{"id":57,"date":"2014-06-03T02:13:21","date_gmt":"2014-06-03T08:13:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/andrewhamilton.com\/14ers\/?page_id=57"},"modified":"2014-06-03T23:31:13","modified_gmt":"2014-06-04T05:31:13","slug":"andrew-hamiltons-1999-attempt","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/andrewhamilton.com\/14ers\/?page_id=57","title":{"rendered":"Andrew Hamilton’s 1999 Attempt"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fourteen Days<\/strong><\/p>\n

When I was eleven years old, my step dad Henry took me hiking up Mt. Hesperus in the La Plata range near Durango, Colorado.\u00a0 It was July 4, 1986.\u00a0 Even on that first hike, we took a bad gully on the way down, and Henry had to help me down some icy, rocky ledges.\u00a0 When we got out of the gully, I slipped and fell all the way down the snowfield.<\/p>\n

That hike inspired Henry, and he proceeded to set a goal of climbing all of Colorado\u2019s 14ers (14,000 foot mountains).\u00a0 During summer weekends for the next several years, he would take part or all of the family climbing up mountains.<\/p>\n

I often suffered and on some hikes all I can remember is watching his calves as I followed him up the mountain.\u00a0 We often found ourselves in bad situations but I learned not to panic and became very comfortable in the mountains.<\/p>\n

I have many memories of the mountains from when I was young.\u00a0 When I was 12 I slipped and fell 400 feet down Crestone Peak\u2019s Northwest Couloir.\u00a0 The snowfield we attempted to glissade was icy, and I did not get a good grip on my ice ax.\u00a0 Henry tackled me to slow my speed as I crashed into the rocks at the bottom of the snowfield.\u00a0 It seems like more often that not, the weather moved in and made what should have been an easy hike, an epic adventure.<\/p>\n

In 1998 my brother Joe and I finished climbing all of the 14ers.\u00a0 It was\u00a0around this time that I heard about the speed record for climbing all of the 14ers.\u00a0 The record was just over 16 days.\u00a0 I thought that was pretty impressive but also thought it would be truly impressive to climb the 14ers in fourteen days.\u00a0 For no other reason than the fact that it would be kind of cool since they are called 14ers, and it would be 14 days\u2026<\/p>\n

The idea formed in my head that one day I could be the one to set that record.\u00a0 As I started thinking more seriously about it, I learned that the old record had been broken, and the new record was 14 days, and 16 minutes.\u00a0 I knew that whoever set the record must have been trying awfully hard to beat the fourteen day barrier, and for whatever reason, they fell just short. [It turns out he, Ricky Denesik, had been well ahead of schedule to beat 14 days but ran into a terrible storm on his final peak that delayed him for several hours].<\/p>\n

I decided that 1999 was my year and planned my attempt for late August.\u00a0 I hoped that by then that the monsoon season would be over, and thought it was my best chance for good weather.\u00a0 I was willing to give up an hour or two of sunlight to avoid the electrical storms, which are about the scariest things you experience on the 14ers.\u00a0 Unfortunately, weather forecasts were not on my side, as hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico promised to send moisture in our direction.\u00a0 Colorado had been experiencing a strange year and the summer monsoons were lasting longer than expected.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, I had made my plans and once set they are hard to change.\u00a0 My mom Brenda and sister Laura had taken time off from work, and I had friends ready to offer support on weekends.\u00a0 I even made a website so friends could track my progress.<\/p>\n

I started on August 28, and the next two weeks would be the toughest two weeks I had ever experienced.\u00a0 After the attempt, I tried to write down the story of those fourteen days in as much detail as I could possibly remember, using the log book that I had kept during the attempt.<\/p>\n

Day 1 (August 28, 1999)<\/strong><\/p>\n

The plan for day 1 was to tackle the Crestones.\u00a0 There are 5 fourteeners in the Crestones: Crestone Peak, Crestone Needle, Kit Carson Peak, Challenger Point, and Humboldt Peak.\u00a0 According to elevation gain and length, this was going to be one of my easiest days.\u00a0 However, in terms of how technical the day was, this was going to be one of the more difficult, and I was glad to get it out of the way early.\u00a0 The climax of the day was to be the classic class 4 traverse between Crestone Peak and Crestone Needle.\u00a0 The traverse ends in a spectacular 40 feet of very exposed, steep climbing as you climb to the top of the needle.<\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t sleep very well all night long, because I was so nervous.\u00a0 Around 3:40am I decided I had waited long enough and got up and started getting my stuff together.\u00a0 My original plan had been to try to carry a light pack but by the time I was finished packing my backpack felt heavy.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t find anything I wanted to leave behind, so I just took the heavy pack.<\/p>\n

One major problem for me was that I did not have a 4 wheel drive vehicle.\u00a0 This presents a serious problem with several 14ers.\u00a0 My solution to the problem was to borrow a dirt bike from a friend of a friend that I knew from my days as a raft guide in Buena Vista, Colorado.<\/p>\n

That morning, my friend Shane got up and was trying to get the motorcycle started.\u00a0 He walked out of the parking lot and down the road a little bit so he wouldn\u2019t bother anyone who was sleeping.\u00a0 To our surprise, the motorcycle started right up, but quickly died as he tried to shift into first.\u00a0 Then it just wouldn\u2019t start.\u00a0 Shane was trying for a least a half an hour with absolutely no luck, the motorcycle wouldn\u2019t even try.\u00a0 I was trying to think of what I was going to do if it didn\u2019t start.\u00a0 Basically I had the South Colony Road ahead of me, about 6 miles and 3000 feet, it\u00a0was considered one of Colorado\u2019s toughest 14er\u00a0roads.\u00a0 If I had to walk it, it would probably only take about two and a half hours, but I was trying to save my body for the days ahead.\u00a0 Finally, I gave the motorcycle a try but had no better luck.<\/p>\n

Shane decided to try to start it by coasting downhill and shifting it into gear.\u00a0 Shane started coasting downhill, waited until he got his speed up, then shifted it into gear, and the rear tire locked up and he skidded to a stop.\u00a0 He tried again\u2026and success! The engine fired up and Shane shot down the hill.\u00a0 In a few minutes he returned to the parking lot where Natalie and I were waiting for him.\u00a0 At last, everything was ready.<\/p>\n

I was very nervous as I got onto the bike.\u00a0 I had never ridden a dirt bike before, and here I was, about to do one of the toughest roads in Colorado in the dark, with a bike that I was not confident would start again if I stalled it out.\u00a0 I decided that I was not going to even try to shift gears, once the thing was in first gear, it was staying in first gear.\u00a0 Since I was so nervous I asked Shane to come and swap it out with my mountain bike while I was climbing so I could ride down the road on something more familiar.<\/p>\n

I started up the road and my adrenaline shot sky high.\u00a0 Nothing on the road was super difficult but the difficulty rarely eases up.\u00a0 It turns out that dirt bikes like to go fast, and since I didn\u2019t want to stall it out I wasn\u2019t about to slow down.\u00a0 A couple of times I got out of control and ended up heading directly into a huge rock or rut, but I kept my speed up and couldn\u2019t believe it as the bike just took the hits and kept on going.\u00a0 The story was the same at the two stream crossings, I cruised right on through the water.\u00a0 However, the bike kicked up a bunch of water and completely soaked my shoes and socks.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t think about it at the time, but later my feet would be very unhappy.\u00a0 A couple of weeks before I thought it would be smart to toughen up my feet by hiking up Mt. Sanitas in Boulder barefoot.\u00a0 It was so hot that day that the entire balls of my feet blistered.\u00a0 By the end of this first day, no doubt accelerated by being wet from the stream crossing, I was able to pull off pretty much the blistered skin pretty much the entire ball of my foot on both feet.<\/p>\n

I reached the South Colony Trailhead around 5:20am.\u00a0 I parked the bike, and got ready to go.\u00a0 At 5:30am sharp the official clock started as I headed up the trail on my way to Humboldt Peak.<\/p>\n

Around 6:30am a beautiful sunrise cheered my spirits, while at the same time the ominous clouds covering the Crestone Needle made me fearful of what the weather gods might have in store for me.\u00a0 I quickly reached the summit of Humboldt, a relatively easy walk up.\u00a0 However, at the summit my altimeter informed me that I had only come up 2800 feet from the trailhead.\u00a0 So, not wanting to violate the 3000 foot rule, I hiked down until my altimeter said I was 200 feet below the summit, then hiked back up for an official summit time of 7:23 am.\u00a0[In hindsight this was a silly thing to do.\u00a0 Barometric altimeters\u00a0can\u00a0be wildly affected by atmospheric changes in pressure] \u00a0From the summit I radioed down and let Shane and Natalie know how I was doing.\u00a0 I had failed while trying earlier to radio them and it became clear that the radios would have very limited use, as contact could be reliably made only when I was on top of a mountain. I was planning on signing any summit registers I could find, as it would provide some sort of verification that I had reached a summit, but could not find one on Humboldt.<\/p>\n

I was now concerned about the weather.\u00a0 East of the summit of Humboldt were nice clouds.\u00a0 West, where I was headed, was totally enshrouded in dark clouds.\u00a0 I continued over to Kit Carson.\u00a0 The hike to Kit Carson is a relatively easy class 2 walk until you reach the saddle between Kat Carson and point 13,790 (“Obstruction Peak”), where it becomes more difficult, especially since it was now sleeting.\u00a0 All of the rock was wet and in some places very slippery because of the lichens.\u00a0 I felt pretty confident and although the climb from the summit of Kat Carson (now called Columbia Point)\u00a0to the saddle between Kit and Kat Carson is treacherous, I felt confident and had no trouble.<\/p>\n

I made the summit of Kit Carson at 9:44am, but once again could not find a summit register.\u00a0 There was also no view, as everything was still fogged in and sleeting.\u00a0 On the summit of Kit Carson I had hope that the clouds would break because it was much brighter, but to my dismay the weather remained poor.<\/p>\n

I carefully made my way over to Challenger Point and reached the top by 10:28am (once again I could find no summit register).\u00a0 Not everyone considers Challenger a separate mountain from Kit Carson because it is only .2 miles away, but since it rises 301 feet from its saddle with Kit Carson others do consider it a mountain.\u00a0 I figured that since it is right there I might as well do it.<\/p>\n

I began my trek back toward Crestone Peak, very concerned about the Crestone Peak to Crestone Needle traverse, and about my ability to find the Northwest couloir when it is totally fogged in.\u00a0 Last year with my little brother Joe,\u00a0we got lost and traversed across the entire Northwest Face while looking for the couloir, and that was when the weather was great.\u00a0 I crossed the Bear\u2019s Playground and started across the Northwest Face, carefully following the cairns.\u00a0 Twenty minutes later I was lost.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t believe it, here I was being so careful and I got lost again.\u00a0 I looked around trying to identify a feature that I might be able to recognize in a picture in the guidebook.\u00a0 But it was just too fogged in, I couldn\u2019t make out any significant features.\u00a0 Finally I made one of the most painful decisions a climber ever has to make: to backtrack.\u00a0 I backtracked and found where I had lost the trail and followed it even closer this time.\u00a0 Finally I found the entrance to the couloir, but I was surprised because I heard water, a lot of it, pouring down the couloir.\u00a0 I quickly found myself doing the most difficult climbing of the day, with water pouring over some of the best handholds.\u00a0 Once I climbed through the water and the first part of the couloir, I moved over to the right side of the gully and was able to stay out of the water.\u00a0 But the rocks were rotten and loose and everything was slick from the sleet.<\/p>\n

I reached the top of\u00a0 Crestone Peak at 1:40pm.\u00a0 I figured that my little detour cost me about an hour, but was finally able to sign a summit register.\u00a0 At this time the foremost thing on my mind was the last part of the upcoming traverse, I was not happy that I would have to it when it was wet.\u00a0 Also, my left knee was starting to hurt because all of this technical scrambling was hurting my knee in a spot where I had been having some major problems in the last year.<\/p>\n

I slowly made my way down from the summit of Crestone Peak as I began the traverse.\u00a0 My knee was very unhappy on the downhill, and I was feeling very sluggish and had a very bad altitude headache.\u00a0 To my happiness, the sun was beginning to break open the clouds, and the wind coming from the southwest would clear the clouds out as I was traversing.\u00a0 The rocks began to dry, so that by the time I was half way through the traverse I was able to get a solid grip on the rocks again.\u00a0 I had no problems on the traverse.\u00a0 Normally, it is a difficult route to find, but the year before I spent a couple of hours lost on the route and I remembered it well enough that I didn\u2019t get lost on it this time.\u00a0 The final section that I was concerned about was as spectacular as I remembered it, and since the clouds had cleared away I had a great view, especially of the exposure to my left, 2000 feet straight down to South Colony Lake.<\/p>\n

I made the summit of the Crestone Needle by 3:51pm.\u00a0 On the way down I had a very difficult time because my knee was hurting so bad.\u00a0 I could also feel some blisters on both feet, as hiking all day with wet feet was beginning to catch up with me.\u00a0 It took me about 3 hours to get back down to the trailhead, as I had to go very slow.\u00a0 I began wondering how I was ever going to go on if my body was hurting so badly after the first day.\u00a0 Fortunately, the last half mile is fairly flat and was much less painful. \u00a0There was still hope that I might finish.<\/p>\n

When I got to the trailhead I hopped on my mountain bike and cruised down the bumpy road and got to the parking lot at about 7:30pm, where I laid down, happy to be finished.\u00a0 The road was so bumpy coming down that I was thinking the mountain bike may have been a mistake, but at least it was fast.<\/p>\n

Good news from Natalie was that I had been granted permission to climb Culebra at 5:00pm the next day.\u00a0 5:00pm? How the hell was I going to make it to Culebra by then.\u00a0 I had four mountains to climb before that, and wasn\u2019t sure I could do it, but nevertheless it was still good news that I had been given permission to climb the mountain. It had recently been totally shut off to climbers, and I had made several calls to try to secure permission to climb the mountain.<\/p>\n

Bad news from Shane was that on the way down he had broken the clutch cable on the motorcycle.\u00a0 Especially bad news because I needed the motorcycle in the morning to get up the Lake Como road to Blanca Peak, the toughest road in Colorado.<\/p>\n

After a great deal of thought and worry, I decided to change my plan for the next day, and do the reverse of what I had originally planned.\u00a0 That meant we needed to get to the trailhead for Mt. Lindsey and I needed an early start, we were going to shoot for about 3:00am.\u00a0 I went to sleep in our Volkswagon Vanagon, snuggling the Mouser (my cat), while Shane and Natalie drove the cars to the bottom of the Huerfano River Trailhead road.<\/p>\n


