Second Colorado Fourteeners Flight - Trip Report

Saturday, May 9, 1987: Fourteeners Flight (2)

Alan Silverstien

I and five others repeated the Colorado Fourteeners flight first made the previous June 28 by two of us and three others. In a single day we flew near or around, and identified, every one of the 54 recognized Colorado peaks over 14000'. Well, all except Culebra Peak, unfortunately, as I'll explain...

We took a Cessna 210 Turbo Centurion, N4655Q, a 5 passenger retractable gear aircraft. Jer/ Eberhard was Pilot in Command. John Lang, also a pilot, and I (avid passenger) each took the right front seat for one of the two longer legs. With us were Bob Lienhart and Reid Shay, also of Hewlett-Packard, Fort Collins, and Karl Williamson of AT&T.;Karl joined us after reading about our first flight in the computer "newsgroup" called rec.aviation.

We departed Fort Collins Downtown Airport (3V5) at 0515 and landed at Boulder Municipal at 0532 to pick up Karl, whom we'd never met before except electronically. With six on board we took off again at 0547, circling a little to gain altitude and meet the rising sun just two minutes later. We reached our first target, Longs Peak, 14255', at 0602.

We followed the same minimum-distance traversal route we developed last spring using USGS location data and lots of computer time. This time again we flew the route counter-clockwise, meaning we passed 38 of the 54 peaks, in the Front, Mosquito, Elk, Sawatch, and San Juan ranges, before landing for munchies and potty break at Telluride at 0852.

This time we had plots showing subsections of the route, in addition to the overall route plot and heading/distance chart. They were useful for reminding everyone, especially the pilot, of the relative positions of the peaks in each cluster.

Weather conditions were superb for the first half of the flight. Since we made the trip almost two months earlier than the year before, there was a lot more snow in the mountains, including numerous large avalanche traces. Unlike before, I didn't take a VCR this time. So I had a lot more time free to focus on still photography and to help fly. Also, where feasible we flew somewhat lower than some peaks, placing them prominently above the surrounding terrain in our pictures.

Landing at Telluride, 9086' and sloping, is quite a thrill, especially in springtime. A runway high on a large flat mesa, above the valley holding the main road into town, surrounded by emerald green hillsides sloping up to crystal-white summits. Unforgettable.

After a long and leisurely break we took off at 1053. An endless uphill run, fully loaded, with squirrelly winds. At Telluride you only get to land east and depart west. Just off the runway the ground drops away abruptly into the valley, which could provide an ``out'' down and to the left (for a while). Beyond the valley, a high ridge. We cleared it easily... and came slowly up and around to the north to view Mount Sneffels, 14150'.

Like last year, the weather got worse faster than anticipated, in fact, even faster than the last time. With Jer/ being IFR (instrument flight rules) current it wasn't as great a concern as it might have been. We did have to be careful to avoid IMC (instrument meteorological conditions) as we headed west, south, and east through the rest of the San Juans along our route. Miraculously, all the peaks of interest were quite in the clear. However, the ride was bumpy at times.

The longest leg of the flight is from Windom to Culebra Peaks, 137 miles. We never had to deviate from our route except to go a bit north of this beeline. On the way it became apparent that clouds were thick over the Sangre de Cristo Range. We came east toward Culebra, an uninteresting 14047' summit just a few miles north of New Mexico, and descended some to look under the clouds. No go, a thunderstorm with occasional bolts sat right on the peak. Only the base was visible, about ten miles distant. We turned north to the rest of the Sangres.

To our surprise, the other Fourteeners in the range were quite clear. They're some of the most spectacular mountains in the state, too. Where last year we saw every peak at least once, but from as far as a mile away and away from the clouds, this time we missed one completely, but got very good looks at all the others.

We caught a look at the cog railway trains clearing the tracks to the top of Pikes Peak, 14110', last of the mountains on our route. By 1347 we were back on the ground at Boulder after one go-around due to someone else's low and slow takeoff. After bidding farewell to Karl, we shuttled back to Fort Collins from 1403 to 1421.

Total elapsed time, 9:06. Estimated time aloft, 6:34 (the Hobbs meter read 6.7). Cost was about the same as last year, $148, with Karl picking up the overhead for the side-trips to Boulder. Nominal route distance, 870 miles, or from/to Boulder only, 792 miles.

(Posted later:)

Re: Fourteeners flights

After our first flight last summer we discovered we weren't the first people to undertake this adventure. Dave Landers did some research at the Colorado Mountain Club ( CMC ) library. Using an index of publications, he found these earlier reports.

• American Alpine Journal, by the AAC, 1945, pages 363-5, article by Carl Blaurock describing 1940 flight with pilot Roland Graves and Carl Melzer. Flew Continental Divide north to south with detours to Fourteeners, then east from San Juans to pick up others. Only those Fourteeners known at that time, but probably means within one mile of all current ones too. No specifics on how many peaks, how close, or the type of plane. Took approximately 11 hours; shot a movie.
• Trail and Timberline, by the CMC , February 1951 advertisement by Boulder group for chartering a Convair from Continental Airlines, to take 40 people for $25 each on Memorial Day.
• T&T, September 1951, two articles on the flight. They missed some peaks due to low fuel due to circling some peaks too long. They used a DC 3 with 21 passengers (cheaper than a Convair); cost approximately $500 total.
• T&T, September 1959, page 119, story of a July 26 flight, also sponsored by Boulder group, 18 people on a DC 3.
• T&T, January 1963, page 5, story of a flight August 19, 1962, in a Cessna 310, N5306B, as part of CMC 50th anniversary celebration. Climbers were on all peaks that day. Due to bad weather most climbers turned back, but apparently the plane made all the peaks anyway.

So we weren't the first to fly all the Colorado Fourteeners. However, we were almost certainly the first to use USGS locations data (available circa 1981) and a computerized route-finding package to discover a best (we think) route for the trip.

This article used with permission of the author.