The Ascent During high school, two friends and I decided to try and backpack all over the country. Andrew, Jeff, and I took trips to places like the Grand Canyon, Santa Fe, and the Buffalo River. After each trip the three of us would say, "we've got to go somewhere better, more challenging." So during the spring break of my junior year we decided to pack the Wet Mountains in Colorado. We planned the trip for weeks, calling the ranger station, checking weather conditions, and planning out meals for the trip. We knew the trail would be a little more difficult than anything we had done before, would, but we never conceived of St. Charles Peak being too challenging. We started out about six in the morning for the long drive to Rye, the town just at the base of the Wet Mountains. The trip to Rye went pretty well, except for a few miscalculated map readings and a couple close calls with the "low fuel" light. When we finally made it to Rye we made camp about three miles from the trai!
             lhead so we could get a good night sleep and start out early the next mourning. While we were sleeping a huge storm moved in and stacked good eight to ten inches of snow on the whole north side of the mountain. The next morning Andrew yelled from outside the tents "hey guys you've got to take a look at this." Thinking a raccoon rummaged through our packs looking for food, I slowly crawled through the tent door and looked in astonishment at the white blanket covering the mountainside. "This is going to be a hell of a trip," Andrew said slowly sipping his cup of steaming coffee. "This couldn't be happening," I thought. We had checked the weather forecast at least four times before we left, and each time they said there was no chance of snow. After contemplating whether or not to continue our climb to the summit, we all decided that we couldn't turn back now. "We only have a
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