\nDay 2 (August 29, 1999)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Originally on day 2 I was supposed to drive up the Lake Como road and climb Little Bear, then Blanca and Ellingwood, then back up Blanca and over to Lindsey.\u00a0 I had never done the route from Lindsey to Blanca, and was a little nervous about it.\u00a0 But I figured that if I could handle the traverse between Blanca and Little Bear that I would have no trouble with it.\u00a0 The traverse between Blanca and Little Bear is the most unbelievably exposed ridge I have ever been on.\u00a0 I had done it the year before with my little brother and had been extremely scared.\u00a0 With a rating of class 5.0-5.2, it would be the most technically difficult climbing I would encounter on all of the fourteeners, and I was happy to get it over with on day 2.\u00a0 What really sets it apart is the ridiculous double sided exposure on both sides of the ridge.<\/p>\n

The problem with the motorcycle changed the plan.\u00a0 With the motorcycle, I would have been able to drive to 11,000 feet on the lake Como road, saving me nearly 3,000 feet of elevation and 4 miles of hiking.\u00a0 Now I had decided to start on Lindsey, and traverse over to Blanca.\u00a0 This made me especially nervous for the Little Bear \u2013 Blanca ridge because I would be going across it in the more difficult direction.<\/p>\n

The first step was to get myself up the Lindsey road (to the Huerfano River Trailhead).\u00a0 Although not as bad as the South Colony Road, this was another bad dirt road. I had actually driven most of the way up it in my truck the week before, but I had banged the bottom of my truck so much that I was hesitant to take the truck up again.<\/p>\n

At 2:00am Natalie woke me up.\u00a0 We were 5 miles from the trailhead and were shooting to have me hiking by 3:00am.\u00a0 We got all of my stuff packed and I was quickly ready to go.\u00a0 Shane was convinced that we could still use the motorcycle, even without the clutch.\u00a0 The day before while I was climbing he had practiced driving without the clutch, and he said that when you shifted, it jumped forward, but then it settled down.\u00a0 Since Natalie and Shane were going to pick me up on the other side of the mountain range, Shane and I were going to ride the motorcycle up the road, and Shane was going to bring it back.\u00a0 Shane got the motorcycle going, and I\u00a0put on my backpack, said goodbye to Natalie, and hopped on the back of the motorcycle.\u00a0 I held onto Shane so I wouldn\u2019t fall off the back when he shifted it into first gear.\u00a0 Shane revved it up, then shifted into first gear.\u00a0 The\u00a0motorcycle shot forward so fast, that with all of my weight in the back the front end shot straight up the air.\u00a0 I fell straight back onto the ground, never letting go of Shane, he landed on me and the rear end of the motorcycle smashed into the ground and pieces of the rear end of the bike went flying everywhere.\u00a0 Shane, not wanting the engine to quit (because it is so hard to get started), never let go of the throttle so the motorcycle was still trying to take off.\u00a0 Finally, Shane let the engine die.\u00a0 Fortunately, neither of us was hurt, but there were pieces of the motorcycle lying all over the place.<\/p>\n

I immediately asked Shane to help me disconnect the trailer from the truck, we left the motorcycle behind and drove up the road as far as we could make it, not quite all the way but pretty close.\u00a0 I finally started hiking at 3:34am, about a half an hour behind schedule.\u00a0 One of my best moves was to bring Shane\u2019s hiking poles.\u00a0 I would use them on every mountain from then on.\u00a0 Although my legs were stiff, my knee problem had mysteriously vanished and my feet felt great.<\/p>\n

I made great time and cruised on up to the summit of Lindsey at 6:05am.\u00a0 From Lindsey I wanted to check out the route over to Blanca, but dark clouds ominously hung over the Blanca Massif, so I could only guess what lay ahead.\u00a0 There would be no trail over to Blanca so as I dropped down the long ridge between Blanca and Lindsey, I tried to figure out the best way to go.\u00a0 I decided to drop to the south side of the ridge (onto what I later realized was private property).\u00a0 The going was rough as I had to go up and down some big Boulder fields.\u00a0 It was long and slow as it took me 3 hours to get to the base of Blanca\u2019s south ridge.\u00a0 As I got closer the clouds cleared up a bit and I was able to see the class 4 gully I was fearfully anticipating.\u00a0 It was easier than I expected and it took me just over an hour to climb the gully and traverse the .7 miles north to Blanca\u2019s summit.<\/p>\n

The Summit of Blanca was reached at 10:18am.\u00a0 I was moving just as planned, but I realized that I would not be down by 5:00pm, so I tried to make radio contact with Natalie and Shane but I could not reach them.\u00a0 There was a HAM radio operator on the summit and I guess they had a radio operator on top of a bunch of the 14ers in the state this day, I heard the guy talking to someone on top of Mount Evans.<\/p>\n

I began the traverse over to Ellingwood Point. \u00a0I originally thought the traverse to Ellingwood and back up Blanca would only take an hour.\u00a0 But as I traversed to Ellingwood I realized it would take much longer.\u00a0 It took 45 minutes to get to Ellingwood Point.\u00a0 I was feeling tired but was trying to make up time so I would try to run a little, then would get out of breath and rest, then run again.<\/p>\n

I reached the summit of Ellingwood Point at 11:04am.\u00a0 I made contact with Natalie and asked her to try to change our meeting time for Culebra to 6:00pm.\u00a0 She wasn\u2019t sure she could do it but for some reason I knew she would.\u00a0 Fortunately for me she was able to make it for 6:30pm, and I needed every last second.\u00a0 I looked over to Blanca and realized that getting back to Blanca was no cakewalk, as I had to drop to the saddle with Ellingwood, and then climb 800 feet to get back up.\u00a0 Then traverse the nasty ridge to Little Bear, which drops approximately another 800 feet.\u00a0 I realized that if I dropped all the way off Ellingwood, all the way down to tree line, I could do the normal route on Little Bear with only 2000 feet of climbing and then I could avoid the traverse.<\/p>\n

I made the decision to avoid the traverse, then I thought that rather than doing the standard route up Little Bear, I could climb the Northwest Face.\u00a0 In the guidebook Gerry Roach speaks highly of the route, and it was closer to me and shorter than the standard route.\u00a0 I dropped down to about 12,000 feet in pretty good time, then sat down when I was in a good position to look at the Northwest Face and try to figure out where I was supposed to go.<\/p>\n

I\u00a0pulled\u00a0out my trusty guide book.\u00a0 Normally, you wouldn\u2019t think I would want to carry my guidebook.\u00a0 All that weight when all I needed was a couple of pages.\u00a0 Well, I have learned my lesson many times (meaning I have been lost many times), I figured I would probably have to change my plans every once in a while so I decided early on to always have the entire guidebook with me.\u00a0 I was happy to have it on this occasion.\u00a0 [Now I think I was not too smart to carry all that extra weight around.\u00a0 I probably should have cut the book up and just taken relevant pages] I was also fortunate enough that for this particular route, there was a picture of the Northwest Face and there was the route drawn on the picture.\u00a0 I was happy, impossible to get lost!\u00a0 I studied the picture and the route until I was sure I knew the exact line I was supposed to take.\u00a0 Then I put the book away and started up the mountain.\u00a0 I thought the line I was taking was a little strange because when I looked at the route, I thought it looked quite a bit easier off to the right.\u00a0 But hey, it isn\u2019t called a guidebook for nothing.<\/p>\n

So I cruised on up for about 500 feet to the black watermarks described in the book.<\/p>\n

To my dismay, I realized that the \u201cblack watermarks\u201d were caused by water running down the route.\u00a0 And even more to my dismay, I couldn\u2019t see a good route up.<\/p>\n

Roach said the route was class 4, and in my experience I can handle any class 4 with no problems.\u00a0 The reason it is class 4 is because there is always a big fat handhold so that no matter how exposed you are you won\u2019t fall.\u00a0 So I got out my guidebook again and made sure I was in the right place.\u00a0 I was convinced it was correct, and I saw a little ledge that had potential so I started up the wet rocks.\u00a0 The climb got harder and harder until finally I looked down and realized that backtracking would be difficult and time consuming, time I simply could not afford to waste.\u00a0 I crossed a slippery ledge and spied some climbing hardware (two nuts, 3 beaners and some webbing) that someone had used to repel off the ledge with.\u00a0 I crossed over to the hardware and picked it up, there are some advantages to getting yourself in bad situations!<\/p>\n

I climbed up to the ledge that I thought had potential, traversed right on the ledge to a more exposed position on the face and I looked up.\u00a0 The headwall was just too steep and high for me to get over.\u00a0 I was starting to get a little worried about time now and was mentally getting a little panicky.\u00a0 Not knowing what to do, I decided to go back down.\u00a0 In anticipation of doing the Little Bear \u2013 Blanca traverse, I had packed my rock climbing shoes today, I figured it was time to put them on.\u00a0 I climbed down to where I had picked up the climbing hardware, it was much more difficult on the way down.\u00a0 I looked down and realized it would be very time consuming to go down.\u00a0 My only option if I was to make it down in time to do Culebra was to find a way up.\u00a0 I looked up the gully, the only possible way up appeared to be on the right side of the gully.\u00a0 I\u00a0then made some fairly reasonable class 4 moves up to another ledge.\u00a0 Then I made a scary move up to yet another ledge.\u00a0 This ledge was covered with wet moss and small loose rocks.\u00a0 The good news was that I only needed to go up about 8 feet before I was up and over the headwall.\u00a0 The bad news was that the 8 feet was nearly vertical, there were no good hand holds, and it was all wet and covered with this dirty slime that made it very slippery.\u00a0 I looked down and realized that going down was virtually impossible now.\u00a0 I was committed and extremely scared.\u00a0 My legs were shaking and it was hard to stand on the ledge.\u00a0 I was worried that they might start cramping up.\u00a0 I tried to climb straight up, but there was just nothing to hold on to, so I came back down.\u00a0 I looked to the left and saw that if I could just cross over about 5 feet then there were some potential handholds.\u00a0 I wiped off my hands and the bottom of the shoes and stretched up and to the left as far as I could and tested a decent handhold, it immediately pulled out and fell down the gully, my heart jumped into my throat, and I carefully went back.<\/p>\n

This was a predicament.\u00a0 My legs were shaking so bad I almost couldn\u2019t stand.\u00a0 I noticed that just below the handhold that had fallen was a big clump of moss.\u00a0 I stretched over, punched my fingers through the moss into the mud below and stretched my left leg all the way over to a tiny little foothold that was wet and slimy, yet my foot seemed to hold.\u00a0 Then I did one of the scariest things I\u2019ve ever done.\u00a0 Placing all my weight on that little foothold and the moss, I reached up with my right hand and thankfully found a solid hold, I grabbed it and hauled myself up to some decent holds, then up and over the headwall.\u00a0 What a rush.\u00a0 I looked up and started moving fast, and didn\u2019t slow down till I came close to the ridge crest.\u00a0 At this point the book said to angle to the left.\u00a0 But it looked better to the right so I went right, made the ridge and was happy be on the Little Bear \u2013 Blanca ridge, which seemed like nothing compared to what I had just been through.<\/p>\n

I Summited Little Bear at 2:09pm.\u00a0 I was cutting it close, and immediately started heading down.\u00a0 Little Bear\u2019s west route is no picnic and the going was slow.\u00a0 I\u2019d have to say that I think Little Bear is the most difficult 14er.\u00a0 I finally got down to tree line and started heading down the road. \u00a0I knew that Shane was at the same time hiking my mountain bike up the road, and he was going to have to hike back down.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t want to have to wait for him once I had ridden down so I tried to radio to him to leave the bike where he was and head down. \u00a0His radio had died so I couldn\u2019t talk to him.\u00a0\u00a0I summoned up all of my energy and slowly jogged down the road.\u00a0 As luck would have it, I ran into him at exactly 11,000 feet.\u00a0 This was right at a water crossing, so I got in the water to ice down my legs, took about a 10 minute break, then started down the road.\u00a0 This road is not a fun bike ride.\u00a0 It is extremely rocky all the way down and jars every organ in the body.\u00a0 My body was hurting so badly before that it was very hard to take the shaking and bumping.\u00a0 Shane was actually leaving me in the dust as he was running down the trail.<\/p>\n

Finally the difficulty eased a little and I was able to pick up speed.\u00a0 On one section I took a bad crash which cut up my left thigh and left hand pretty badly, so I had blood dripping down my leg, but it was mostly just a flesh wound so I got back on and cruised the rocky road down to the Volkswagon.\u00a0 I made it to the car at 5:00pm.\u00a0 Natalie and I waited for Shane for about 15 minutes, then we packed it up and headed over to the former Taylor Ranch, where I would climb Culebra.<\/p>\n

Just before I began this trip, I found out that the Taylor Ranch had been sold.\u00a0 The Taylor Ranch is the way people typically climb Culebra.\u00a0 The previous owner charged climbers $40 to climb Culebra, but now the rumor was that climbing access was being denied and there was no number with which to contact the owner.<\/p>\n

I had done some investigative work and found the number for the Lawyer of the owner on the day before I began.\u00a0 He gave Natalie the number of the general manager of the ranch (Jim Barron).\u00a0 She called him up and he\u00a0 was willing to let me climb the mountain.\u00a0 I was pleasantly surprised at how nice they were to work with.<\/p>\n

We\u00a0arrived at\u00a0the gate at 6:28pm (2 minutes ahead of schedule), and Ed Sanchez, the ranch foreman, was there to meet us.\u00a0 He allowed just me through the gate, and I drove my truck up the Culebra road.\u00a0 Whoever made the Culebra road was not messing around.\u00a0 That road goes straight up the mountain, no switchbacks or turns, just straight up the mountain.\u00a0 I was concerned that coming down I would destroy the brakes on my truck.<\/p>\n

I drove up to a road junction called four-way.\u00a0 It is slightly higher than I wanted it to be because I would not ascend 3000 feet to the top.\u00a0\u00a0I did an extra 200 feet of elevation by descending back down and going up it again.\u00a0 I saw lots of elk including a huge herd that saw me and ran off.\u00a0 As I hiked up I saw that a huge storm had engulfed the Blanca group.\u00a0 I was glad that the clouds and flashes of lightning were not on Culebra.<\/p>\n

Reached Culebra summit at 9:00pm.\u00a0 Dreadful Culebra.\u00a0 The ridge just goes on and on.\u00a0 Just as I reached the top, fog rolled in and I had to be very careful to go the right way on the way down.\u00a0 I got down to the\u00a0truck around 11:00pm and, pumping my brakes the whole way, drove the truck down the Culebra road.\u00a0 Ed had told me to come knock on his door when I was ready to leave.\u00a0 I mistook another truck for his and woke up the wrong people.\u00a0 Finally, I found him and we drove out and he unlocked the gate for me.\u00a0 I was exhausted.<\/p>\n

