Note: This story appeared in The Gazette on Jan. 2, 2009

Pikes Peak has a road to the top. How tough can it be to climb?

But the tens of thousands who have hiked Pikes’ famed Barr Trail in the summer in shorts, sneakers and a sweatshirt would be appalled at the deep snow, howling wind and flesh-freezing cold that winter climbers confront. For the unprepared, frostbite and falls are a huge risk.

The AdAmAn Club has a little experience with Pikes Peak in winter. The group that assembled Tuesday for the traditional climb and New Year’s summit fireworks display had a combined 477 such ascents. The effervescent Ted Lindeman, club president, had done the AdAmAn climb 37 times.

Experience, however, can’t turn back the wind. This week, it knocked people down — once with almost disastrous results.

A group of 21 AdAmAn members, nine guests and one Gazette reporter set out from Barr Trailhead, elevation 6,600 in Manitou Springs, at 8:55 a.m. Tues- day, headed for Barr Camp at 10,200 feet, the midmountain lodge where they would spend the night.

New Year’s Eve, it was on to the summit at 14,115 feet to set off the fireworks at midnight.

It’s a well-practiced routine.

The AdAmAn Club has been doing this since 1922.

Day One was a breeze. By the time we stopped for lunch halfway to Barr Camp, it was 68 degrees in the sun, and most of the climbers were down to their Tshirts. Even with a bit of ice down low and half-packed snow nearer to camp, it was “one of the best first days ever,” said Dave Kosley, 51, of Green Mountain Falls, who has made 24 AdAmAn climbs.

And the reward was the coziness of Barr Camp. Neal and Teresa Taylor, the proprietors, are two of the friendliest people you’ll ever meet. They serve a delicious spaghetti dinner, and the bunkhouse mattresses are actually comfortable.

After dinner came the evening bonfire, with nonstop jokes and reminiscences from hikes of yore. But this was not a hard-partying crowd. Everyone wanted a good night’s sleep for the big test on Wednesday, when the forecast called for winds gusting to 50 mph.

We should have been so lucky.

Aside from the fireworks, one of the AdAmAn’s Club’s traditions and the source of its name, is that it admits only one new member a year. The responsibility of leading each year’s climb falls to the newest member, who this year was Chuck Fogleman, a 60-year-old Colorado Springs physician with eight previous climbs as a guest.

For the most part, he did an admirable job keeping the column on trail, even in spots where all clues were erased by windblown snow.

Some things were beyond Fogleman’s control. Wednesday morning, a painful infection forced Rick Trojanovich, a 26-time AdAmAn summiter, to turn around at about 11,000 feet, between Barr Camp and the A-Frame, a shelter near timberline.

Safety dictated an escort, so Jack Donley, with 17 AdAmAn climbs, volunteered to go back with Trojanovich.

The group was reduced to 29 — a couple fewer flashes for another part of the ritual: the New Year’s Eve morning exchange of mirror signals between the AdAmEn at the A-Frame and folks in Colorado Springs a dozen miles away.

The next incident involved that Gazette reporter. I had been cruising along when, nearing 13,000 feet and in the middle of the Barr Trail’s first long traverse of the east face, I began to struggle with stomach cramps.

An Alka-Seltzer mixed in a Nalgene bottle didn’t help, and I began considering whether to turn around — a long haul back to Manitou, forcing an AdAmAn to escort me, and messing up a good story — or try to gut it out.

I chose the latter, but was making poor progress and had dropped off the end of the column, with only Mark Szabo, the designated tailender/troubleshooter, and Mike Reeder as my guardians.

Szabo insisted on taking my five-pound laptop, and over the next 200 vertical feet, five other guys divvied up the contents of my pack and finally took the pack itself — until I was lugging not even a water bottle.

Embarrassed, but a lot lighter on my feet, I was able to keep up a reasonable pace. To Szabo, Reeder, Bob Sommers, John Graham and Tim and Phil Stafford, thanks for saving my day.

“People just step up,” Szabo said later. “Everybody does what needs to be done.”

Pikes Peak’s east face is in the shade most of the afternoon, and temps in the 20s quickly fell into the teens.

But the wind was the problem.

Seasoned hands estimated the highest gusts at anywhere from 60 to 75 mph, and after sunset the summit weather station recorded a gust of 81.

Such winds are dangerous, and not only for colossal wind chills.

The most dramatic moment of the climb came when Jeff Williams, 57, who was about to complete his 25th Ad-AmAn, was knocked off his feet by a gust on a fairly steep stretch of undentable snow about 200 feet below the summit.

Williams slid to within a few feet of the top of a 30-foot cliff, and spent a dicey minute in a precarious position before other climbers helped him safely to his feet.

Everyone summited safely, but perhaps a little chastened, by about 4 p.m.

“It’s 14,000 feet,” said Bill Lahman, 54, one of the guest climbers. “Something can always go wrong up here.”

Thawing out in the Pikes Peak Summit House, where hot soup and even hotter green chili were waiting, conversation turned to comparisons between this year’s climb and those gone before.

The consensus was that only last year’s event, when temperatures hit minus 30, was clearly more brutal.

This year?

“Incredible wind,” said Fogleman, who greeted every summiter with a onearmed hug because he had to hang onto a signpost with the other. “The Weather Channel doesn’t even do this with hurricanes.”

Asked what kept them coming back, several of the climbers said they love the challenge.

“Last year was one of my favorite climbs, just because it was so hard,” said Dan Stuart, 55, of Manitou Springs, who was climbing with his son, Tyler, 22, the youngest in the group.

“It’s a physical challenge,” said Bill Slaughter, 66, who’s done nine AdAmAn climbs and claims 127 summits of Pikes Peak. “You’ve got to be in a reasonable level of physical fitness just to do it. And I always feel good when it’s done.”

The fireworks are a draw.

Ted Lindeman and several other club members are certified pyrotechnicians, and not even a howling gale could dampen their enthusiasm Wednesday evening as they loaded fireworks shells into a launcher-trailer hauled to the summit via the Pikes Peak Highway.

But most said the camaraderie was what they cherished most about AdAmAn.

“It’s the friendships that you form on this climb, and not going out and conquering the mountain,” said Cindy Bowles, 50, of Colorado Springs. She’s the second female member of the club, and she and Ann Nichols, 62, a guest climber from Manitou Springs, were the only women on this week’s climb.

“The first time you go, it’s for the climb,” said Cindy’s husband, Chuck, 60. “When I went the first time, after it was over, I said I’m never doing that again. That was 25 climbs ago.”

Members of the AdAmAn Club approach the summit of Pikes Peak on Dec. 31, 2009. Photo by THE GAZETTE FILE