Summit Registers

[Boggy B]

I've found many Mike Garratt registers on obscure peaks, a lot have been there a while.

Mike Garrat and Bob Martin have both left a lot of registers (especially in baby food bottles) on remote peaks around the state. Usually in NW Colorado, the registers have been left by one of the two.

My guess is at least half of all registers currently on named/ranked/soft 13ers were placed by Garratt. Not many of them are older than 1999. Unless all the existing ones really were trash, I imagine he has a sweet collection of old registers. I don't know how long people (the CMC?) have been leaving the horrible PVC registers, but the use of small glass (and even plastic) jars that actually keep the contents dry seems to predate that. One obscure 13er has signatures back to 1950, possibly 1934 but I couldn't be sure. Another has some funny commentary from the '70s. At least in the San Juans, Linfield might possess the remainder of the cool old registers.

I'd love to see these old registers digitized for the community to enjoy. Sad to miss that connection to history when reaching these rarely-visited places.

[Trotter]

Climbed Garfield peak today, next to Grizzly A.

Unfortunately someone chose a glass container for the register, and we found it shattered. Then apparently something chewed up the register pretty bad. I wish people would use plastic containers, because now the summit is littered with glass shards.

However, the register goes back to 2013, and has some cool names.

Some of the names

Ken Nolan, twice.
Bill Middlebrook
Brad Huslander
Otina
The Finns
Mark Udall (Colorado Senator)

But he register is so chewed and water damaged that a lot of the names, dates, and comments are lost.

[CaptCO]

Wetterhorn register was a mess today but still had paper from 2004 pretty cool. I think I was 9 then?

[13erRetriever]

How does the CMC play into this conversation? I've always wondered what the correct thing to do is when I find an old register on a summit that's in a half broken container, or the pages are so frail and crumbling that pretty soon it'll be useless. I've never taken one off but it makes me sad to think they'll soon be lost to all of us. Should I bag those up and mail them in to CMC to keep and log? I'm not a member, so this is a genuine question. Is that something they do?

I found this link that says you can get a register and canister from them to place on a mountain...anyone know if this is still accurate/acceptable?

http://coloradomountainclub.blogspot.co ... sters.html

[4thPlaceAtFieldDay]

Unfortunately someone chose a glass container for the register, and we found it shattered. Then apparently something chewed up the register pretty bad. I wish people would use plastic containers, because now the summit is littered with glass shards.

The glass jars just aren't a good idea. Peanut butter containers make good registers as long as they're cleaned well. I'll put a rock inside (and on top) to help prevent it from blowing away.

[peter303]

The California Sierra Club had a project in the 1990s to retrieve, preserve and replace California summit registers for historical study.
Some go back to the Civil War era.

https://www.robiningraham.com/Mountaine ... isters.pdf

[wineguy]

Someone needs to check the summit register on Everest. Could finally establish whether or not Mallory made the summit.

[CaptainSuburbia]

I was disappointed there was no register on Hamilton Peak.

[12ersRule]

I was disappointed there was no register on Hamilton Peak.

Lin-Manuel Miranda took it.

[Jon Frohlich]

I was disappointed there was no register on Hamilton Peak.

Lin-Manuel Miranda took it.

I heard Alex got shot before he could climb the peak.

[SurfNTurf]

How does the CMC play into this conversation? I've always wondered what the correct thing to do is when I find an old register on a summit that's in a half broken container, or the pages are so frail and crumbling that pretty soon it'll be useless. I've never taken one off but it makes me sad to think they'll soon be lost to all of us. Should I bag those up and mail them in to CMC to keep and log? I'm not a member, so this is a genuine question. Is that something they do?

I found this link that says you can get a register and canister from them to place on a mountain...anyone know if this is still accurate/acceptable?

http://coloradomountainclub.blogspot.co ... sters.html

Current CMC employee here. That post is from 2009 and extremely out of date (the 14erWorld reference ). That's not even the current URL for the CMC blog -- that old Blogspot page probably hasn't been touched (or thought about) in more than a decade.

The CMC is no longer supplying or installing summit registers, at least not in an official capacity. (There might be a rogue volunteer here or there.) We will accept filled-out registers if someone brings them down from a summit and mails or delivers them to the CMC headquarters in Golden, but nothing is really done with them. They're simply added to the American Mountaineering Museum archives, which is a fancy way of saying they're stored in our basement.

[ltlFish99]

I had a nice experience on Kismet 13,694. We hiked it on 08 17 1987.
The peak register had been placed there in 1934, which is the year my mom was born.

This is why when I see kismet almost daily from Montrose, I always think of it as my mom's mountain.
It was interesting to see how few people signed it during WW2.
It was full, so paul wilson retrieved it for return to the CMC.
He replaced it with a new one.
I am looking forward to returning there this summer and seeing how many people have signed it in the 33 years since I was there last.