Trip Report
Kings Peak Uintas
Sunday September 9, 2018 8:34am
top left corner top right corner
Taking Dad to the top!
Taking Dad to the top!
Credit: Omoma
bottom left corner bottom right corner
top left corner top right corner
Taking Dad to the top!
Taking Dad to the top!
Credit: Omoma
bottom left corner bottom right corner

  Trip Report Views: 1,505
Omoma
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Comments
NutAgain!

Trad climber
https://nutagain.org
  Sep 9, 2018 - 08:52am PT
Place looks cool and dad looks happy.

Can you throw us a bone with some words‽
Brian in SLC

Social climber
Salt Lake City, UT
  Sep 9, 2018 - 09:37am PT
Kings Peak...great!

Named for the first director of the USGS.

Given its Utah's highest summit...kinda funny to consider some of his less known history (from wiki):

King spent his last thirteen years leading a double life. In 1887 or 1888, he met and fell in love with Ada Copeland, an African-American nursemaid (and former slave) from Georgia, who had moved to New York City in the mid-1880s. As miscegenation was strongly discouraged in the nineteenth century (and illegal in many places), King hid his identity from Copeland. Despite his blue eyes and fair complexion, King convinced Copeland that he was an African-American Pullman porter named James Todd. The two entered into a common law marriage in 1888. Throughout the marriage, King never revealed his true identity to Ada, pretending to be Todd, a black railroad worker, when at home, and continuing to work as King, a white geologist, when in the field. Their union produced five children, four of whom survived to adulthood. Their two daughters married white men; their two sons served classified as blacks during World War I.[22] King finally revealed his true identity to Copeland in a letter he wrote to her while on his deathbed in Arizona.[23] King's friends John Hay and Henry Adams supplied funds for the support of Ada and her family after his death.
Ezra Ellis

Trad climber
North wet, and Da souf
  Sep 9, 2018 - 10:55am PT
Very interesting history Brian,
Thanks!
hooblie

climber
from out where the anecdotes roam
  Sep 9, 2018 - 11:53am PT
more story here: http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=1271284&msg=1271288#msg1271288
ddriver

Trad climber
SLC, UT
  Sep 9, 2018 - 12:31pm PT
Liked it so much I read it twice.
neebee

Social climber
calif/texas
  Sep 10, 2018 - 12:16am PT
hey there, say... wow, thanks for sharing...

yes-- i love that happy picture! good stuff... father and son!

Nick Danger

Ice climber
Arvada, CO
  Sep 10, 2018 - 06:12am PT
Nice pic, would love to read the story. Fathers and sons is always good fodder for good stories.

The Uintas are just wonderful,all of that red Precambrian sandstone and meadows just filled with wild flowers in the summer. I just love that place.
Woody the Beaver

Trad climber
Soldier, Idaho
  Sep 10, 2018 - 04:58pm PT
Nude Ascending King’s Peak

Hot, even in the winter above 13,000’. Still air, bright
Sun, big pack, big boots, loose snow. The blownclean
North Ridge would have been a stroll, but oh no, had to
Think about it, figured right up the East Face, save an hour.
So now, plowing powder, 500’ to go.

Glasses fogged, and sweat burns eyes.
Below zero, but hot. Something gotta go.
Shirt first: drop and prop the pack in snow, and peel.
Up again. The air licks hair on moving arms,
Icetoasts nippletips. Woo!

Another 100’ and a flattop boulder, snow-free.
Red quartzite: a dry lichen-frosted
Place to sit, puff, whack free the ice-plugged bottle.
Frozen gaiters off. Boots off. Hairy wool pants off.
Pants into pack – boots and gaiters on again.

Up again, snowscrapes over gaitertops.
Raw perfect brightness presses up busy
On hams, rump and crack like hot hands
Up and up, smooth air a perfect fit. In bright sun
Above the Uintah River cirque, a blue moon.

Up to the blowcleaned ridge, boulders and the cairn.
Shuck the goddamned pack, stumble down and west
Over clacking rocks to look out over all the Yellowstone.
Peaks: tent-topped Wilson, Powell, and
That pointy one. Lovenia, Red Castle over to the right.

Bare. Freeze pinches skinthick over heated
Squeeze of blood. Skin burns pinchbite
Hot! Hot! – rough and soft, boned and dangle – and
Tautbloods to the bite! Standing: raw in light from a fargone
Star. Bloodhot in the evercold between the suns. ❦
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