I wonder if anyone else feels this way - that any peaks you have attempted but failed at for some reason tend to gnaw at you and have more subsequent attraction than other peaks. They seem like unfinished business. I feel that if ever I am in the vicinity of one of these peaks again, I must finish the job. Otherwise, I tend to favor attempting new peaks rather than revisit ones I have already climbed.

The great alpinist, Alan Kearney, wrote an article for Rock and Ice on this subject. He called it 'Cleaning the Skeletons From the Closet'. I have unfinished business on certain routes going on 16 years and many attempts, and every year I plan a rematch but the weather and conditions rarely cooperate. (It is a winter route).

hightinerary wrote:I wonder if anyone else feels this way - that any peaks you have attempted but failed at for some reason tend to gnaw at you and have more subsequent attraction than other peaks. They seem like unfinished business. I feel that if ever I am in the vicinity of one of these peaks again, I must finish the job. Otherwise, I tend to favor attempting new peaks rather than revisit ones I have already climbed.

Sure. A good example for me was North Palisade which I didn't summit until my 8th attempt. (There were some weather issues and some 'me-being-a-big-pussy' issues ) Most of the Sierra trips I took from about 1976 to 1979 were contrived to be in the region of N. Pal for further attempts on that elusive peak. I was really obsessed and often even had dreams at night about climbing it. When I finally did climb it, it was a relief to move on to other regions of the Sierra (where I had similar failures and subsequent obsessions ). Ahh, how I miss that lifestyle.

I've known them as "vendetta peaks". Yes, they gnaw at me, emphasis on the leading "g".

Sometimes I turn back realizing I am way in over my head... so I don't feel too bad, and I have been able to go back and successfully summit them, sometimes many years later, after having developed better skills and more bravery.

Sometimes, it's a peak I should be able to complete but weather or timing or bad planning forces a turn around. Those bug me. Seven years ago I was turned around on Dos Cabezas Peak in AZ due to high winds and some poor planning. That peak is usually inaccessible due to private property. Another opportunity came in 2013, five years later. We all got up to the top. The next day, I bailed on another nearby peak, Pinnacle Ridge, due to unrelenting brush and a sense we had chosen a bad route. So I traded one vendetta peak for another in a two day period.

I had to abort my attempt of Gannett Peak in Wyoming in 1999 due to very bad blisters on both feet. I never even got close to the snowfields... I'm not sure it even counts as an attempt. But it's my biggest vendetta peak, and 16 years later, I still have not re-attempted it, but it does bother me.......

I got stormed off a class 3 in the Bighorns 4 times in a roe. Had great success on numerous class 5's all over.....every time on Darton, a huge storm would build. 6am, noon, 6 pm....didn't matter. Finally got it on a rare warm/dry mid October last year.

I think everyone does. Mine span multiple continents.

A friend of mine was stormed off the same mountain 8 or 9 times (I was with him on attempt 1). Some I would like to attempt again when I get all my strength back (a spinal injury 2 yrs ago caused problems that I am still recovering from), some I will probably never get back to but there are always other things....and in the big picture does it matter that much.. This moment in life is what really matters

My experience: the gnawing wears off with increasing age.

But the great feeling when an unfinished business is finished at last is still the same.

Not too bad I think ...

My wife bought me a shirt that says "Just REDO it" for that very reason. But I've always managed to get there on the 2nd or 3rd
attempt. Mt Hood seems to be my nemesis these days.

Been trying for 3 years now. First year we didn't even make the 500mile drive from Boise. Two days before our group was
planning an attempt, a climber died. All of them being married men they cancelled on me.

This year (April) our group of 5 made it up to Castle Rock when the other 4 announced that was as far as they were going. The day was perfect,
it was only 6am but I had promised my wife I wouldn't go alone.

Next season will be the one (I hope)

Greetings everybody,
My philosophy of practicing climbing and mountaineering was climbing rather than at the top. I often come to the summit but did not want to climb on top of that I owed myself to come back again. And there were those peaks that I wanted to go up and that we are "hijacked". I was on an expedition to K'2 2008 when there was a terrible accident and she gave it to others as unfinished business to the next attempt.
greeting.

I think you mean Crater Rock, on Hood

I kinda like it, actually. I like having the draw... something pulling me back into the mountains. "Unfinished business" is a great phrase for it - it's nothing more than that for me, no mountain gnaws at me... there's no malcontent, just a fun discontent. I'll get you next time, sucka.

I've tried Kautz on Big R twice... first time solo, I went up in September for an overnight bid... overslept on day 2 and got spooked by all the ice coming off the upper glacier in the morning sun. Second time was my first time climbing after about a 2-year hiatus, and though I actually had the requisite strength to do the route, I turned around at Hazard on day two for the WORST SUNBURN OF MY LIFE. If I'd continued up, I probably would have ended up in the emergency room for sunburn. I peeled twice over the following two weeks.

But I'm not mad about being bucked off twice... I look forward to the extra feeling of satisfaction when I finally do top that biatch out.

It took me 3 attempts to summit Split. It took me 3 times to trail run 50 miles. Men are very focused primates. However, in retrospect, better planning would have made a difference.

It took me 4 tries to tag Clarence King in the Sierra, including one where I made it all the way to the summit block and chickened out. I think I got spanked twice on Middle Pal when I was just getting started, once by me sucking and once by fresh snow.

I don't have unfinished business of that order now, though I would like to make it back to the Jasper area someday.

Its the difference between the Hit List and the Shit List. Things on the later tend to have a additional motivational elements when considering where to go! Fifth try on N. Sister is bound to be the necessary magical combination of timing, weather, conditions, partner fitness, etc...right?