Shane and Natalie fed me and then I realized I had a slight problem.\u00a0 Shane and Natalie had to go home, as they had to work on Monday.\u00a0 I had mistakenly told my sister, who was going to take over as support, that I could drive myself the 4 hours to the Purgatory trailhead to\u00a0climb the Needle mountains near Durango.\u00a0 I was so exhausted that I knew I couldn\u2019t do it.\u00a0 So we decided that Shane and Natalie would stay until 4:00am, at which time they would wake me up.\u00a0 They would head home and with 4 hours of sleep behind me, I would drive to Purgatory for a slightly late start.<\/p>\n


\nDay 3 (August 30, 1999)<\/strong><\/p>\n

On Day 3 I was to climb the Needle mountains.\u00a0 On Day 2 I had finished with the Sangre De Cristo mountain range and now I was entering the San Juans.\u00a0 The San Juans are unique in Colorado because it is not a linear mountain range.\u00a0 On a San Juan mountain you are likely far from civilization and from the top of a mountain in the San Juans you probably can\u2019t see any cities or towns below.\u00a0 The 3 needle 14ers are Mt. Eolus, Sunlight Peak, and Windom Peak.\u00a0 These mountains are some of the most remote in Colorado.\u00a0\u00a0 They are normally accessed from the Needleton trailhead, 10 miles to the southwest.\u00a0 Needleton itself is remote as the only access is by train or trail.\u00a0 The train is the Durango to Silverton Narrow Gauge Railway.\u00a0 It is a tourist train that follows the spectacular setting of the Animas River.\u00a0 Climbers usually ride the train to Needleton, backpack about 8 miles to Chicago Basin, and from there they spend a day a two climbing the mountains.<\/p>\n

I did not want to count on the train schedule, which starts late and ends early.\u00a0 Since I needed to complete these mountains in one day I looked into alternative means to get to Needleton, and figured that if all went well I could catch the train on the way out.\u00a0 So I decided on the Purgatory trailhead.\u00a0 [In hindsight I believe any attempt on the 14er record should start way up in Chicago Basin, 5 miles\u00a0up from Needleton). \u00a0The Purgatory trailhead is right across from Purgatory ski resort near Durango.\u00a0 It is about 8 rough miles from Needleton as the trail drops down to the Animas river, then heads up the Animas river to Needleton.\u00a0 I thought how lucky I was that even though most of the area surrounding the trail was designated wilderness.\u00a0 The sliver of land not designated wilderness was where the trail went, so that meant it would be legal for me to ride my mountain bike on the trail, all the way to Needleton.\u00a0 At that point you enter the Weminuche Wilderness so it becomes illegal to take a bike.<\/p>\n

All I had to do was get myself to Purgatory, hop\u00a0on my bike and I would be on my way.\u00a0 But getting to Purgatory was turning out to be a big problem.\u00a0 I could not stay awake on the drive to Purgatory.\u00a0 By the time I had been driving for an hour, I was already dozing off.\u00a0 So just before South Fork I pulled into a rest stop and got out of the truck and walked around a little bit, trying to wake myself up.\u00a0 I got in the car and immediately dozed off for about 15 minutes before I somehow woke up and started driving again.\u00a0 I made it to the top of Wolf Creek Pass, swerving like a drunk and barely keeping my eyes open.\u00a0 I realized that I had to sleep so I pulled over and slept for about an hour.\u00a0 That seemed to help a little and from there I drove straight to the Purgatory trailhead.\u00a0 I arrived at 10:00am and was very worried.\u00a0 Climbing all of the mountains in one day is a big deal, but starting after 10:00am would be ridiculous, and I was certain to be climbing in the dark.\u00a0 Not a happy prospect because these mountains have\u00a0difficult scrambling and are rugged and rotten.<\/p>\n

I realized I would probably not be back until about 10:00pm \u2013 Midnight, so I figured I should call my sister and let her know so she would come to meet me a little later and not be worried.\u00a0 That is when I tried to figure out the cell phone. \u00a0Natalie and Laura wanted me to have a cell phone, so I could contact them if something bad happened.\u00a0 I thought that was silly, nothing was going to happen.\u00a0 Nevertheless, I was happy to have it now so I could call Laura and tell her my situation.\u00a0 For my life, I could not figure out how to turn it on.\u00a0 I messed with the damn thing for about twenty minutes before I gave up and drove to the Purgatory ski lodge.\u00a0 From there I found a pay phone, called Laura and left a message that I was running late.\u00a0 I told her to come meet me around 10:00pm, which is when I expected to return.\u00a0 Then I headed back to the truck.\u00a0 I finally figured out how\u00a0to turn on the cell phone (you hold down the no button for a couple of seconds \u2013 really intuitive), and found that it couldn\u2019t get a signal, so I wouldn\u2019t have been able to call Laura from it anyway.<\/p>\n

I\u00a0had wasted enough time.\u00a0 I went back to the trailhead, got all my stuff ready and was off by 10:45am.\u00a0 Now this isn\u2019t an ordinary mountain bike trail.\u00a0 This is a super rough trail and it turns out that you spend half the time hiking your bike.\u00a0 Hikers look at you like you are an idiot when you go by them if you are on a mountain bike.\u00a0 And the parts that you can ride are super bumpy and beat up the body anyway.\u00a0 I even thought about ditching my bike in the first mile, because the going is so rough and slow.\u00a0 But I stuck with it, made it down to the river, where the difficulty eases, and then up to the trailhead by 1:25pm.\u00a0 Now time was of the essence, and I came through with what felt like one of\u00a0my\u00a0fastest hiking paces.\u00a0 I was in Chicago Basin by 3:30pm and was very optimistic that I could climb Eolus and Sunlight (the two more technical peaks) in daylight, then Windom as it was getting dark, and hike and bike out by midnight, fast enough that Laura wouldn\u2019t be worried.<\/p>\n

Even though I didn\u2019t have far to go, I was only at 11,000 feet so I still had plenty of elevation to gain.\u00a0 But to be honest I love the short steep trails, as I can usually do 2000 feet per hour,\u00a0 at a pace I can hold indefinitely.\u00a0 So I started cruising up the steep trail toward Twin Lakes at 12,500 feet.\u00a0 At 4:00pm around 11,500 feet, I came over a little rise and saw a guy hiking fast right at me.\u00a0 He was out of breath.\u00a0 He told me there had been an accident and he was glad to find someone else.\u00a0 He was only the third person I had seen since Needleton, and I had noticed that there weren\u2019t very many people up here, probably because it was a Monday.<\/p>\n

His shin was badly injured, it had a huge cut and obviously needed stitches.\u00a0 I was kicking myself for not bringing my little first aid kit, with butterfly closures.\u00a0 I had nothing that I could help him with.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t seem to mind though, and he wrapped it with his bandanna and said he was close to his tent.<\/p>\n

What he was concerned about was his climbing partner.\u00a0 He said his partner had taken a fall off Eolus and he wanted to know if I had a cell phone.\u00a0 I did and got it out, turned it on but it couldn\u2019t get a signal, and was useless.\u00a0 At this point I didn\u2019t know what to do, I found out that his name was Jay.\u00a0 I told Jay not to worry, and that we would be OK.\u00a0 He broke down, almost cried, but then sat up with a look of determination.\u00a0 At this point I figured that my record attempt was over, but I wasn\u2019t too disappointed because this seemed more important.\u00a0 Yet part of me was already planning my alternative course of action, which would be to bivouac overnight and continue in the morning.\u00a0 I had a couple of buffer days built into my plan, meaning I could waste two days and still set the record.<\/p>\n

I tried to get more details about the fallen climber.\u00a0 Jay said he thought his friend was dead, that he had tried to get a pulse, and couldn\u2019t get one.\u00a0 And then came down looking for help as soon as he could.\u00a0 But he didn\u2019t seem totally convinced that his friend was dead.\u00a0 I asked him if his friend would be able to survive the night if he was still alive.\u00a0 He wasn\u2019t sure, but when I mentioned that I had my space blanket he thought it would be good if I could get his friend wrapped up.\u00a0 He said that he was a marathoner and could make the run back to the train tracks in an hour.\u00a0 I told him I thought it would take longer, but it did not matter to him.\u00a0 He was going to go down and try to find someone else to help.\u00a0 He had seen some cabins when he hiked in and was at a last resort going to go to one of them and try to get access to a phone.\u00a0 I was to go up and find the fallen climber, and try to set him up so he could survive the night.\u00a0 I was also hopeful that I could get the cell phone to work.\u00a0 I figured if you can\u2019t get it to work from the top of a 14er, then the thing is totally useless anyway.\u00a0 I told him I wasn\u2019t prepared to bivouac, and he told me where his tent was and said I could use his sleeping bag if I could drop back down to 11,000 feet.\u00a0 That was the last I ever heard of Jay, I assume he made it out. [Years later I received a message from the wife of the fallen climber.\u00a0 I learned of the desperate adventure suffered by Jay.\u00a0 He met the other hikers I had seen, who went down with him.\u00a0 He was eventually able to get help from some of the railroad workmen.]<\/p>\n

I started hiking up as fast as I could go.\u00a0 The trail is super steep so I was able to gain elevation fast.\u00a0 As I hiked up I was telling myself that the climber was still alive and that Jay had been in a state of shock.\u00a0 He\u00a0may have panicked and not fully checked to see if his partner was dead.\u00a0 I felt stupid for letting Jay go down alone, realizing that he had been in shock and with that bad leg injury.\u00a0 But now I was focused on one thing only, finding that climber.\u00a0 Jay said he was at the bottom of a big snowfield and as I hiked up, there was only one snowfield that seemed likely, so I hiked as fast as I could until I finally made it to the base of the snowfield at 13,400 feet.\u00a0 The climber was nowhere to be found.\u00a0 I started yelling for the climber to talk to me.\u00a0 I yelled for him to stay with me, and that I was going to help him, but that he had to help me by saying something so I could find him.\u00a0 I searched and searched and yelled and yelled but had no luck.<\/p>\n

Finally, I saw him, much higher than I had expected and not close to the big snowfield, although he was by two small patches of snow.\u00a0 He was wearing dark blue and that had made him hard to spot in the shadow of Eolus\u2019s East Face.\u00a0 My heart sank and sadness overcame me when I saw the climber.\u00a0 He was lying on the rocks in a position of death.\u00a0 I now understood that he had taken a big fall, off the face of Eolus.\u00a0 I made my way to the body and when I saw it, there was no doubt he was dead.\u00a0 His face was instantly burned into memory and would haunt me for weeks.\u00a0 I picked up his arm and checked for a pulse, his arm was cold and stiff.<\/p>\n

I was almost in tears and felt like crying.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t even know the guy, yet I felt absolutely terrible.\u00a0 This was the first time I had ever seen death.\u00a0 I have been to funerals for my grandparents.\u00a0 But there you are with family and you remember all of the good things about their lives.\u00a0 But I had never seen death in this way before.<\/p>\n

I straightened out his body and put him in a more dignified position.\u00a0 I found a bandana in his pack and placed it over his face.\u00a0 Then I took a big red scarf from his pack and draped it over a rock nearby, so his body would be easy to find.\u00a0 Meanwhile, I had taken out the cell phone and dialed 911.\u00a0 The display still said it was searching, so I figured\u00a0it could not\u00a0get a signal from here.\u00a0 I did not know what to do.\u00a0 Then all of a sudden I heard a voice on the phone.\u00a0 I grabbed it, afraid they might think it was a false alarm because I had not answered, and yelled into the voice piece.\u00a0 It was a 911 dispatcher.\u00a0 I told her my situation and that I was concerned about the battery on my cell phone.\u00a0 She said to turn it off for two minutes, and that she would have Search and Rescue call me back in a couple of minutes.\u00a0 So I turned it off.\u00a0 I was finally figuring out the phone and realized that I was getting a very weak signal from my position.\u00a0 Ten minutes later no one had called me back.\u00a0 I tried to call my mom.\u00a0 But the phone was busy.\u00a0 So I called Natalie who was at work and thankfully she answered the phone.\u00a0 She sounded pleasantly surprised to hear from me, but I immediately told her the bad news.\u00a0 I wanted her to call my mom and sister and tell them I was OK, and would not be back to the trailhead that night.\u00a0 I hung up and waited for Search and Rescue to call.\u00a0 The phone rang, and I answered, it was Laura.\u00a0 I told her what was happening.\u00a0 I told her Search and Rescue had not called me back and that I didn\u2019t know what to do.\u00a0 She wanted me to be able to get on my way and said she would call Search and Rescue to try to find out why they weren\u2019t calling me back.\u00a0 I decided to go to the saddle between Mt. Eolus and North Eolus to see if the signal for the cell phone was better.\u00a0 Twenty minutes later I was on the ridge, but no one had called me back.<\/p>\n

Finally I got a phone call from Search and Rescue.\u00a0 They asked me a bunch of questions about the body, asked me to describe the location of the body and how I came upon it.\u00a0 They said they were working on getting a helicopter and wanted me to call them back in twenty minutes.\u00a0 I now knew that I would be able to continue my record attempt, because Search and Rescue would take care of the body.<\/p>\n

Rather than just sit there, I decided to climb Eolus in those twenty minutes.\u00a0 I climbed up the class 3 face of Eolus and made the summit at 6:20pm. On my way down I realized how the climber could have fallen, as the climbing is loose and dangerous.\u00a0 He had written \u201cSleet\u201d as his comment in the summit register.<\/p>\n

I made it back to the ridge twenty-two minutes after I started up and immediately called Search and Rescue again.\u00a0 They wanted me to stay on the ridge until the helicopter arrived, just in case they couldn\u2019t find the body. \u00a0They said the helicopter would be there at 7:00pm.\u00a0 During the next half an hour I called Laura and Mom again and advised them of my situation.\u00a0 I told them to expect me back around noon the next day, we also realized that I probably would not be able to contact them again except from the summits of the other mountains I had to climb.<\/p>\n

At 7:00pm the helicopter was not there.\u00a0\u00a0Not wanting to climb the class 3 route off Eolus in the dark, I decided to hike down off the ridge, and just after I got down, around 7:30pm I heard the helicopter.\u00a0 It came up the valley, circled a few times and then disappeared behind a ridge.\u00a0 I\u00a0received a phone call from Search and Rescue.\u00a0 They had seen the body and said I was clear to leave.\u00a0 They had been worried about me because I had told them I wasn\u2019t prepared to bivouac.\u00a0 I figured I wouldn\u2019t tell them that I had made the decision to climb Windom and Sunlight in the dark.<\/p>\n

