Mount Tipton

31-Oct-92

By: Dave Jurasevich

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Halloween Day dawned bright and dear in the desert of northwestern Arizona as twenty climbers assembled for an ascent of Mt. Tipton, highpoint of the Cerbat Range. Apart from the beautiful weather, which was a marked contrast to rain storms the evening before, this was a special day for three climbers in the group. DPS'ers Richard Carey, Les Hill and Ken Olson, each with 96 DPS listed peaks to their credit, came to Mt. Tipton to finish the list and claim the first, "first-time" triple list finish in DPS history. Actually, it was to be a quadruple list finish with my wife, En Lee as the fourth person, but a minor detail called pregnancy (8-1/2 months to be exact) changed those plans. In any event, these three intrepid climbers were accompanied on the climb by Mark Adrian, Suzanne Booker, Fred Bright, Paul Frieman, Russell Glavis, Gail Hanna, Sue Wyman Henney, Vic Henney, Charles Hummel, Rob Langsdorf, Witold Martynowicz, Dennis Richards, Judi Richardson, Rheta Schoennan, John Strauch and Glenn Torbett and myself.

The climb to the summit went well, with Glenn Torbett checking our route with a Sony PYXIS Geographic Positioning System. Glenn's expensive "toy" was a hand-sized device that received signals from an orbiting satellite and fixed our latitude and longitude on the earth to within a 300 foot accuracy as well as giving the elevation above sea level! That sophisticated little gadget was quite a conversation piece and set the basis by which the climb would be thought of as a day of great contrasts. On the one hand we all witnessed the extreme precision and reliability of Glenn's satellite positioning system, and on the other we marveling at the low-tech breakdown of Vic Henney's boots which came untied three times in the span of about five minutes. Some in the group cast doubts about Vic's shoe-tying skills. Hey, anybody holding two master's degrees must know how to tie his shoes, right?

The group stopped just short of the summit & the 3 list finishers continued on to the top amid cheers and applause from their friends. Within minutes the summit was a veritable war zone, with Champagne cork flying wildly in all directions. Amid millions of nesting ladybugs on the summit rocks, the party continued for about 1 hour with many of the group donning Halloween masks brought up for the occasion. List finish pins were passed out to Richard, Les and Ken and Gail presented the trio with personalized pins and patches of her own to commemorate the event. Running out of bubbly and succumbing to its soothing effects at altitude, we left the summit more relaxed than when we arrived and managed to return to the cars by late afternoon. A sit down dinner that evening at a local Kingman restaurant capped off the celebration.

Mark, Dennis, Rob, Suzanne and Russell left that evening for Whipple Mtn. to continue their peakbagging tour of the desert which included Hayford, Moapa and Virgin before arriving at Tipton. Call, Richard, Ren, Charles and I spent the night at the Hualapai Mtn. Park campground near Kingman and climbed Hualapai Mtn. the next morning. Others of the party got a jump on traffic and began the long drive home.

Once again, congratulations to Richard, Les and on their fine accomplishment.


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