Fourteeners

In a comment on my friend Linda's blog where she wrote about her son's mountain climbing experience, I mentioned that I had climbed 26 of Colorado's fourteeners (peaks at least 14,000 feet high). She wrote back and suggested that I write an Eye blog about how that happened, so here it is.

Looking back, I have wondered just where it was that I began to exercise regularly, because I recall only hazy memories that included cigarettes and eating poorly. In thinking about how it came about, it happened with a group of friends I met when I first moved to Boulder. I was living in a rooming house with perhaps fifteen or so other residents. Although it was not an official communal living experience, it turned out to be so in many ways. We each had a smallish room but we shared the kitchen and bathrooms, which means you get to know each other pretty well. Among them were a bunch of guys who made trips into the Rockies to "bag" fourteeners. One day, they invited me to join them.

I was instructed to pack a lunch, take rain gear, water, and wear absolutely NO cotton anywhere. This seemed strange to me, as it was midsummer and hot without a cloud in the sky. I did as I was told and very early one morning we piled into Jim's big old van and headed up the road from Boulder to bag Quandary Peak.

What I remember most about that day is how early we started and how long the three miles to the top were, relentlessly heading up and up. I stopped often and cursed the heaviness of my pack and wished I had not agreed to come on the trip. Every time I thought I was close to the top, I would climb a little more and find that it was still in the distance. I will never ever forget the experience of reaching the top, however: it was glorious. I truly felt I was on top of the world, with 360-degree views of the surrounding mountains. The air at 14,000 feet is thin but exhilarating in a way I had never before experienced. We didn't have any rain that day, and I felt so good as I headed back down the trail, I wanted to do it again and again.

I went on to climb all the peaks near Boulder with these friends or others who I met through them. This was the beginning of my getting in shape. I also learned the reason for the rain gear and the early starts.

I don't remember which peak this was, but one of my friends had a camera and took this picture as he was amazed that my hair was standing on end. This, of course, was from the lightning that was just getting ready to strike! I had noticed a tingling feeling on my scalp but didn't know this was what it looked like. One friend who knew about this told us to hustle back down the trail because this was a dangerous sign. As we descended quickly, the storm moved in faster than I could have imagined possible, and above our heads we saw dark clouds forming and heard thunder. I didn't see any lightning but I did get quite wet and was grateful for my rain gear.

Over the years, I traveled around the state and ended up climbing some of the more difficult ones. Some are quite easy, actually, and one day I climbed three in one day, but they are all next to each other (Lincoln, Democrat and Bross). To be considered a distinct fourteener, a peak must rise at least 300 feet from the saddle that connects it to the nearby mountains. The most difficult one I ever climbed was Pyramid Peak. It was very steep and nothing but loose rocks in many places. I remember someone above me dislodged a huge rock that went barreling down fairly close to me. He yelled, "rock!" as it went whizzing by I realized that it would have killed me if I had been unable to avoid it. I also smelled ozone as it bounced from rock to rock. I quickly turned and yelled to the climbers below me.

This was much later in my years climbing fourteeners. I learned to be much safer in the mountains and sometimes spent as long as a week camping with my friends and climbing mountains, large and small. It was the beginning of my lifelong love of the outdoors. It's funny when I think of it, and wonder how different my life would have been had I not chosen to rent a room in that old house in Boulder.