I made it to Twin Lakes around 8:00pm, and started ascending toward Windom and Sunlight.\u00a0 Along the way I realized the trail I was on was taking me straight up Windom.\u00a0 Not wanting to change directions, I decided to ascend Windom first, I am not sure why I decided this was best as earlier I had planned on doing Sunlight first because it is has a few class 4 moves.\u00a0 At this point some clouds blew in.\u00a0 I could see flashes of lightning in the distance and was praying that they would not head towards me.\u00a0 The wind picked up, and near the summit of Windom around 8:30pm it became dark.<\/p>\n

I stopped, put on some warm clothes, put on my headlamp, and made the summit of Windom (no summit register) at 8:58pm.\u00a0 Now the clouds came in and it started sleeting.\u00a0 I decided to descend the north slopes of Windom because it took me directly toward Sunlight.\u00a0 It was class 3, however, and with the dead climber fresh in my mind I took it slow.<\/p>\n

Once I made it down to about 13,400 feet, I started looking for a source of water, as I had run out.\u00a0 I found a little trickle and filled up my bladder.\u00a0 I had absolutely no idea where I was as it was totally fogged in and sleeting.\u00a0 All I had to go on was my altimeter.\u00a0 As I kept heading north I started falling asleep, and I realized I had to rest.\u00a0 I was afraid to go up Sunlight in these conditions, especially because I was haunted by the dead climber\u2019s face.\u00a0 I tried to find a big rock to provide cover from the wind, but I couldn\u2019t find anything.\u00a0 I was so tired I could hardly stand so finally I chose a spot behind a little rock. \u00a0I\u00a0got out my space blanket and started unfolding it (not an easy task, those things are folded really small when they are new).\u00a0 I put the space blanket over me and put my poncho on over that, and drifted to sleep \u2013 only to wake up about 10 minutes later.\u00a0 I was not in a comfortable spot.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t expecting the Hilton, but it would be nice to sit in a position where the rocks weren\u2019t poking me everywhere.\u00a0 After sitting there for awhile not wanting to move I got up and laid on a big flat rock that was right out in the wind and rain.\u00a0 I got comfortable and fell asleep.\u00a0 I would drift in and out of sleep for the next hour and a half, shivering uncontrollably.\u00a0 The space blanket didn\u2019t feel like it was providing any warmth, but when I moved it to get more comfortable I just about froze, and I realized that the space blanket was providing my only warmth.\u00a0 My clothes were all wet on the inside, because the space blanket doesn\u2019t allow any moisture to escape, so I had no desire to get moving again.\u00a0 However, I was thoroughly chilled, and the sleep wasn\u2019t that good, so I decided to get moving again.<\/p>\n

I was very concerned about climbing Sunlight.\u00a0 It has some class 4, the route was totally wet, I was exhausted, and I didn\u2019t even have my compass.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t see farther than 20 feet.\u00a0 When I was 15 years old I had been up Sunlight in some bad conditions as well.\u00a0 My step dad, little brother, and I had taken the train to Needleton and backpacked up into Chicago Basin.\u00a0 Henry went to climb Pigeon and Turrett. At the same time, Joe (only 7 years old) and I were to climb Windom, Sunlight, and Eolus.\u00a0 We climbed up Windom, slid down a snowfield toward Sunlight, and climbed right up the snow to Sunlight.\u00a0 As we neared Sunlight a nasty electrical storm had blown in and Joe started crying.\u00a0 I remember us huddling under an alcove near the summit inside our ponchos.\u00a0\u00a0 We were freezing because of all the ascending and descending we had done in the snow.\u00a0 We made it down to Twin Lakes and were so cold that the water in the lake felt warm.\u00a0 So we removed our gloves and boots and warmed up our extremities.<\/p>\n

Because of that experience, I still had some vivid memories of parts of the route on Sunlight.\u00a0 I kept moving and for a few moments, the sleet slowed down and the clouds cleared, I was able to see that I was directly below the Sunlight spire, too far to the East.\u00a0 I pointed myself in the right direction and was headed up Sunlight\u2019s class 4 South Slopes route before the clouds rolled in again.\u00a0 I took it very slow to the summit, as the route was loose and exposed.\u00a0 It was a little difficult to follow in places.<\/p>\n

I reached the summit at 1:30 am.\u00a0 I signed the register, then made a difficult move in the dark\u00a0to get onto the summit block.\u00a0 Then I came down, strapped on my pack and tried to head down.\u00a0 But it was so fogged in that I couldn\u2019t find my way down.\u00a0 I went up and down the summit block looking for the way down, looking for any way down.\u00a0 An hour later I finally found the way down, I had been searching in the wrong direction.<\/p>\n

I decided to go down a gully a little to the east of what I had come up, and I think that was a good choice (the gully that has the snowfield Joe and I climbed up years before).\u00a0 The trek down to Twin Lakes and then on to Chicago Basin was very steep and tough on the legs.\u00a0 By the time I made it into Chicago Basin I was falling asleep again.\u00a0 I would be hiking along and then I would doze off just as I was starting to walk off the trail.<\/p>\n

I decided to get some more rest and laid down in a meadow and slept comfortably for about an hour.\u00a0 Then I woke up and headed down the trail, it wasn\u2019t long before I saw the bandanna that Jay had used to wrap his shin, lying in the middle of the trail.\u00a0 I made it back down to the bike by 8:00am and back to the Purgatory trailhead at 10:30 am.\u00a0 On the ride I realized that the reason my brakes hadn\u2019t been working so well lately was that the rear brakes were worn to nothing, it was metal on metal.\u00a0 So on the downhills I tried to get by with just the front brake.\u00a0 When I finally made it to Purgatory, Laura and Mom were waiting for me.<\/p>\n

It was nice to have Laura supporting me.\u00a0 She totally organized the truck, and had a nice bed waiting for me in the back.\u00a0 They pampered and fed me, and got the truck ready for the drive over to the Wilson group.\u00a0 I was happy to take off my wet shoes.\u00a0 My feet and especially toes were starting to feel the burden of the hikes and were now blistered.\u00a0 Mental Note: next time preventative measures should be taken with feet.\u00a0 Don\u2019t wait till after it hurts to do something about it, especially on the toes next to the pinky toe.\u00a0 But even worse than the foot pain was my butt.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want to give details here but it was hurting very badly and would dominate all other pain (except for maybe my knee) for a few days.\u00a0 We said goodbye to mom and were on our way, I was a half a day behind schedule.<\/p>\n


\nDay 4: (August 31, 1999)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Day 4 was supposed to have been a relatively easy day, except in terms of difficulty because I had another difficult class 4 traverse.\u00a0 The traverse between Mt. Wilson and El Diente, is known as a difficult, dangerous climb.\u00a0 I was sick of all of these difficult, dangerous days and looking forward to some nice easy hikes.\u00a0 My fingertips were starting to get cut open from all of the scrambling.\u00a0 Since it had been wet the entire time, my fingers were dried out and each fingertip had bloody slits on them, and all the scrambling was getting painful.\u00a0 After the traverse I would climb Wilson Peak.\u00a0 I would not be able to climb Sneffels on this day, so I decided I would change my plan for day 5 and split it into two days, allowing me to go into the Elk range only one day behind schedule, but still one day ahead of the record.<\/p>\n

We dropped off the trailer with the nonfunctional dirtbike\u00a0on the dirt road going up to Silver Pick Trailhead.\u00a0 I remembered the road being all muddy the year before, and it had been so wet this year that I was not expecting the truck to make it all the way up. \u00a0To our surprise, the road was in better shape than expected and we made it all the way up.<\/p>\n

I packed up and started at 2:45pm, another late start.\u00a0\u00a0 I told Laura to expect me back around midnight, and told her I would check in on the radio when I reached the top of El Diente.\u00a0 Although the sky had looked pretty treacherous, now there was some blue sky and I was very optimistic as I started up the trail.\u00a0 I made good time up the rocky road and it only took me an hour and a half to get to the\u00a0 13,000 foot \u201cRock of the Ages\u201d saddle between Wilson Peak and Point 13,540.\u00a0 From here I would have to drop to 12,000 feet to get to the base of El Diente\u2019s North Slopes route, a treacherous class 3 gully.\u00a0 To my dismay, as I started descending into Navajo Basin, a storm quickly moved in and settled.\u00a0 It was raining hard by the time I got to 12,000 feet, and I took cover under my poncho for the next hour and a half as it rained hard.\u00a0 I was not happy, I did not want to do the Wilson \u2013 El Diente traverse in the dark, not to mention when it was totally wet.\u00a0 My right knee had been hurting on the way down from the saddle.\u00a0 I had never before had problems with my right knee, yet it was hurting me.\u00a0 This was depressing, but since so far it hurt only on the downhill,\u00a0I figured I would go up and worry about the knee when I had to come down.<\/p>\n

As I was sitting under my poncho, trying to stay warm, I noticed a small piece of blue sky in the west corner of the sky.\u00a0 I cheered for the blue sky to come over to me and finally it started making progress.\u00a0 The storm broke long enough for me to get going, only to start up and make me take cover again.\u00a0 The good news was that it was not an electrical storm.\u00a0 The blue sky fought back and in the evening sun I headed up El Diente.\u00a0 I stayed on the left side of the Couloir and found the route to be much better than the previous year when I had gone up the right side.<\/p>\n

I summited El Diente at 7:15pm.\u00a0 I now had only an hour of daylight left to do the traverse to Mt. Wilson, which can easily take twice as long.\u00a0 I tried to radio to Laura but she wouldn\u2019t respond.\u00a0 I was motivated to move by the approaching darkness, so I ignored my right knee and moved as fast as I could, completing the traverse in an hour and fifteen minutes.\u00a0 Parts of the traverse were very slick.\u00a0 The last few minutes of the traverse were dark so I needed my headlamp.<\/p>\n

I reached the summit of\u00a0Mt. Wilson at 8:30pm.\u00a0 About a year before I had climbed Mt. Wilson to finally complete all of the 14ers for the first time.\u00a0 My brother Joe was with me and it was also his last 14er.\u00a0 But this year was different, from that pleasant experience.\u00a0 Even though it was dark, I could see that the next wave of the storm was about to hit, and the clouds moving in were totally dark, and I could see flashes of lightning, that lit up the dark clouds.\u00a0 I started down the mountain.\u00a0 I wanted to get over to Wilson Peak as soon as possible, but my knee was killing me.\u00a0 I could barely walk.\u00a0 To make matters worse, the climb off the top of Mt. Wilson is class 4, and the rest of the descent is unpleasant rock fields\u00a0and\u00a0that was very hard on me.\u00a0 Before I got too far, the fog rolled in again so I couldn\u2019t see where I was going, and the raining began again, although it was very light.<\/p>\n

I traversed to the northeast until\u00a0I reached a big year round snowfield, which helped placed me on the map.\u00a0 This snowfield is in the bowl between the 13er Gladstone Peak and Mt. Wilson.\u00a0 From here I descended north, every once in a while spotting a cairn.\u00a0 Whoever builds those cairns obviously doesn\u2019t do it in the fog at night, because there was almost no chance of staying on route.\u00a0 With a lot of luck I was able to stay with the cairns until about 12,500 feet until I lost the trail completely.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t worried though, because I knew that all I had to do was keep heading north until I crossed the trail that would take me back to the Rock of the Ages Saddle.<\/p>\n

I was getting tired and the going was slow because of my knee so I stopped and rested for 15 minutes.\u00a0 The rain was getting harder and the wind was picking up so I put on my poncho again, even though I was already soaked throughout.\u00a0 The wind protection provided by the poncho was still useful.\u00a0 I finally crossed the bottom of the basin, but I didn\u2019t hit the trail.\u00a0 So I figured that maybe I was more east than I thought, maybe in the basin below and between Gladstone and Wilson Peak.\u00a0 I crossed some flat terrain and started headed up a steep hill.\u00a0 I figured the trail was somewhere to my left, and that if I kept going up I would cross it.\u00a0 I kept going up and up and now this was an extremely steep hill, I went all the way up to 13,000 feet before I realized that I was lost.\u00a0 The wind was coming up the hill and blowing my poncho up and over my face, so that I couldn\u2019t see and it also was propelling the rain fast enough that it stung when it hit my face.\u00a0 The other thing about the slope I was on was that there were no big rocks.\u00a0 There was no place to take cover.\u00a0 Since I had no where to go I sat and huddled under my poncho.\u00a0 I was freezing and all my stuff was wet.\u00a0 I was trying to think of where I went wrong.\u00a0 Since I had not crossed the trail, I thought the trail was still to my left (west), so I got up and started heading west.\u00a0 Since I was contouring on the slope the going was difficult.<\/p>\n

For a split second the clouds in the valley cleared and I could see across the valley, although all I could see was a silhouette, it appeared that I was directly north of El Diente.\u00a0 That meant that I was over a mile off course to the west.\u00a0 I must have crossed the trail and not seen it, back when I was at the bottom of the basin.\u00a0 Now that I thought I knew where I was, I headed east.\u00a0 I started doubting myself, and sat down again to try to think of where I could be.\u00a0 The storm was as bad as ever and the wind was unbelievable.\u00a0 I could hardly stand.\u00a0 I got back up and continued east.\u00a0 Soon I saw some signs of mining, and I came across the trail.\u00a0 I was near the pass and I remembered an old mining cabin I had seen on my descent into Navajo Basin, so I searched it out and took cover.\u00a0 It was totally soaked inside but provided excellent cover from the wind, which I could hear howling outside the cabin.\u00a0 It was a little past midnight and I was tired so I decided to try to get some sleep while I waited out the storm.\u00a0 I ate some food, pulled out my space blanket and tried to get comfortable.\u00a0 Two space blanket bivouacs\u00a0in two days, this was starting to get ridiculous.\u00a0 I tried to radio Laura so she wouldn\u2019t worry about me, but the radio was still not picking up anything.<\/p>\n

Just like the night before, the space blanket kept me alive but certainly didn\u2019t provide any comfort.\u00a0 I would wake up often, shivering uncontrollably.\u00a0 I would spend time rubbing my hands on my legs to try to generate heat, but was so tired that it was difficult.\u00a0 Once again my body was damp from the space blanket, and I could still hear that wind.\u00a0 Nevertheless, I got one hour of good sleep, and it was hard to leave the warmth of the space blanket and head back out into the night when I could no longer hear the wind (at 2:42am).<\/p>\n

I made my way up to the saddle, then headed up to Wilson Peak, longer and more difficult that I was expecting, with one heart-breaking false summit.<\/p>\n

