 1963 or so. It was in September so the days were getting shorter, but we didn't start very early from the car campground in the valley below....probably an hour or two after sunrise. We got up the trail OK and past Peggy's Pond. We were up on the snow and we climbed to a ridge, but I don't think we were on a summit. It was getting late so we started down but when it got really dark, and with only one failing flashlight, and us not back on trail yet (there wasn't much of a climbers' trail back then) we couldn't keep hiking so we huddled under a plastic tarp and shivered. A while later a party came along and loaned us a flashlight, and we hiked out OK. I remember that one of the climbers in that party was Kenn Carpenter, a noted Everett mountaineer. We were very thankful! I learned that the ten essentials were a good idea from that trip!

[Mike Collins]

[Euler]

Granite Mountain on I90. Mine is a tale not of one epic failure but of repeatedly not making it to one particular summit. I don't do technical climbing but I have done a fair amount of stuff. I've day hiked Mt. Adams, Camp Muir about 8 times (once in a whiteout), Big Craggy, a 30 mile route from the Phelps Creek trailhead to beyond Cloudy Pass and back, the Enchantments thru-hike, Mt. Howard from the Rock Mtn. trailhead, Mt. Elbert in Colorado on the black cloud trail, Mt. Washington in NH in cold rain, long days in deep snow with unbroken trail, and probably 100 other summits and high places. I've also been up Mt. Maude. Maybe 10-15 times have I not gotten to the planned spot. You may think that Granite Mtn. is this nice simple overpopulated I90 hike. But, somehow, I've not summited roughly half of the 15 or so times that I've gone up Granite Mtn. It seems that each time there's a different thing going on: thunderstorm, bears on trail (the only trail I've seen a bear on, and somehow there are four of them in two different locations, including a mother with two cubs), heat, cold rain, blowing snow. With snowcat I summited Granite Mtn. once in the winter in showshoes. On the way down, about 1 or 2 minutes below the summit I ripped my calf muscle in deep snow (40 feet?) and descended half the mountain by sliding down on my back, and spent months in rehab after that. It's not a mountain to be taken for Granite.

[Magellan]

0/3 on Rainier. Took 3 tries to get 4400' Mt Washington. Bike and hike 11 miles one way and miss the summit of Meadow Mt by 200'. Miss the summit of Sahale by 50'. Two trips to Persis; first one staub in hand, second one torn meniscus. Those are the ones that stick out.

[Mesahchie Mark]

This is a great subject, one that I've thought about from time-to-time. Going a calendar year without fail is quite an achievement - well done, Gimp! My experience is that most fails fall into the conditions/weather category, although running out of time and poor beta seem to happen more lately. My most significant fail was Rainier, 2002. I signed up with RMI to climb Rainier, having no real experience, but had a burning desire to summit. I didn't want to use any vacation days, so I split the training and the climb between two weekends at the end of June. A late dump of snow came in that last week and our group was one of the first to try the mountain, breaking trail the whole way. We timed out around 11.5k el, and the guides turned us around. I was bitterly disappointed not to summit, and even more so, I was out $700 to boot! But the experience taught me several lessons that remain with me to this day: 1. I belong in the mountains. Looking down on Lil T as the sun was coming up leaves an impression! It was something I wanted to experience again and again. 2. I have the ability to climb big mountains 3. I need more experience/skills 4. I don't want to depend on guide services and appointed times Properly motivated, I am happy to report that I was able to return to Rainier the following year with a private party for a successful summit via the Kautz glacier, and again in 2004 via the Tahoma glacier. I've climbed some other stuff, too, since then.

[ree]

Cashmere. Turned around by steep snow and not having better protection for it. Epic fail on trip planning: thinking we could do 8 - 10 miles a day cross-country in the Sierras. More like 4 miles a day, with the terrain and elevation. (Mono Recesses.)

[cascadeclimber]

A few years back in January or February, was trying to get to the top of Rainier on a bluebird day. At the top of Gib Rock it was windy- out of the north. It was dawn and the wind often picks up at dawn, then settles down. We continued up. Instead of decreasing, the wind got worse and worse. I was wearing glacier glasses, but they iced up completely; I could only look under the lenses. It was so fierce coming out of the north that we couldn't face that direction...we had to backstep when traversing north. I had goggles in my pack, but there was no way I could take it off to get them- not unlike Beck Weathers and his infamous mitts, they might as well have been at home. We got to the bergschrund, just a hundred or so vertical below the crater rim, and I was going back and forth trying to find a way across- at this point thinking we could hunker down in the summit ice caves until the wind abated. My partner was below me on the rope slightly shielded by a small serac when I got the immense sense that things were very, very wrong. And then I landed, some tens of feet away from where I'd been standing. A gust of wind had picked me up off the ground and tossed me. I flew. Like a bit of detritus. I badly sprained my ankle when I landed. And yet, as we crawled downward (it was now impossible to stand or even kneel) from 14,200 to Gib Rock, sometimes laying flat out in arrest position to avoid getting picked up again, I never felt a bit of pain. Below Gib Rock we were shielded from the wind again and out of danger. My ankle lit up like it was on fire. The side-slope from Camp Misery down the Cowlitz to Muir was agonizing. My partner's father tried to make it to Muir that day to greet us, but later told us the wind was the worse he'd experienced on the snowfield and he'd turned back. At Muir I consumed a significant quantity of Ibuprofen and HAPPILY put on my ski boots (I'd been climbing in other boots). The drugs and ankle protection allowed me to carefully ski down in the dark to the Paradise lot. A collect call was made from the payphone to let wifey know I was okay...it was very late. My partner ended up with minor frostbite on some fingertips, and I had 2nd degree wind burns on both wrists where my gloves had pulled up from my jacket exposing skin. Aside from that, we walked away clean, but with valuable experience and wisdom.

[spamfoote]

Most Epic fail? Waddington BC, Mt. Jubilee, BC same trip. Left 2 days late. Bro sprained/broke? toe when we were kayaking up Knight Inlet. Then we sat in a tent for a week straight while it rained and his toe healed. Got up to the "ice fields" to find them thigh deep wallowing mush as the weather turned warm afterwards. Finally hit ridge on Jubilee about 2 weeks late to find every single route separated by giant crevasses and horrendous mush leaving us the "option" of going up the crumbling red death defying rock which literally crumbled beneath every step you took. Needless to say, we didn't decide to die on that stupid ridge and figured we got had 6 ways from Sunday and to pack our bad mojo back home. Looked wistfully across the glaciers to Waddington that typically would have been a days walk, but under horrendous mush conditions with every crevasse wide open due to low snow year, was hopeless. Been back. Wonderful place. Would love to go again. Most humiliating fail? Hrmm, probably climbing Buck Mountain. Coming down, claiming to have climbed it to others, when in fact, we did not. Rather we missed the main summit by a few hundred yards as we were too lazy at the time to tag the real summit. Claimed someone "stole" the register..... It was a sub summit. Have not been back. Would like to. PS. This was the trip where I learned to not bother burying your crap in BC. The bears will just dig it up. Yummy!

[Jetlag]

Congratulations on all your summits this year, Gimpilator! My favorite fail was a Middle Peak of Index climb with a raw beginner. She was a physical education major so I thought it might be fun. Darn, she took a 50 foot fall about a third of the way up and starting penduluming over a steep wall through a waterfall. Got her down safely and we were married soon after. Still married 42 years later, but I don't think she trusts me like she should.

[Stefan]

Failed 3 times to get Malachite....or was that 4 times?

[Riverside Laker]

Five fails on Marble Peak, no successes.