This climbing season adds another digit to “the list” (of those who have climbed all 54 of Colorado’s 14,000-foot peaks) as the thousandth climber joins the ranks.

The list started in 1923, when Carl Blaurock and William F. Ervine tied for the number one spot. The ensuing years read like a “who’s who” in pioneering the Colorado mountains, including Albert Ellingwood (#3), Harry Standley (#10), Robert M. Ormes (#13), and many others. Fourteeners climbers on the list are in good company.

The compelling adventure of completing the 14ers takes on personal meaning in its quest. It often starts out simply enough—a random opportunity to climb a high peak—evolving into taking on the list—to a memento of heart and mind and feet. The experience captures the imagination: carpets of wildflowers; slopes of golden aspen; the white of winter; climbing friendships; sighting native animals; and sometimes turning back. Climbers’ letters tell the tales.

Getting hooked

The journal entries of Teresa Gergen describe this phenomenon. “6/19/99 Quandary Peak. My first 14er. It was harder than I expected and not as rewarding as I expected…. 6/20/00 Sherman attempt. I climbed Sheridan instead of Sherman. I never even noticed Sherman until I was halfway down and saw that was where all the people were heading… to he** with the 14ers. 7/24/00 Wetterhorn. I could tell even hiking up the road at the start that I was really going to have a good day.…Through the notch, and we would finally see the class 3 gully up to the summit. I looked at it and said to myself, ‘I can do that!’ 7/16/01 Little Bear. I wasn’t leading, and I didn’t have to downclimb because we rappelled, so that might have made a difference in my opinion, but honestly I couldn’t tell that the class 4 stuff (my first) was much harder… 7/22/01 Sunlight and Windom. I’m used to my challenges coming from route finding, going fast enough with asthma to beat the weather, coming down scree, and getting over my long-held fear of snow. 8/11/01 Capitol. We traversed to the start of the knife edge. (A long-time friend but first-time climbing partner) asked me again how I was feeling and I knew the whole climb hinged on my answer. It wasn’t hard to say the truth: ‘Excited!’ I felt stronger than I ever had in my life and I was so ready! I’m a different person than I was 3 years ago. The memories will stay with me forever.”

Mark Hyams started by climbing Longs Peak at the completion of a summer as a music student at Rocky Ridge Music Center, which is virtually at the Longs Peak trailhead. During the summer, the students hike every Monday, culminating in a climb of Longs Peak at the end of the session (he was unaware of other 14ers at the time). While performing at the Aspen Music Festival the following summer, someone mentioned to him that there were other 14ers near town. He climbed Castle Peak and thereafter was hooked. He credits the 14ers for inspiring the imagination for what is possible in the wilderness and says, “Every time I climb a high peak in Colorado, I always point out the 14ers in view (sometimes to the great annoyance of my partners!), and will continue to do so, for they are quite unmistakable, as they soar high above the rest of the Colorado peaks.”

Dorthe Leaven relates “I moved to Colorado in August of 1995 with a dream and a plan of a ‘grand slam.’ While still living in Iowa, I read a local newspaper article of two women, ages 55 and 65, who had spent many years, miles, and money commuting to Colorado to climb all 54 of the 14,000-foot peaks, thereby achieving a grand slam. How incredible! I was only 44 years old at that time and totally convinced I could do this, too.”

On one of her hikes, she met Ian MacDonald, her future husband. They were married in May of this year atop Quandary Peak.

Weather and other natural acts

Every climbing season generates stories about Colorado weather. Bill and Gentry Moellenhoff’s motto is “sign the register and run!” Many will relate with Dorthe Leaven’s sentiments on her last summit, “I felt happy yet empty in one big emotion. I wanted to sit and cry but now the weather was coming in and we had to get off the mountain. This was not the time to get struck by lightning—I had a letter to write!” Chris Glascock, who encountered blizzards that dumped six inches of snow on both his first and last 14er attempts, had to re-climb to summit both peaks. His first, Mt. Sherman, was a July snowstorm and his last, Mt. Eolus, was hit by snow on Labor Day, making the Eolus catwalk slippery. He says, “I decided the mountain would be there next summer. I am happy to report that it is.”

Paul Usinowicz recounts a close call. While descending Maroon Peak with his daughter, Lara, he saw a thunderstorm brewing nearby. They witnessed a bright flash, followed by a secondary flash of yellow off their helmets. Their fellow climber, thirty yards below them, described the scene as a blue light traveling up a small ridge a few feet from them, accompanied by a buzzing sound. As it reached Paul and Lara, it discharged as white and yellow light. Paul credits the plastic climbing helmets that he and Lara were wearing as rain protection for saving their lives.

Usinowicz also mentions in his letter that the night before his final two days of summits, he found a twenty-dollar bill on which someone had written the numbers “53” and “54.” He said he will take all the good omens he can find and has kept the bill for good luck (his 53rd and 54th climbs were successful—coincidence?).

Bill and Gentry Moellenhoff describe an unusual encounter with nature. After returning to Buena Vista following a climb of Mt. Princeton, they found they had picked up a hitchhiker, a marmot! He had crawled into the wheel well and didn’t come out until they were in town. They put out food and water for the marmot, and it stayed with the Jeep overnight. The next day, it climbed up under the wheel well again and traveled with them to Mt. Huron, where it found a new home.

Dave Eckhardt shares a story about Little Bear, his most memorable climb. Dave says, “I climbed with my friends George Ingersoll and Linda Crockett. George carried up a huge pack to base camp that contained close to a full bottle of gin and a full 1.5 liters of tonic water. Of course, gin and tonic would not have been the same without ice cubes, so he strapped a small cooler filled with ice (and dry ice to keep the ice cubes from melting) on the outside of his backpack! All three of us enjoyed the G&Ts after our climb, but we have to dump out half a cooler of ice before we started our descent the next morning!”

Carole and Dick Laingor have some notable statistics: their 14ers climbs required no less than 18,735 miles of driving from their home in Loveland to the various trailheads, 445 miles of hiking, and 37 vertical miles of climbing from trailheads to the summits.

Nick Weighton, who actually completed his 14ers in 2000 but missed the deadline for last year’s submissions (check out his entry for possible clues as to why he might’ve been tardy), recalls his longest hike as the one to Eolus, Sunlight, and Windom. He opted to hike the 32-mile round trip approach from Purgatory (now Durango Mountain Resort) rather than pay $50 for the train to Needleton because, in his words, “That was a lot of beer money.” His longest day to do a 14er attempt was twenty-two hours, with 11,000 vertical feet, for the Maroon Bells, on a climb rife with difficulty. He ascended a snow couloir, was forced onto a cliff of rotten rock by a boulder obstacle, was beset by a snowstorm, reached the ridge too late in the day, and had to descend the other (west) side without reaching the summit. The failed climb required a 3,000 vertical foot descent into the Snowmass drainage; a climb up Buckskin Pass (reached at midnight), a descent past Crater Lake that put him at base camp at 3:00 a.m., whereupon he packed up his gear, hiked two more miles to the Maroon Creek trailhead, and made the long drive home. Weighton describes his most enjoyable peak as “Any peak where I could enjoy the great scenery for more than five minutes without a chilling wind or approaching storm driving me off.”

Climbing tips

The Laingors provide some advice for those new to climbing the high peaks.