At 4:06am I reached the summit of Wilson Peak (no summit register), and I was in rough shape.\u00a0 I was exhausted, and my knee injury was still hurting, my feet were killing, and my butt was still killing.\u00a0 I dropped too far down on the south side of Wilson Peak and by the time I realized my error, I was halfway to Gladstone.\u00a0 I crossed over the Gladstone \u2013 Wilson Peak ridge and headed back to the Rock of the Ages Saddle.\u00a0 As I headed down to the trailhead I discovered that if I went down the steep stuff backwards, using my hiking poles to balance, then I could relieve some of the pain on my knees.\u00a0 I would find this technique useful for the rest of the record attempt, although it did make for slow descending.\u00a0 Just before I made it to the trailhead I ran into some hikers who told me Laura was worried about me, so I hurried even more and made it to the trailhead at 7:30am.<\/p>\n

Laura and I couldn\u2019t figure out why the radios hadn\u2019t worked, but in any case she made me a nice warm breakfast and I got in bed in the back of the truck.\u00a0 We elevated my legs (as usual), and she packed up and we were headed toward Sneffels.<\/p>\n


\nDay 5 (September 1, 1999)<\/strong><\/p>\n

My original plan was history now that I was running so far behind.\u00a0 The way I saw it, I had seven mountains left in the San Juans and two days to climb them.\u00a0 Unfortunately, over the next two days I would come to find that I had greatly underestimated the importance of driving time while considering my plan for the San Juans.<\/p>\n

Laura was starting to complain about the trailer and the broken down motorcycle.\u00a0 It was a hassle to drop it off before the dirt roads got tough, and to pick it up afterwards, especially because I was always so tired that she would do it by herself.\u00a0 She drove over to Ouray and she was driving around like a crazed lunatic because she could not find the trailhead.\u00a0 Laura gets confused with north and south, much like I do when I am in the mountains.\u00a0 While the directions indicated to look for the road south of Ouray, Laura was north of Ouray, driving up and down some dirt roads.\u00a0 I was perfectly happy, glad to have the time to sleep in the back of the truck.\u00a0 Finally, she stopped in Ouray and asked for directions, and got on track.\u00a0 We were headed up to Yankee Boy Basin on a dirt road that would supposedly get rough.\u00a0 The road was bumpy and slow and in the back I could only imagine the crazy things she was driving over near the edge of some monstrous cliff.\u00a0 Whenever you are in the back of my truck, it seems like the driver is out of control.<\/p>\n

Happily, we made it to the trailhead and Laura kept going, wanting to get me up the road as close to exactly 3000′ below the summit as possible.\u00a0 We got to a rough spot just below 11,000 feet and Laura wasn\u2019t sure we could continue, so I hopped up front and gave it a try.\u00a0 I made it over the rough spot, but didn\u2019t want to lose my momentum so I had to leave her behind.\u00a0 Finally I decided I had gone too far, so I waited for her to catch up.\u00a0 Then, with her help I turned around and we parked at exactly 11,100 feet, 3050 feet below the summit of Sneffles.<\/p>\n

I figured I would be going slow enough that Laura could come up with me so I pleaded with her to come along.\u00a0 We got started at 11:00am.\u00a0 By now my feet were bad enough that when I started hiking, I would have to limp and go slow for the first twenty minutes.\u00a0 Then the pain would\u00a0numb out\u00a0and as long as I didn\u2019t stop for too long the pain would usually stay pretty minimal.\u00a0 My butt was another story, it was a dominating pain, except on the downhill when my knee would hurt.\u00a0 We cruised on up and after\u00a0my body\u00a0warmed up I left her behind (which was the plan), although I was impressed with how fast she was able to go.<\/p>\n

I’d look back and see her following.\u00a0 At one point I saw her going the wrong way, and she didn\u2019t have a map.\u00a0 So I yelled at her and she kind of paused, looked around and then headed in my direction.\u00a0 It was about this time that the clouds rolled in and it started raining, so I put on my poncho.\u00a0 Up to this time we had seen almost nobody and I figured we must have the mountain to ourselves.\u00a0 I made it up to the scree col at about 13,500 feet and was starting to get a little chilled, but I didn\u2019t want to have to stop so I pushed on.\u00a0 That is when I ran into a huge herd of about 20 people all headed down.\u00a0 Some were very miserable, others recommended that I go down, saying that it only got worse as you went higher.\u00a0 I happily said that I loved the conditions and continued on my way.\u00a0 In reality, it sucked.\u00a0 The wind was blowing the rain and sleet up the col so that it stung any exposed body parts.\u00a0 However,\u00a0compared to the day before, it was pretty darn good weather!<\/p>\n

I summited Mt. Sneffels at 12:51pm (no summit register, but lots of summit marmots).\u00a0 I finally stopped to put on some warmer clothes, then headed down slowly to meet Laura at the bottom of the col. We headed down together, and on the way down she was much faster than me.\u00a0 My knee was going to make me slower on my descents than my ascents for the rest of the record attempt.<\/p>\n

We\u00a0were back to the car at 3:20pm, and I was very happy because we had a long drive ahead of us.\u00a0 It was running late, so we decided to drive over to Redcloud and Sunshine, some easy mountains that I could climb in the dark.<\/p>\n

The drive took about four hours.\u00a0 It would have been much faster to drive over Cinnamon Pass, but since we didn\u2019t have a 4 wheel drive we had to take the long route to Lake City.<\/p>\n

We\u00a0made it\u00a0to the Grizzly Gulch \u2013 Silver Creek trailhead at about 7:00pm.\u00a0 I was complaining about my butt so much that Laura told me to clean it with this antibacterial stuff she had.\u00a0 She said it would sting a little, but that she thought it would help.\u00a0 So I went into the outhouse and applied the stuff.\u00a0 It was probably the most intense pain I suffered on the entire trip.\u00a0 I wanted to scream as tears raced out of my eyes.\u00a0 Finally, the pain subsided, and I went out and whined about how much that hurt.\u00a0 Then I put on my gear and headed up Redcloud starting at about 7:33pm.\u00a0 I was out of dry shoes by now but at least\u00a0the shoes I put on were mostly dry after the long drive.<\/p>\n

I limped up the trail for about a half hour before my feet stopped hurting and then made good time in the dark all the way up the good trail to Redcloud\u2019s summit at 10:21pm.\u00a0 It had been sprinkling most of the way up, and near the summit I entered some more dense fog.\u00a0 By now I was so frustrated with the weather that I was shouting obscenities at the clouds.<\/p>\n

I contacted Laura with the radio, and told her I was on the summit but that I was fogged in again.\u00a0 She said that she thought I should wait awhile to see if it would clear up.\u00a0 Once again I didn\u2019t have my compass.\u00a0 I waited for about forty five minutes but it didn\u2019t clear up, and I was getting cold so I headed down what I thought was the South Ridge.\u00a0 When I\u00a0reached 13,600 feet according to my altimeter I stopped because it just didn\u2019t seem right, I was dropping in elevation much faster than I should have been, according to the map.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t have a clue where I was.\u00a0 After sitting down in frustration for several minutes,\u00a0the clouds cleared up a bit.\u00a0 I looked up in the sky and thought to myself, \u201cWhat is the North Star doing over there?\u201d\u00a0 I had gone done the West Face, not the South Ridge.\u00a0 So I climbed all the way back up to the summit.\u00a0 By now the sky was almost totally clear, but I could see more dark clouds heading my way, so I moved as quickly as I could on the long ridge over to Sunshine.\u00a0 The desire to sleep in the truck and not bivouac weighed greatly so even though I was tired, I forbade myself to rest at all.<\/p>\n

I reached\u00a0Sunshine at 12:04am, then\u00a0descended the North Slopes route and followed a pretty good climbers trail all the way down.\u00a0 I was back at the trailhead by 2:36am and was happy to finally get to sleep in the truck.\u00a0 We decided to sleep for a few hours, then head towards the American Basin Trailhead so I could climb Handies in the morning.<\/p>\n


\nDay 6 (September 2, 1999)<\/strong><\/p>\n

On Day 6, according to my latest plan, I needed to complete 4 mountains.\u00a0 I would start with Handies.\u00a0\u00a0Then climb Wetterhorn and Uncompahgre, then drive over and climb San Luis.<\/p>\n

Laura was up early and drove us toward the American Basin trailhead.\u00a0 We could not go all the way because of the 3000 foot rule, and had to park at about 11,000 feet.\u00a0 Once again I asked Laura to come along with me.\u00a0 There were clouds in the sky, but I was confident that I was finally in for a day of good weather.\u00a0 Well, we all make mistakes!<\/p>\n

Laura and I started at 6:08am, just as the sky was lighting up.\u00a0 We followed the excellent trail all the way to the summit.\u00a0 I left her behind once we made it to the steeper slopes, but she made good progress and was able to summit just 15 minutes behind me.\u00a0 Even though the weather was great, it was windy on top and the summit was covered with frost.\u00a0 I had a hard time getting the summit register open as it was frozen shut.<\/p>\n

I summited Handies at 7:55am.\u00a0 I was slow on the way down and it didn\u2019t take Laura long to catch up with me.\u00a0 Together we made good time, I was starting to perfect my method of going down backward, and was down to the car at 9:15am.\u00a0 I hopped in the back for some more sleep and she began the drive to the Matterhorn Creek trailhead.\u00a0 After some more complaining about the trailer, Laura drove me up the road until it started getting rough, I would have to hike from there, since the truck could not make it up the rough 4 wheel drive road to the upper trailhead.\u00a0 But Laura was going to hike my mountain bike up to the end of the road at 10,700 feet to make my descent easier.<\/p>\n

I limped on up the road at about 11:30am in the sunlight.\u00a0 The sun was shining but it was raining slightly for a few minutes.\u00a0 My fingers were still hurting, I knew I had to make good time in order to get to climb San Luis that day.\u00a0 I thought I made very good time.\u00a0 My stride on the uphill with the hiking poles\u00a0was getting pretty\u00a0fast and I made it to the 12,300 foot pass between Wetterhorn and Uncompahgre in a little over an hour.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the reason I was making such good time is that I had seen a massive rainstorm heading my direction from the southeast!\u00a0 It hit me just as I reached the pass.\u00a0 I quickly put on my rain gear, and continued toward Uncompahgre at a much slower pace.\u00a0 The rain completely soaked my last relatively dry pair of shoes.<\/p>\n

I chose a direct route up Uncompahgre and headed straight up the West Face. It turned out to be a great route, especially on the way down because much of the face was loose scree.\u00a0 Scree slopes were the only descents that did not hurt my knee, although I always feel a little guilty when on scree because I know that it is not an environmentally sound practice to run through the scree.\u00a0 Near the top of Uncompahgre the storm relented, but I still had a nice, chilly wind to keep me company on the summit.<\/p>\n

I reached the top of Uncompahgre at 3:00pm, slowed down by about an hour because of the wind.\u00a0 I immediately headed down, and made good time because of the scree slope and I headed\u00a0back to the pass.\u00a0 At the pass I went by a huge herd of sheep, waved hello to the sheepherder and continued straight toward the ominously named Wetterhorn (Weather \u2013 Mountain).\u00a0\u00a0In about ten minutes I had to stop and put on all of my wet rain clothes again because it starting raining again.\u00a0 By the time I reached Wetterhorn\u2019s Southern Ridge at 13,000 feet, the rain had stopped, but the fog rolled in and once again I couldn\u2019t see very far.\u00a0 The rocks were also very slick and Wetterhorn turned out to be a lot more impressive than I was expecting.<\/p>\n

When the climbing started getting technical, I left my hiking poles behind on the ridge, figuring I could pick them up on the way back. I finally made the top of Wetterhorn at 5:00pm.\u00a0 I was surprised at how difficult the technical stuff was, especially since it was so slick.\u00a0 Falling back on my old habits, I somehow managed to take the wrong ridge on the way down.\u00a0 Instead of going back down the South Ridge, I headed down the East ridge and found myself a third of the way along the class 4 ridge to Matterhorn, a 13er between Wetterhorn and Uncompahgre.\u00a0 I was quite angry because at about my same elevation on the other ridge were my hiking poles.\u00a0 Expecting this to cost me a lot of time, I radioed Laura and told her to expect me late.\u00a0 I was so angry that I pointed myself right at the ridge and ran, ignoring my knee pain, across the Southeast face toward the other ridge.\u00a0 I was surprised at how fast I made it to the other ridge.\u00a0 I picked up the poles, and headed down as fast as I could go.\u00a0 Happily the mountain bike was at the upper trailhead so I was able to ride it down to the truck by 7:30pm.<\/p>\n

Figuring I could sleep on the way to San Luis, I decided to climb San Luis in the dark so we could make to the Elk range by morning.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the drive took much longer than expected.\u00a0It was raining most of the time, and the dirt road was slick.\u00a0 Laura couldn\u2019t drive any faster than 20 miles per hour.\u00a0 While I was sleeping, Laura could see many flashes of lightning in the rain, and she was worried that a summit attempt on San Luis might be a mistake.<\/p>\n

We arrived at the Stewart Creek trailhead just before midnight.\u00a0 I was determined to climb the mountain.\u00a0 I knew that after San Luis I could get out of the weather beaten San Juans and I just knew (or rather, I hoped)\u00a0that the weather would improve once we headed north.\u00a0 Laura tried to talk me out of climbing the mountain.\u00a0 She told me how bad the lightning had been.\u00a0 I was stubborn and said if the lightning was bad up there then I would wait the storm out at tree line.\u00a0 Then she got angry and told me the only reason I was climbing the mountains was to be cool.\u00a0 She said I didn\u2019t have to climb the mountain, that if I stayed she would tell everyone that I had climbed it.\u00a0 I was determined though, I said it would only take me about four hours, and I reminded her that it was a very easy mountain.\u00a0 She said it would take me at least six hours.<\/p>\n

In any case, I started up the trail at 12:14am.\u00a0 Laura was stressed out from trying to get me to the trailheads as fast as possible, not to mention being tired from being the only person to take care of me.\u00a0 I certainly had not appreciated the difficulty of being support for something like this.\u00a0 She was experiencing sleep deprivation as well as I was, and I hoped she would get some good sleep while I was gone.\u00a0 I was out of dry shoes, and my driest pair was my pair with holes in the toe, but I took them anyway.\u00a0 My blisters hurt, my knee hurt, my butt hurt, I didn\u2019t want to do the mountain, and it was cold and most likely going to begin raining on me any moment.\u00a0 As I hiked up the trail I thought about what Laura had said.\u00a0 Why was I doing this?\u00a0 Certainly I had encountered enough problems that if I quit I wouldn\u2019t be letting anyone down, hadn\u2019t I?\u00a0 Then I thought about her offer \u2013 to cheat.\u00a0 I knew she was out of her mind.\u00a0 But still, it is tempting.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t the first time the thought had crossed my mind.\u00a0 I often thought when I was getting close to a mountaintop that I could just turn around, and say I did it.\u00a0 No one would know, save myself.\u00a0 No! I wasn\u2019t going to cheat, I was going to give this record everything I had and I was going to climb the mountains in under 14 days!<\/p>\n

