This past weekend, I headed out with climbing partners, Bob Berger, Ben Focht, and Lyn Williams for a quick jaunt up Mount Bierstadt (14,060′) in some blustery conditions.  We headed out just after dawn on Sunday morning and summited a few hours later in cool weather and sustained winds (with gusts up to 45mph), which dropped the windchill well below zero.  It was a beautiful day overall and we celebrated the quick outing with pizza and banquet beer back in Golden, so it was a pretty ideal training day.  Although, in conditions like this it served as both training as well as conditioning.  We’ll be ramping-up our winter outings like this as we get through the holidays and into 2012 to help get us ready for the big trip!  Pretty soon we hope to increase from a “mountain-a-month” to a “mountain-a-week” as departure for Kathmandu grows increasingly imminent.