Mount Chachani

Today I left a piece of my manhood on Mt. Chachani. I guess I should have known it would be a bad day when I woke up with a cold and stomach bug that normally I wouldn't have gotten out of bed for. We had booked a mountain bike tour the day before and didn't want to back out of it. The women at the office had told us before hand that we would be taken up to 4800 (15,800 feet) meters, droped off then would downhill bike the whole way back. I didn't even think about "4800 meters" again until I got out of the 4wd and was wobbling around with a pounding headache. Turns out that where we were dropped off would be the 16th highest summit in North America and the highest in the lower 48. The actual summit of Mt. Chachani is 19,931 ft. Halfway up the mountain our land cruiser broke its front axle and couldn't be fixed.  (It was our driver's car and he is still up on the mountain waiting for a mechanic to meet him sometime tomorrow). Lucky enough his buddy was about 20 min behind us and would bring us the rest of the way. The whole ride up it was sunny and relatively warm. However, when we were approaching the drop off location a dark cloud was forming over the mountain. We got out and started gearing up, helmet, elbow pads, and knee pads. During this time the temp dropped and it started to sleet just a tiny bit. If we were smart, we would have just jumped back into the 4wd and went back down to town. But that's not the case. We jumped on the bikes and headed in to a mini hail storm that forced me to quit about halfway down. At this point there was about a 2 mile climb and the way I was feeling I just couldn't go on. We actually finished the climb but the hail and cold was relentless. Jesikah was kind enough to jump on board even though she didn't get altitude sickness. We rode the rest of the way down in the 4wd and couldn't wait for hot coffee, tea, and a warm shower. We are hoping tomorrow will be better
-Jon