I continued on the long trail through the forest until at long last, I made it to tree line.\u00a0 I continued along the trail and crossed a small stream, then headed up a steep slope.\u00a0 The slope was very slippery and at 12,500 feet I noticed snow on the ground.\u00a0 At this elevation it was a very thin sheet and most of it had turned into a thin sheet of ice.\u00a0 As I continued up the trail there was more and more snow.\u00a0 I finally noticed that the big white cloud up ahead of me was not a cloud, it was San Luis, covered in snow.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t believe the amount of snow up there.\u00a0 I reached the 13,100 foot saddle between San Luis and Organ Mountain and from that point and beyond there was snow as high as 6 inches on the trail (due to the wind).\u00a0 I began the long, never-ending ridge to the summit of San Luis.\u00a0 I was very tentative because there were flashes of lightning going off everywhere.\u00a0 But it wasn\u2019t normal lightning.\u00a0 There was no thunder, just flashes that lit up the clouds.\u00a0 In the distance I saw some bolts of lightning, but I still didn\u2019t hear any thunder.\u00a0 I fearfully pushed on toward the summit.\u00a0 My toes were starting to get numb because my shoes had been wet since I started hiking and because there were holes in the toes.\u00a0 I slowly made progress and when I got to around 13,800 feet my fear began to take over.\u00a0 I sat down in the snow and said I prayer, even though I am not religious.\u00a0 Then I removed my pack and ran as fast as I could up the trail until I could taste blood in my lungs.<\/p>\n

I crouched down in the snow again and said another little prayer.\u00a0 I waited for the next flash of lightning, then got up and ran again as fast as I could until\u00a0once again I had to stop and crouch in the snow.\u00a0 I waited for another flash and then raced on up to the summit.<\/p>\n

I possibly spent less time on the summit of San Luis than anyone in history.\u00a0 I reached the summit at approximately 3:00am (I didn\u2019t look at my watch on the summit so this is just an estimate).\u00a0 I ran around the summit cairn twice, trying to find the summit register.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t find it so I raced off the top of the mountain as fast as I could, following my footprints backs down to my pack and moved back down the mountain as fast as I could.\u00a0 I was relieved to be alive, and this was just easy old\u00a0San Luis.<\/p>\n

I made it down to tree line and was dozing off so I stopped and slept for fifteen minutes.\u00a0 Then I headed back down the trail.\u00a0 I arrived back\u00a0at the truck just as it was getting light again.\u00a0 It was 6:15am, Laura had been exactly right when she said it would take me 6 hours.<\/p>\n

I hopped back in the truck and immediately fell asleep.\u00a0 Laura drove back to Lake City to pick up the motorcycle, and then began the long drive to Capitol Peak.\u00a0 Finally, I was finished with the San Juans.\u00a0 On the drive out Laura saw that all of the San Juans had been hit with snow, I was lucky to be finished with them.<\/p>\n


\nDay 7 (September 3, 1999)<\/strong><\/p>\n

I knew I didn\u2019t have time to climb Snowmass and Capitol, as my plan called for.\u00a0 I was now one and a half days behind my schedule, only a half day ahead of the record.\u00a0 I had to choose a mountain to climb.\u00a0 I wanted to get Capitol Peak out of the way, it is regarded by many as the most difficult 14er.\u00a0 It is a long hike at 17 miles roundtrip\u00a0and climaxes with a class 4 climb across a knife-edge ridge, followed by a dangerous 500 feet\u00a0of scrambling.\u00a0 To make matters a little more interesting, the Elks had also just been hit with a snowstorm.<\/p>\n

The drive from San Luis was long.\u00a0 It was raining hard as we were moving through a major storm front.\u00a0 Laura stopped in Hotchkiss, fed me a nice warm burrito, and asked me what I wanted to do.\u00a0 I told her I wanted to do Capitol.\u00a0 Then she told me that she heard on the radio that the storm was moving north, and could hit me when I was on Capitol.\u00a0 I figured we would just have to go to the trailhead and see what the situation looked like from there.<\/p>\n

As we drove up the Capitol Creek road, Laura was looking for a place to drop off the trailer, and we got in another fight about the trailer.\u00a0 But we found a good place to drop it off.\u00a0 Although the sun was shining, a recent storm had made the road slick and muddy.\u00a0 When we were about a quarter of a mile from the trailhead, the truck started sliding off the road and slid far to the right and got stuck in the mud.\u00a0 Laura stopped, not wanting to make the situation worse, and came to get me out of the back.\u00a0 She was very upset, she understood how imperative it was that I get moving.\u00a0 But now we were stuck in the mud.\u00a0 I had chains in the back, and figured we would have to either put the chains on, or wait for someone who might be willing to help us out.\u00a0 I hopped in the truck and tried backing up, but the wheels just started spinning.\u00a0 I shifted back into first, and miraculously, the truck drove right on out of the mud.\u00a0 Not wanting to lose my momentum, I left Laura behind and headed up the road.\u00a0 I found a spot to wait for her, picked her up and we headed up to the trailhead.<\/p>\n

The weather looked like it might hold, but I was worried about the storm front we had driven through.\u00a0 My feet were hurting badly, but I didn\u2019t want to mess with them too much so I taped up my bad toes, put on some new socks, then chose my driest pair of shoes.\u00a0 I started up the trail at 1:38pm.<\/p>\n

Some good news was that Shane and Natalie were going to be coming back tonight, and I was expecting them to be waiting for me when I got down from Capitol.\u00a0 Also, my dad was driving in from Salt Lake City, and he was going to be there when I got back.\u00a0 I was glad that Laura was going to have some help.\u00a0 The support role was difficult, and I think one lesson I learned is that you should always have more that one support person at any given time.<\/p>\n

The trail was in pretty poor shape for the first couple of miles.\u00a0 Wet and muddy.\u00a0 But soon my pace picked up and I was able to make good time.\u00a0 The North Face of Capitol was very menacing as I approached.\u00a0 It was laced with white.\u00a0 I hoped the snow at the top would not make the technical stuff more difficult than it already was.\u00a0 In three hours I made it to the summit of K2.\u00a0 At this time a big storm passed just to the east, it looked like it hit the Maroon Bells pretty hard, but completely missed me.\u00a0 I was happy for the good luck.\u00a0 There was snow everywhere, but it was a thin layer of wet, heavy snow and actually made the scrambling easier by providing some traction.\u00a0 It had already melted off the knife edge ridge so I made that with no difficulty.\u00a0 I did the ascending traverse up to the summit with little difficulty because snow had helped cement in the normally loose rocks and dirt.<\/p>\n

I made the summit at 5:38pm, and headed down.\u00a0 I was relieved to be off the class 3 and 4 scrambling and back onto the trail by nightfall, and once I had gotten down the steep hillsides and down to tree line, I was able to make pretty good time.\u00a0 I arrived at the trailhead around 10:00pm, found my mountain bike, and rode down to the parking lot where Laura was waiting for me.\u00a0 I was disappointed to see that neither Shane and Natalie or my Dad were there yet, but I was happy that Laura had some food waiting for me.\u00a0 Finally, a night of sleep.\u00a0 Soon Shane, Leslie (Shane\u2019s girlfriend) and Natalie arrived, and together we headed over to the Maroon Lake trailhead.\u00a0 My dad was running late and would meet us there sometime in the night.<\/p>\n


\nDay 8 (September 4, 1999)<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was happy to finally be able to try one of the days from my original plan.\u00a0 Today I would attempt the Triple Feat (climbing the Maroon Bells and Pyramid in one day), then I would take on Castle Peak.\u00a0 I was hoping to finish all of the mountains by dark and get some good sleep at the end of the day.<\/p>\n

I was very comfortable, sleeping in the Volkswagon again\u00a0with the Mouser when I was rudely awakened.\u00a0 It was 3:00am and time for me to get going.\u00a0 During the night, my dad had not arrived, but my friend Kelly Tappendorf and her roommate Chris Clarke\u00a0had surprisingly come to offer me some support.\u00a0 I could see that Laura was already feeling less stressed out.\u00a0 Laura fed me some oatmeal, and everyone helped me get ready to go.<\/p>\n

I limped out of the parking lot at 4:00am, my feet needing their customary twenty minutes of pain.\u00a0 On the positive side, my butt amazingly was totally healed.\u00a0 Laura\u2019s stinging medication had apparently done its job.<\/p>\n

The trail up North Maroon isn\u2019t super easy to follow, the first mile or two are on a good trail.\u00a0 But at one point you have to turn off the trail and follow a light climbers trail.\u00a0 I might have had a difficult time since it was dark, but I remembered the trail in great detail from the year before, when I had previously climbed the Maroon Bells.\u00a0 I made good progress.\u00a0 The trail up North Maroon always amazes me because it turns a corner and then goes straight up the mountain.\u00a0 When viewing North Maroon from Maroon Lake, most people probably have no idea that there is a trail going right up the spectacular northeast side of the mountain.<\/p>\n

The sky began to light up just as I reached the snow.\u00a0 The Maroon Bells, like Capital, had been laced with snow once the elevation became greater than 13,000 feet.\u00a0 Unlike Capitol, there was also a lot of ice, this slowed me down.<\/p>\n

I finally reached the snowy summit at 7:15am.\u00a0 There were no clouds in the sky.\u00a0 At last, beautiful weather had arrived.\u00a0 There was a very icy wind blowing, but I wasn\u2019t complaining.\u00a0 I quickly began the traverse over to South Maroon.\u00a0 This was the last of the four class 4 traverses that I would have to do, and completing it would be a load off my mind.\u00a0 The going was slow, however, as I had to contend with ice, snow, and a couple of relatively scary, exposed\u00a0downclimbs.<\/p>\n

I made the summit of South Maroon by 8:30am, and although I was moving slower than the year before, I was optimistic about my ability to make quick work of Pyramid and Castle.\u00a0 Then I had to descend South Maroon.\u00a0 This descent could easily qualify as one of the least desirable descents on a 14ers.\u00a0 First, a loose class 3 ridge.\u00a0 Cairns everywhere make it confusing to find a trustworthy way down.<\/p>\n

Some where along the way I missed the best route and had to do a nasty 40 foot downclimb off a little cliff.\u00a0 After about 50 minutes I reached a point on the ridge where I could start to think about descending the steep East Slopes.\u00a0 I headed down and was miserable for the next couple of hours.\u00a0 Although I only had to descend about 3000 feet, it was steep and treacherous, and my knee was about ready to call it quits.\u00a0 I limped, hopped, skidded and slipped my way until finally, around noon I made it down.\u00a0 I had told my support crew that I would be back around noon, and I hadn\u2019t even started climbing Pyramid yet.\u00a0 After my experiences of the previous week, I wasn\u2019t even considering attempting the more direct, West Slopes approach to Pyramid.\u00a0 Instead, I would descend down to where I could access the standard route on Pyramid, the class 4 Northeast Ridge.<\/p>\n

My knee had been so brutalized by the downhill that even when I turned uphill on the Pyramid trail, it would scream with every step.\u00a0 I had to stop often to massage it, and the going was slow.\u00a0 I found a method of going up that was less painful, however, and that was to take a giant step with my left leg, and just bring my right leg up to be even with my left leg.\u00a0 I was proud of my left knee, as it had come through for me.\u00a0 It is the knee that I typically have problems with, but ever since the second day, it had been painless, and was working extra hard to compensate for the right knee.\u00a0 My left foot was in bad shape though, as all of the compensation had taken a heavy toll on it.<\/p>\n

At about 13,000 feet, I met some people from Boulder, and they were headed down.\u00a0 They had recognized me from an article in the newspaper.\u00a0 I asked them to relay a message to my support crew, saying that I was running late but that there was nothing to worry about.\u00a0 The people I met offered me some Motrin for my knee, but I refused.\u00a0 That was a silly thing to do.<\/p>\n

I continued up Pyramid, slowly and painfully, and reached the summit at 2:30pm.\u00a0 From the summit I picked up a weak signal on the cell phone, so I left a message for Laura and Dad that I was running late, I didn\u2019t want them to worry.<\/p>\n

I slowly made my way down.\u00a0 I discovered that on the descent if I never let my right leg drop below my left leg, then I wouldn\u2019t get the sharp pain.\u00a0 I also found a good way to get across the rock fields.\u00a0 I would step on high rocks with my left leg and on low rocks with my right leg.\u00a0 I would sing \u201chigh, low, high, low, high, low\u201d in synch with my steps so I would not screw up, as a mistake resulted in a sharp pain.\u00a0 When I got to the steep stuff after tree line I turned around and went backwards as much as I could.<\/p>\n

With all of my little descent techniques I was able to make it down by about 4:00pm.\u00a0 Dad had finally showed up (actually, he had shown up just fifteen minutes after I had left in the morning).\u00a0 As I walked into the parking lot my support crew, now numbering seven, gave me a big cheer.\u00a0 I laid down and dad massaged my legs out and they fed me.\u00a0 It felt nice to have so much support.\u00a0 And it felt good to see Laura have some help, and I could see that she was much less stressed out now.<\/p>\n

Kelly and Chris said goodbye, and the rest of the caravan headed over to Castle Peak.\u00a0 I laid down in the Volkswagon and ate cookies that Natalie had made for me.\u00a0 Shane had managed to get permission from\u00a0Tom Bowers, owner of Performance Ski in Aspen, to use his dirt bike.\u00a0 Now this was a nice bike!\u00a0 You know this is a serious dirt bike because it had a racing number on it!\u00a0 This was going to help me out because it would allow me to get to 11,200 feet on the Castle road, a road too rough for my truck.\u00a0 We parked at the bottom of the road, Shane fired up the motorcycle and got it ready for me.\u00a0 He warned me that this bike liked to go at high rpms per minute, it wanted to go much faster that the other bike.<\/p>\n

I strapped on my helmet, put on my pack, and hopped on the motorcycle.\u00a0 I revved it up a couple of times, said goodbye and took off up the road.\u00a0 This dirt bike was absolutely amazing.\u00a0 It glides right over rocks and ruts.\u00a0 I cruised on up to 11,200 feet, parked the bike, and headed up the trail.\u00a0 I lament that I did not have a bike like this for the entire attempt.\u00a0 Since the bike had no headlight, Shane was hiking my mountain bike up so I could ride it down in the dark\u00a0instead of the motorcycle.<\/p>\n

