New for 2010:

• Climbs of Devils Tower – one of America’s most recognizable icons
• A Mount Rainier Women’s Climb, led by two-time Mount Everest summiter Melissa Arnot
• A 5-Day Beginner Mountaineering Course in Rocky Mountain National Park, presented by Colorado Mountain School
• Continued climbs up America’s classic peaks including Mount Rainier, Mount Hood, Mount Whitney, Mount Shasta, and the Grand Teton

To check out this year’s schedule, head to www.summitforsomeone.org.

Want to be added to our list to be eligible for early registration on October 5? Click here to e-mail Brendan.

Now, Steph has put together another fundraiser along the same lines — this time to help climbing legend Layton Kor, who went on an incredible spree climbing new routes in the American West in the 1950s and 1960s, putting up classic lines that still prove themselves as rites of passage to today’s traditional climbers.

Kor is in need of a kidney transplant, and Steph has teamed up with photographer/writer/climber Stewart Green to raise money to help pay Kor’s medical expenses. For a $25 donation, you can buy a chance to climb Castleton Tower’s Kor-Ingalls route with Steph, or climb a different Layton Kor climb with one of a host of elite climbers: Conrad Anker (South Face of Washington Column, Yosemite), Tommy Caldwell (Kor’s Flake, Lumpy Ridge), Jimmy Dunn (The Cruise, Black Canyon of the Gunnison) or Eric Horst (Kor routes in the Shawnagunks).

To buy a raffle ticket, visit www.laytonkorclimbing.com.

My friend Dan Lipschultz, owner Out U Go Pet Sitting & Walking, got wind of my Summit For Someone climb and wanted to help. Knowing I would be out of town during my climb, he offered free pet sitting while I was gone. The past 6 months of fundraising have been a very humbling experience for me. So many family and friends have reached out, reached into their pocket books and helped me reach my goal. Dan and the fine folks are no exception. Dan’s generosity is a shinning example of local company doing good in the community. Big ups, Dan.

-Brendan

The Early Application allows climbers interested in 2010 to sign up and begin raising funds with no risk. Climbers will be able to sign up on July 15th 2009 for a generic ‘SFS 2010” climb and begin solicited donations via a personalized and secure fundraising platform. Climbers choosing this option receive an extra 3 months to raise money. At the end of this time climbers will need to commit to raising funds in full, becoming a layaway climber or dropping form the SFS program.

On October 14th, 2009, pre-season climbers will have three choices for continuation:
1) Move from Pre-season to “Layaway.” Meaning they continue to raise money without being assigned to a climb until they reach $1250. Layaway climbers are not eligible to climb Alaska or Rainer. They can climb in 2010 or 2011.

2) Move from pre-season to full climber. Place a $950 deposit on file and pick climb of their choice. No restrictions. Participated in a 2010 climb.

3) Drop from program – Donations raised to date will NOT be refunded under any circumstances.

To Apply:
1. Climbers will apply at www.summitforsomeone.org. When prompted to pick a climb the only choice at this time should be “SFS 2010”
2. You will be sent a waiver and liability form. Please sign and return these in order to be confirmed as a Summit for Someone climber.
3. Once you are successfully registered you will be given a webpage and can begin soliciting donations.
4. A $50 non-refundable deposit must be on file before you are set up with a personal fundraising page.

Rules & Restrictions
The pre-season button has no risk attached to it. However, a climber will be expected to move in to one of the three buckets listed above in October of 2009.

Questions? E-mail Brendan at brendan@bigcitymountaineers.org.

-Brendan

When we got back, all I had to do was order 80 custom-made thank you postcards, locate all the addresses for my donors, address all the postcards, buy stamps for them and send them. 25 days after summiting Mount Shasta, I mailed all my thank-you cards. Total cost?

• 80 postcard stamps at the U.S. Post Office: $22.00
• 82 photo postcards with a personalized photo and message on them, shipped to me from Snapfish.com: $81.62

If you’d like to do something similar, and need help figuring out how to access your list of donors and their addresses, please let me know: Brendan@bigcitymountaineers.org.

-Brendan

Our group of 6 climbers and two guides summited Mount Shasta at 7:40 a.m. on Sunday morning, after 6 hours of climbing the Avalanche Gulch route. We spent roughly 8 months fundraising, 5 months training, and in the end, raised $25,100 for BCM and got 6 climbers to the summit, a big metaphor for the kids on our summer program trips (which, coincidentally, started going out in the field this week).

Our group included:

• Jessica, from Arlington, Va., (originally from Chicago), who also summited Mount Rainier in 2007 with Summit For Someone
• Zach, from San Francisco
• Jayson, from Denver (originally from Burlington, Iowa)
• Robb, from Denver (originally from New Hampton, Iowa)
• Steph, from Denver
• SFS Climb Coordinator Brendan, from Denver (originally from New Hampton, Iowa)
• Natalie Matveyeva from Shasta Mountain Guides
• Jason Champion from Shasta Mountain Guides

We spent two days slowly working our way up to our high camp at about 10,000 feet, waiting for good weather — Shasta was intermittently covered in clouds, rain and snow throughout the first day of our trip. Our guides decided to take us up a different route than originally planned, as the Avalanche Gulch route is easier to navigate in bad conditions. Sunday morning, we were up at 12:30, climbing through a whiteout by 1:40, and on top by 7:40. After a few minutes enjoying the sunny summit by ourselves, we plunge-stepped and glissaded back to Horse Camp and hiked out to the trailhead by 2:15.

