Summer Climbing on Mt. Olympus

Our route plans were to climb West Slabs of Mt. Olympus . . .

. . . then traverse the six summits, and descend down the south and west aspects of the mountain.

The morning was perfect.

I lead the first pitch . . .

. . . but the climbing was so fast and easy, that the rope and gear was becoming more of a hinderance than a protection . . .

. . . so we put all that stuff away and soloed the rest of the route.

Ahhhh, great rock climbing.

From the top of the West Slabs, we continued up the west ridge to the summits of Mt. Olympus.

Making our way to the north summit.

Traversing the additional summits.

An awesome part of the route.

Success.

Coming down the route, I felt exhausted, but nothing unusual until the last 20 minutes before the trailhead. I sat down on a rock and felt a wave of numbness, exhaustion and I almost blacked-out various times. I fought like the devil to stay focused and conscience and slowly finished the hike down. After 15 minutes at the car, I was losing control of my body with excessive sweating, swelling, dizziness, and waves of numbness and almost blacking-out. So I asked Glenn to take me to St. Mark's E.R. Admittedly, I was a bit scared because I had never experienced this lack of control before, but they loaded me with sugar and 4 liters of fluids and I was good to go.

The likely contributors were being overstressed mentally/physically, I ate nearly nothing the whole time and I didn't drink enough, so my body couldn't deal with it all at the end. Good lesson to learn from. It was still a blast!!!