At 6:45pm I started hiking the rest of the road and then on up to Castle\u2019s Northeast Ridge.\u00a0 I made the summit of Castle by 8:45pm, contacted Natalie by Radio and let her know how I was doing, then headed down.\u00a0 To save my legs several hundred feet of downhill rock scrambling, I decided to slide down Castle\u2019s year round snow slope.<\/p>\n

It was very icy, and had numerous rocks littering the slope, so I slid down backwards digging my hiking poles into the ice as a brake.\u00a0 It was scary at times because I would hit a patch of nearly solid ice and my speed would pick up, but the tips of the poles were just strong enough to keep me going at a\u00a0reasonable speed.<\/p>\n

I made it down to my mountain bike (with new brakes thanks to Laura) and rode the bumpy road down to the cars, arriving at 10:45pm.\u00a0 I laid down\u00a0by the fire and ate, and then we packed it up and headed over to Marble, because in the morning I would finish off the Elk range by climbing Snowmass Mountain.<\/p>\n


\nDay 9 (September 5, 1999)<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was still one and a half days behind schedule.\u00a0 As I thought about the days to come, there were only two days that I thought might be impossible for me.\u00a0 But only one of those\u00a0seriously worried me.\u00a0 The hardest day remaining was the day I had planned to do La Plata, Massive, Elbert, and Mount of the Holy Cross.\u00a0 The mountains themselves weren\u2019t all that hard, but each required at least 4,000 feet of climbing, and there was no way to efficiently combine any of them.<\/p>\n

Although I was behind schedule, I still felt like I could set the record.\u00a0 I knew I wouldn\u2019t beat the old record by much, but at this point I didn\u2019t care.\u00a0 After climbing Snowmass, I figured we would head over to the southern end of the Sawatch Range.\u00a0 From there I would climb Shavano, Tabeguache, and Antero.<\/p>\n

Laura woke me up at 4:00am.\u00a0 This morning I had to drive up a long, rough road on the motorcycle, and then I would have about an eight mile trek to the top of Snowmass.\u00a0 I ate breakfast and got ready to go, Laura warned me to be careful of where I was going, but I didn\u2019t pay her too much attention.\u00a0 I was headed to Lead King Basin, which provides the shortest approach to climb Snowmass.<\/p>\n

I left the parking lot at 4:30am and started up the road.\u00a0 Soon I came to a fork in the road.\u00a0 To the left was Lead King Basin, straight ahead was the town of Crystal.\u00a0 I headed left toward Lead King Basin and the road quickly began climbing.\u00a0 The road eventually became extremely steep.\u00a0 It was wet and muddy in places and just kept going up.\u00a0 After about thirty minutes I looked at my altimeter, it read 12,500 feet.\u00a0 I knew I had taken a wrong turn, because my road was supposed to end around 10,700 feet.\u00a0 So I turned around and headed back, figuring that maybe I was supposed to go to Crystal.\u00a0 I didn’t know that the road I had been on was an alternative way to the trailhead, and if I had just stayed on it for awhile longer it would have descended to the trailhead.\u00a0 I was mad at myself for being so stupid, and was worried about how much light I had left.\u00a0 Since the motorcycle had no headlight, Shane had rigged up one of our powerful Vistalight bicycle lights to provide light on the motorcycle.\u00a0 It was powerful but the batteries don\u2019t last too long.\u00a0 Without that light I would lose a lot of time.<\/p>\n

I made it back to the turn off and headed toward Crystal.\u00a0 Just past Crystal there was another fork, and again it said left was Lead King Basin.\u00a0 This time I chose the correct road, and I cruised up the road to the trailhead.\u00a0 I leaned the motorcycle against a tree and starting my limping pace up the trail at 6:30am.<\/p>\n

Once my feet stopped hurting I kept up a pretty good pace all the way past Geneva Lake to Little Gem Lake.\u00a0 I decided to try the West Face route on Snowmass.\u00a0 I studied the West Face, and decided against the guidebook\u2019s suggestion to head up near the middle rib of the face.\u00a0 Instead, it looked best to me near the northernmost gully.\u00a0 I ascended fairly slow because of\u00a0all my ailments\u00a0and finally made the summit at 9:30am.\u00a0 Once again I had absolutely perfect weather.<\/p>\n

As I came down I was surprised to run into an old kayaking buddy, Carl.\u00a0 I said hello, and continued on my way, getting back to the dirt bike just before noon.\u00a0 Since it was Labor Day weekend, there were many fancy jeeps driving along the road.\u00a0 I was amazed at how the dirt bike can instantly leave even the best four wheel drive vehicles in the dust.<\/p>\n

I made it back to the parking lot at 12:30pm.\u00a0 I ate a good lunch, then waded out into the little lake to wash off a bit.\u00a0 I hadn\u2019t washed or brushed my teeth since I had started, and had a little rash on both my legs.\u00a0 The water felt good on my legs.\u00a0 I hoped the cold water and some sleep on the drive to the Sawatch would help rejuvenate me.\u00a0 As I stood in the water, everyone from my support crew was staring at me.\u00a0 My ribs were poking out and all the fat was gone from my now very thin frame.\u00a0 On the bright side though, my little pooch belly was gone, as I was nothing but skin and bones, with a tiny little remnant of muscle in a few spots.\u00a0 I figured I had stumbled across a great diet plan.\u00a0 I could make millions!<\/p>\n

I still hoped to climb Shavano, Tabeguache, and Antero, so we began the drive as soon as we could.\u00a0 Shane and Leslie returned the motorcycle while Natalie followed Laura and Dad up and over Independence Pass.\u00a0 When we made it to the end of Independence Pass, we were surprised that Shane was not there waiting, as we had planned.\u00a0 So we stopped and waited for him.\u00a0 I was concerned about time, and had to make the decision to not climb Shavano, Tabeguache, and Antero.\u00a0 Instead, I wanted to climb the most difficult of La Plata, Elbert, or Massive.\u00a0 I chose Elbert, because it required the most elevation gain (4400 feet) of the three.\u00a0 Shane and Leslie arrived and we informed them of the new plan.\u00a0 Then, out of the blue, my Uncle Bud and his girlfriend Chris Clarke (not the same Chris Clarke that had\u00a0been at Maroon Lake Trailhead) pulled up.\u00a0 They had coincidentally been in the Aspen area that weekend and had climbed La Plata Peak earlier that day.\u00a0 They joined our caravan as we headed to the Mt. Elbert trailhead, to see us off.<\/p>\n

My dad wanted to help me out by carrying my pack up Elbert.\u00a0 So he and Shane accompanied me as I started Mt. Elbert at 5:50pm.\u00a0 Bud Dog came along to keep us company, as well.\u00a0 It was to be his seventh 14er.\u00a0 As I limped away from the trailhead, I\u2019m sure everyone was surprised, seeing me head out so slow.\u00a0 After a while my feet were able to move again, and I was able to hold a pretty good pace.\u00a0 Later I heard that my Uncle and his girlfriend looked at each other and decided there was no way I was going to finish.<\/p>\n

I was looking forward to getting to the Sawatch.\u00a0 In this range there are lots of mountains, but most of them are class 2 hikes, and in many cases it is easy to traverse multiple peaks without having to give up a lot of elevation.\u00a0 Elbert is an easy hike on a good trail all the way to the summit.\u00a0 It is also the highest 14er in Colorado and the second highest in the Contiguous United States.<\/p>\n

Once I was able to get moving again, Shane helped out my dad by taking the extra burden of my pack.\u00a0 Around 12,500 feet the trail got steeper and I left Shane and Dad behind as I cruised on up to the summit, with Buddie running around and keeping me company.\u00a0 I got to the summit just as it was getting dark, around 8:20pm, and quickly turned around.\u00a0 Not far from the summit I met up with Shane, put on some warm clothes, picked up my headlight and headed down.\u00a0 Shane and Dad were going to continue to the top and catch up to me on the way down.\u00a0 A short time later I passed by dad.\u00a0 He was still going to the top, and I told him I\u2019d wait for him at tree line if he hadn\u2019t caught up to me by then.\u00a0 I continued down and not long after, Shane caught up to me.\u00a0 We saw my dad\u2019s headlamp coming down the mountain behind us, and continued until we reached tree line, where we sat down and waited for my dad.\u00a0 And waited, and waited.\u00a0 For some reason he hadn\u2019t caught up to us.\u00a0 After what seemed like a very long time Shane and I both thought we saw a flicker of light.\u00a0 Shane stood up and yelled out, out of the darkness, we heard my dad yell back.\u00a0 His head lamp had burned out and he had been stumbling down in total darkness, trying to stay on the trail.<\/p>\n

He hadn\u2019t heard me when I said we would wait for him at tree line and was relieved that we had waited.\u00a0 He was getting tired and had a bad altitude headache so he wanted to rest for a minute or so.\u00a0 Then we got going again, in a few minutes dad got a bad cramp in his thigh, and couldn\u2019t stand on his leg.\u00a0 He laid down on the trail, and I starting massaging out the cramp while he lay there, moaning in agony.\u00a0 Shane gave dad some ibuprofen, and after a short wait, we helped him up and started down again.\u00a0 The going was slow, but because I was able to focus on my dad, I forgot about my knee pain, and it felt fine all the way down the mountain.<\/p>\n

Shane and I tried to keep dad\u2019s spirits up and before long we made it down to the trailhead.\u00a0 We had been hoping that someone would be there waiting for us, but no one was.\u00a0 Laura had said that they would be going up to the Mt. Massive trailhead, and would wait for us there.\u00a0 Since it was only .1 mile further it didn\u2019t seem like\u00a0a big deal to them.\u00a0 But it seemed like a big deal to us.\u00a0 So we hiked to the Mt Massive trailhead and to our surprise, there was no one there.\u00a0 Now we were starting to get a little worried.\u00a0 My dad needed to stop hiking, and we had no idea where they were.<\/p>\n

Laura had also mentioned the possibility of setting up camp in a pull out between the two trailheads, but we had seen any sign of them.\u00a0 We decided to head back to the Mt. Elbert trailhead and continue in that direction.\u00a0 We found them not far from the Mt. Elbert trailhead, Laura was confused as to what direction the Mt. Massive trailhead had been from the Mt. Elbert trailhead.<\/p>\n

I scolded Laura because I was so annoyed, but thankfully she didn\u2019t take it personally.\u00a0 She made us a good dinner, and we all sat down around the campfire.\u00a0 My mom, who was going to take care of me for the last week, had come while we were hiking and she rubbed down my legs and did some of her therapeutic touch stuff on my knees.\u00a0 Dad was happy to finished.\u00a0 I think he had a new appreciation for the record that I was trying to set.<\/p>\n

We all went to sleep, with the plan for me to start climbing Massive around 4:00am. I had successfully taken one mountain off the most difficult day I had left, but from now on I could make no mistakes.\u00a0 I had to climb mountains according to my original 12 day plan in order to set the record.<\/p>\n


\nDay 10 (September 6, 1999)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Today was already day 10.\u00a0 I had climbed 30 mountains and still had 25 to go.\u00a0 That just\u00a0didn’t seem right.\u00a0 If I could only climb 30 mountains in the first 9 days, how was I supposed to climb 25 in 5 days?\u00a0 Well, for one thing, I wasn\u2019t in the San Juans anymore!\u00a0 Nevertheless, I had my work cut out for me.<\/p>\n

Since mom had rejoined the support crew, Laura had slept outside in her sleeping bag, and didn\u2019t hear her alarm.\u00a0 I woke up and looked at my watch, it was 5:00am.\u00a0 This was not a good way to start the day, an hour and a half late.\u00a0 Everyone quickly got up and Laura made me breakfast.\u00a0 I hopped in the truck with mom and dad and we started the 2 mile drive to the North Halfmoon Creek trailhead.<\/p>\n

It was early and we weren\u2019t quite sure where we were going. It is not hard to find, but the confusion with the trailheads last night had us all messed up.\u00a0 Finally, we came to a bridge, and we noticed a trailhead sign and we were there.\u00a0 I started hiking at about 6:00am.\u00a0 Dad was hiking along with me and insisting that I give him my pack.\u00a0 I asked him to go back down so he wouldn\u2019t keep mom waiting in the car and he did.\u00a0 But he promised to bring my bike up to the trailhead so I could ride my bike two miles down the road when I was finished with the hike (this was so that everyone could wait for me down at camp).<\/p>\n

It took extra long for my blister pain to go away, but soon I came to the steep part and although I was a bit sluggish, I made the summit by 8:30am.\u00a0 Once again I had perfect weather.\u00a0 At the summit I radioed down to base but no one answered.<\/p>\n

At 10:00am I was back down to the trailhead, but my bike was nowhere in sight.\u00a0 Man, my support team was 0 for 2 this morning.\u00a0 I radioed in and Natalie answered.\u00a0 I asked her where my bike was, and she said my dad was on the way.\u00a0 I picked up my stuff and started running down the road.\u00a0 Then I radioed Natalie again and I asked her to send someone to pick up my dad.\u00a0 I continued running, and running, and running.\u00a0 No sign of my dad.\u00a0 Then I saw mom in the truck, I threw my pack in the back of the truck and hopped up front with mom.\u00a0 Mom hadn\u2019t seen my dad either, he was lost.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t believe he was lost, certainly he hadn\u2019t gone past the bridge.<\/p>\n

We got back to camp and packed up.\u00a0 I was hungry so they fed me some more food.\u00a0 We decided to move on to La Plata, while Laura waited for dad to show up.\u00a0 Dad had gone past the bridge and kept biking up the road until he came to a stream crossing.\u00a0 He knew then that he had gone too far.\u00a0 So he had returned, found the trailhead and left my bike there.\u00a0 As he was walking back to camp, he happened to ask a couple of campers if they had seen a guy hiking down with hiking poles and a long blond pony tail.\u00a0 They said I was about fifteen minutes ahead of him.<\/p>\n

He hurried back up to the bike, and rode back to camp fifteen minutes after the rest of us had left, and he and Laura then made their way to West Winfield trailhead, where I was beginning my climb on La Plata.<\/p>\n

Mom, Buddie, and I started up La Plata at noon.\u00a0 Mom just came along for a few minutes.\u00a0 We were hiking along a four wheel drive road, which would take me to about 10,900 feet, and from there I would follow the trail to the summit.\u00a0 The road was pretty smooth so mom offered to drive up in the truck, but I just told her to stick with the original plan, to have someone bring my bike up to the end of the road so I could ride down.<\/p>\n