We couldn’t have asked for a better group of climbers and guides to hang with for three days. Click “Keep reading” to see some photos of the climb.

DIA, June 11, waiting for our flight to Sacramento. I think Jayson is explaining to Robb and Steph why he felt it was okay to borrow an entire bottle of Cholula from the burrito place at the airport.

The night before our climb, I attempted a Mountain of Nachos at the Lake Sis Grille and Brew. They were nothing short of five-star.

Jayson working on our "Thank You" sign at the Stage Door coffee shop in Mount Shasta City, just before we meet our guides to climb Mount Shasta. Each of us had to raise at least $3,600 for Big City Mountaineers to participate in the climb.

Summit For Someone Shasta 2 climbers at the Bunny Flat trailhead, from left: Me, Robb, Jessica, Steph, Jayson and Zach.

Inside the hut at Horse Camp, about 1.7 miles up the trail, where we spent our first night. It rained on us, snowed up high, and the summit of the mountain popped out of the clouds for only a few minutes the whole day.

Sign on the composting toilet at Horse Camp. Funny, I have that same one at home.

Our hike to our second night's camp, just below 10,000 feet. Not too scenic, since we were inside a cloud the entire time. Check out Zach's BCM flag.

Our 3-person tent turned into the "Iowa Tent," as Robb, Jayson and I stayed together in what was a way-too-small, way-too-unventilated structure.

Robb at camp, climbers in the background.

Jason and I built this awesome bathroom with one shovel and a bunch of work. I hope the next people to use our campsite enjoy it as much as we did.

Here's what you take in the bathroom with you -- a bag to do your business in, with specific instructions on how to do that.

Jayson poses with the target that comes in each bag.

Zach, Steph and Jessica wait for Jason to finish cooking dinner. Split pea soup and couscous with ... lentils, which proved to be not so good for people sharing a small, stuffy tent.

After going to bed at about 6:30, we were up at 12:30 a.m. to start climbing. Robb is fresh as a daisy, having actually slept a few hours, unlike myself.

Somewhere, that's Jessica, Jayson, Zach and guide Natalie taking a break. This is our second rest stop, at about 3:45 a.m., I think just below 12,000 feet.

And a couple hours later, the sun came up, now that we're now above the clouds we hiked through the day before.

Feeling pretty chipper now that the sun's up.

After the misery of hacking our way up Misery Hill, here's all that was left -- about 300 vertical feet to the rocky summit.

Robb and I enjoying the view to the west from the top of Misery Hill.

Zach, about ten vertical feet from the summit, after 6 straight hours of crushing it.

Time for an ice-cold refreshing Shasta Cola.

The whole team on the 14,162-foot summit. Clockwise from left: Jason, Zach, Jayson, Jessica, Robb, Natalie, me, and Steph.

The team heads down, ahead of schedule.

Looking west from the top of Misery Hill on our way down.

Steph's new Facebook profile photo?

Pretty sweet souvenir.

The first really clear view we had of Shasta was the day after we climbed it. I think Jayson's at about 3,500 feet taking this photo, so the summit is more than 10,000 feet from where he's standing.

-Brendan

You won’t hear many people recommend bicycling as training for mountaineering — it’s not very similar to hiking uphill at high altitude with a pack on your back. But it’s how I get to and from work (and the grocery store, and the library, and dinner with friends, and coffee shops, and REI), and I am not a gym person, so it’s my twice-daily opportunity to get some exercise before and after sitting at my desk in the BCM office, getting flabby all day.

So for about three and a half minutes every morning on my way to work, I hit this hill, in Cheesman Park, and I pedal as hard as I can. I’m usually wheezing and gasping for air by about 2/3 of the way up it, legs burning — not unlike the feeling of trying to hike up a high-altitude ridgeline or snow slope. It’s only 115 feet of elevation gain over a half mile, but on a bike, you can never beat a hill. You can only get up it a little faster.

Many of us participating in SFS live in areas where we don’t have a mountain right out our back door, so we can’t exactly replicate mountain climbing. But it’s important to exercise, and at a high intensity, to prepare for the high-intensity workout you’ll get on your climb.

As you might note in the below video, Kelly Cordes does a bit of his mountaineering training on an exercise bike. And as he says, “I do some high-intensity circuit-type workouts … you think ten minutes — that’s nothing, but sometimes, you’re on the verge of puking …”

If you’re like me, you don’t have a guest bedroom — I start piling everything I need on one spot on the floor of my apartment. You’ve probably got an extra room in your house that you can pile gear in for a week. It’s nice to go through everything with a checklist in hand to visually confirm you have everything you need. If you do all of this well in advance, there’s no panicking — even if you suddenly realize you’ve lost your headlamp, there’s time to borrow one, or order another one.

If you need a gear list to print off for your SFS climb, here they are:

• Mount Shasta
• Mount Hood
• Mount Sneffels Mountaineering Course
• North Palisades Peak
• Longs Peak
• Gannett Peak
• Mount Rainier – Emmons Glacier
• Mount Langley
• Mount Rainier
• Mount Shuksan
• Grand Teton
• Mexico Volcanoes