Our meal of a kids-sized grilled cheese with vegetables, black bean veggie burger and chunky lobster roll, washed down with a milk, Peak Summit ale and a Painkiller cocktail (rum, coconut cream and fruit juices) respectively, left everyone happy.

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Leaving before dawn, Beck could summit a peak and take a dozen photos, getting back to camp in a 20-hour round trip.

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The summit day begins in headlamp light at 1 am, when a line of trekkers kicks crampon spikes into the crunchy snow and trudge slowly to the peak, hoping to summit at dawn.

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Ruth Kelly, the UK's new transport minister, convened the security summit ahead of the UK's peak summer travel period.

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But the owner, James Meldrum, offered to let me try his upcoming offering: 19, 500 feet, roughly 1, 000 feet short of the summit of Mount McKinley, North America's tallest peak.

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King Peak, clad in Douglas fir, lords over Big Flat, its summit (4, 087 ft.) just 3 miles inland.

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It was on the summit that Professor Lidenbrock and Axel made their camp, waiting for the shadow of a nearby peak to pinpoint the crater where they were to begin their descent.

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This will sit at the very summit of Cheyenne Mountain and look over The Broadmoor and the plains to the east, Pikes Peak to the north and the Colorado Rockies to the west.

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