Bring your own alarm clock

There are few more agonizing experiences on a climb than the realization, as a sunbeam touches your tent, that you somehow slept through your alarm clock and missed the 3:00 am wakeup.  If the route demands an early alpine start, you might as well pack up and go home.  This is seriously depressing, and happens to almost everyone at some point in the climbing career.  The key to avoiding this sad situation is making sure you both bring and hear your alarm.  Here’s a few tips:

• Always bring your own watch with alarm on every overnight climb.  Treat this as a personal piece of gear; don’t plan on relying on the people in the next tent over to wake you up.  You are responsible for waking yourself up!
• If you’re sleeping in a bivy bag, it can be easy to roll your head around inside the bag so you won’t hear your watch even if it’s on your boot 2 feet away from your head.  Take extra caution in a bivy bag.
• If you know you’re a very heavy sleeper, consider bringing a travel alarm clock with a really loud alarm to be sure you get up.
• If you’re not sure that your watch alarm is loud enough, it’s easy enough to try it out at home once or twice before your trip.