| The day before we left for Christmas vacation, I achieved a year-long to goal -- to climb 300,000 vertical feet on my mountain bike. This is the vertical equivalent of 10 sea level to summit ascents of Mt. Everest in 12 months' time. This photo was taken at the fork in the P1000 Road on Sumas Mt. on December 18, 1999. The road ahead climbs the Smith Peak flank of Sumas Mt. and then comes down at the Mt. Baker Winery just west of Deming. I climbed another five hundred vertical feet or so, and then ripped all the way down the other side of the mountain to the Kendall Beer Shrine in the thickening snow.
My annual total for the year at the end of December 18, 1999 was 300,601 vertical feet climbed, all of it on the green Specialized Stumpjumper FSR XC I got after I accidentally backed my pickup truck over my previous bike, my beloved old Kona Hot. But that's another story...
Vert Quest chronicles "The Man Known As Mongo's" pursuit of the World Record for climbing on a mountain bike -- 404,000 vertical feet, or the vertical equivalent of 13 sea-level-to-summit ascents of Mt. Everest during a 12 month period. Mongo's mountain bike climbing tricks are distilled in Mongo's Over-the-top Guide to Climbing.
© Copyright 2000 by Bruce Brown
and BF Communications Inc.
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