Buddie and I continued up the fast trail.\u00a0 There was a section with lots of willows, mud, and water, and it slowed me down as I did my best to keep my feet dry.\u00a0 When dad had first met up with us he had been shocked at the shoes I had been using, since they were all old and had holes in them.\u00a0 Since we have the same size shoe he had given me his nice shoes and by now, they were the only shoes I could stand to wear on my feet because of my blisters and sore toes.<\/p>\n

After the willows, buddie and I sluggishly made our way to the summit.\u00a0 I was very hot and was moving slow.\u00a0 La Plata has a painful false summit, and even though my altimeter warned me that the peak was a falsie, I was demoralized when I reached the false summit and saw the real summit a half mile away.<\/p>\n

I reached the summit at 2:30pm.\u00a0 There were a bunch of guys smoking pot\u00a0near the summit cairn, so I couldn\u2019t see if there was a summit register.\u00a0 I radioed in my progress, and was like “Later Dude” to the guys by the summit cairn, \u00a0and headed down.\u00a0 I made better time going down than I had on the way up, thanks to a nice little scree slope, and was down to my bike by 4:00pm.\u00a0 I hopped on and was back to the trailhead at 4:16pm.<\/p>\n

Dad took some pictures while I ate.\u00a0 I said goodbye to Shane, Natalie, Leslie, Mouser, and Buddie because they were headed back to Boulder.\u00a0 Then I crawled into the back of the truck and Laura, Dad, and Mom started the fairly long drive over to Mount of the Holy Cross.<\/p>\n

I was not looking forward to Mount of the Holy Cross.\u00a0 It is a long hike and includes about 5,500 feet of elevation gain.\u00a0 The killer for most people is that first you hike up about 1000 feet to Half Moon Pass, then you have to drop down 1000 feet before you get to Holy Cross\u2019s North Ridge.\u00a0 On the way back, you have to ascend that 1000 feet one more time before returning to the trailhead.\u00a0 To me, it didn\u2019t make any difference that it was up or down, either way I went about the same speed (although the uphill\u00a0was less painful).\u00a0 Either way, it is still a long hike relative to other fourteeners.<\/p>\n

Dad and I started up the trail at 7:05pm.\u00a0 I wanted to move as quickly as possible for my one hour of daylight.\u00a0 Dad carried my pack up to Half Moon Pass and he was hiking like a man with a mission.\u00a0 He was now using his hiking poles and within seconds he had a good lead on me.\u00a0 I continued relatively slowly, trying to hike through the pain of my blisters. \u00a0Sometimes I wondered if one day the pain would not go away.\u00a0 But eventually I was holding a pretty good pace.\u00a0 I had to yell for my dad to come back so I could get some water.\u00a0 When we got to Half Moon Pass, I had to ask him to turn back.\u00a0 He wanted to carry my pack down the pass, but he didn\u2019t have a headlight and I didn\u2019t want him to hurt himself hiking back in the darkness.\u00a0 I continued down and soon had to turn on my headlamp.\u00a0 I got a little lost just after the stream crossing, but soon found the trail and followed it up to tree line.\u00a0 Although I was impressed with how long the batteries were lasting in Natalie\u2019s headlamp, I was starting to think that maybe the reason I kept getting lost was because I had the low power bulb in and couldn\u2019t see very well.<\/p>\n

After tree line the trail was hard to follow, but I knew I was basically headed south and since the stars were out, I had no problems as I slowly made progress to the summit.\u00a0 It seemed like a long ways but I finally reached the top at 10:30pm.\u00a0 I radioed in my progress and headed down.\u00a0 The descent to tree line was agonizing, most of it on large boulders.\u00a0 I was concerned about dropping too far west so I went down slowly and cautiously.\u00a0 Once I made it to tree line I was able to pick up speed, but as I was tired the going was slow and I didn\u2019t make it back to Half Moon trailhead until 2:36am.<\/p>\n

I demanded 4 hours of sleep, ate some food and crawled in the back of the truck.\u00a0 Laura said goodbye as she had to get back to Wyoming.\u00a0 I was sad to see her go, as she had been so vital to my success until now.\u00a0 I fell asleep as mom and dad drove to Harvard Lakes trailhead, the trailhead for Harvard and Columbia.<\/p>\n


\nDay 11 (September 7, 1999)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Starting today, I had only four days of hiking left and 22 mountains to go.\u00a0 Today I was climbing 6 mountains.\u00a0 However, it was a reasonable day because there was no driving time to take into consideration.\u00a0 I would be able to traverse from mountain to mountain, without ever having to drop back below 10,800 feet.<\/p>\n

Dad and I started up Columbia.\u00a0 He was going to carry my pack up Columbia, then come back down and return to Salt Lake City.\u00a0 We started late\u00a0because of my demand for 4 hours of sleep and didn\u2019t start hiking until 7:30am.\u00a0 Mom was going to drive to South Winfield trailhead, a trailhead for Huron Peak, and hike my bike up to the end of the 4 wheel drive road at 10,700 feet.<\/p>\n

We made good time up the long trail through the forest.\u00a0 I was happy to not have the weight of a pack.\u00a0 My dad had no problem keeping up with me on the flat trails or downhill trails or even the slightly uphill trails.\u00a0 After an hour, however, the trail steepened and dad\u2019s pace slowed so he was slightly slower that me.\u00a0 At that point I asked for my backpack so we could continue at the faster pace.\u00a0 While we were stopped I was surprised to see a guy pass us up and continue up the trail.\u00a0 That was the only time anyone would pass me up in my 2 week adventure.\u00a0 We got moving again and due to my competitive nature quickly caught up to the guy just as we came to the point where we needed to leave the main trail so we could head up Columbia\u2019s steep West Slopes.<\/p>\n

Dad and I realized that I would go to fast for him to keep up, so he decided to head over to Mt. Harvard and wait for me.\u00a0 I tried to talk him out of it, and wanted him to just head down, but he is a stubborn one.<\/p>\n

The steep slopes\u00a0 of Columbia were just to my liking and I was able to maintain a solid 70 feet per minute pace up the slope on some of the steeper sections.\u00a0\u00a0I felt so good going up that at one point I was going 87 feet per minute (according to my altimeter).\u00a0 [However that was just for a short section, still it felt good to be able to move that fast for any amount of time].<\/p>\n

I reached the summit at 10:00am.\u00a0 A half an hour faster than I had expected.\u00a0 Then I started the dreaded traverse over to Harvard.\u00a0 It is not dreaded because it is extremely difficult, only because it takes so long.\u00a0 Although I was moving slowly on the downhills again, I still made good time and as I neared the summit I could hear my dad yelling in support.\u00a0 I made the top at 12:10pm, well ahead of my projected time of 1:30pm.<\/p>\n

My goal all day long had been to summit Missouri Mountain before nightfall.\u00a0 Missouri\u2019s East Ridge contained the last class 4 climbing of my remaining 14ers, and I did not want to do it in the dark.\u00a0 I was optimistic about my ability to do it.\u00a0 That would allow me to ascend Huron, one of the Sawatch\u2019s easiest 14ers, in the dark and finish between 10:00pm and midnight, allowing me some good sleep for the next day.\u00a0 I was well ahead of schedule.<\/p>\n

Dad gave my legs a rub down, and gave me the rest of his water.\u00a0 Dad had told another hiker up there about the record I was trying to set, and he wanted to get his picture taken with me, just in case I set the record.\u00a0 I have never had that happen before. I looked north over at Oxford and Belford and tried to figure out my route.\u00a0 I was doing an uncommon route by traversing over to Oxford but I was convinced it was going to save me time.\u00a0 As I looked at the map I realized I was going to have to drop all the way down to 11,000 feet, 1000 feet more that I had hoped, but I still thought it was a good idea.\u00a0 I said goodbye to Dad, and headed down Harvard\u2019s grassy North Ridge.<\/p>\n

After a gentle beginning, the ridge steepened.\u00a0 I saw the entrance to a gully that appeared to have some scree so I entered it.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t the best scree in the world, as it was intermixed with many areas of loose big rocks, which can be hard to ascend, but it was still a relatively quick descent.\u00a0 After a few painful falls, I made it to tree line.\u00a0 Then the bushwacking began.\u00a0 At first it wasn\u2019t too bad as I was able to follow some game trails.\u00a0 Then I thought I saw a clearing and ending up making my way through the debris of an old avalanche \u2013 large downed trees.\u00a0 Finally, I made it to Pine Creek and found the trail that heads up the valley.\u00a0 I immediately crossed the trail and continued north.\u00a0 I had been hoping to pick up a trail but didn\u2019t see anything so I headed straight up through the trees and thick bushes.\u00a0 It was so thick that at times I would close my eyes, grab whatever I could and pull myself through the bushes.\u00a0 I aimed myself at some boulder fields and was able to find a good route all the way to tree line.<\/p>\n

I continued north and reached the summit of Oxford at 4:10pm.\u00a0 The traverse from Harvard had only taken three and a half hours, much faster than I had expected.\u00a0 I headed north and made the summit of Belford at 4:56pm.\u00a0 I had plenty of time to make it up Missouri by darkness.\u00a0 I used the cell phone to leave a message for my mom, and tried to call Natalie, but she wasn\u2019t home.<\/p>\n

I headed to Missouri wondering what the East Ridge had in store for me.\u00a0 I had descended the East Ridge once, but had almost no memory of what it was like.\u00a0 Before long I was at Elkhead pass at 13,220 feet.\u00a0 I picked up the climber\u2019s trail and followed it to the south side of the ridge.\u00a0 Becoming impatient,\u00a0 I started climbing up the ridge a little too soon, and realized the climbing was difficult so I turned back.\u00a0 I continued on the climber\u2019s trail and followed a loose ledge as it made its way up the ridge.\u00a0 I thought the route I chose was easier than class 4 and was happy to make the summit by 6:30pm.\u00a0 I took a good look at Huron to the West and began working my way down to Missouri\u2019s West Ridge.<\/p>\n

I followed the ridge until I saw a little drainage with some good scree, and made good time to tree line.\u00a0 However, once in the trees I had to bushwack through a thick forest.\u00a0 The going was slow until I finally reached the four wheel drive road at about 7:40pm.\u00a0 I had about a half hour of light to find the trail that heads up the east side of Huron.\u00a0 The trail I was looking for began at a parking lot on this road.\u00a0 The parking lot was supposed to be right where the road was closed to motor vehicles.\u00a0 I guessed that I had to descend the road to the parking lot, and that I would be able to pick up the trail from there.\u00a0 I quickly came upon a gate that was blocking the road, but I couldn\u2019t find any trail.\u00a0 I started bushwacking west, thinking that I would intersect the trail and after some bushwacking I found a trail that took me too far south, all the way to Clohese lake, about a half mile south of where I wanted to be.\u00a0 I was out of water and did not have any iodine tablets with me.\u00a0 So when I saw a cabin near the lake I thought I might be able to get in and get some treated water.\u00a0 It was all locked up and since I didn\u2019t want to break anything, I gave up that idea.<\/p>\n

Now it was dark, I strapped on my headlamp and tried to figure out what to do.\u00a0 I found a trail that headed north along the lake and figured that it might follow the stream north and cross the trail I was trying to find.\u00a0 So I followed it through the darkness.\u00a0 Soon it headed east, and not wanting to go east, I followed what I thought was a faint trail north.\u00a0 Soon I was bushwacking again and was very frustrated.\u00a0 The river that I was supposed to cross was well below me as it flows down a ravine with steep banks approximately 100 feet high.<\/p>\n

Eventually, I stumbled on another trail, and when this trail headed east I stayed on it until I reached a trailhead, and what appeared to be a parking lot.\u00a0 I had finally reached the parking lot and had actually been on the trail I wanted.\u00a0 But the trail I was on didn\u2019t cross the river, like it was supposed to.\u00a0 Now I was thoroughly frustrated.\u00a0 I decided to throw in the towel.\u00a0 According the map I could follow the road out for a few\u00a0miles to Rockdale, and from there I could walk a few more miles to the South Winfield trailhead, where mom would be waiting for me.\u00a0 From there I could get some sleep and then take the normal route up Huron.\u00a0 I started walking down the road.\u00a0 Then a feeling came over me, I somehow felt that if I didn\u2019t climb Huron tonight, I would not have enough time to set the record.<\/p>\n

I turned around, looked up in the darkness at Huron, and started walking towards the mountain.\u00a0 I found a decent place to cross the stream, then tried to find a good place to head up the mountain.\u00a0 According to the map, the trail was just north of a stream that I should be able to find.\u00a0 I began heading up the steep slope, and the bushwacking was thick.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t see much since it was so dark so I pretty much just headed straight up.\u00a0 When I came to some cliffs, I veered south and heard the sound of water.\u00a0 I headed for that sound and came to a narrow band of boulders that headed straight up the mountain, right over the water.\u00a0 I figured the boulder field was better that bushwacking so I followed it up until it ended in a thick bunch of willows.\u00a0 After I made my way through the willows (easier said than done), I continued on until the forest thinned out a bit and I was able to follow some game trails.\u00a0 When I made it to tree line, I was very tired and very thirsty.\u00a0 I figured I would just have to take my chances with the water and filled up my water bladder with water from the stream.<\/p>\n

I decided to take a nap, and fell asleep for 15 minutes.\u00a0 I set my watch alarm so I wouldn\u2019t oversleep, and it rudely awakened me when it was time to go.\u00a0 I was now at about 12,000 feet and the fifteen minutes wasn\u2019t enough for me.\u00a0 I decided to try to make the summit by gaining five hundred feet at a time, and after every increment I would take another rest.\u00a0 By the time I was at 12,200 feet I was too tired to continue, so I decided to rest every two hundred feet.\u00a0 I dozed and some time later woke up with a desperate breath, like when you are holding your breath underwater and finally come to the surface for air.\u00a0 I had been dreaming and I don\u2019t think I was fully awake because as I was hiking I was hallucinating.<\/p>\n

I was climbing with someone else, and there were some elf like creatures who were talking to me.\u00a0 They were small and were sort of like my conscience, sort of like in cartoons when you have a little angel whispering in your ear.\u00a0 I was being punished because I had not called into my mom and she was worried.\u00a0 I couldn’t call in though because I only had the cell phone and it couldn\u2019t get a signal except from the top of the mountains.\u00a0 But they thought that was irrelevant, and punished me by sabotaging my altimeter.\u00a0 They fixed it so it wouldn\u2019t register changes in elevation.\u00a0 I was frustrated because I was hiking up and my altimeter wasn\u2019t changing.\u00a0 My climbing partner headed in a different direction, and disappeared.\u00a0 The elves disappeared.\u00a0 I continued up the slope, finally I reached 12,400 feet and sat down for another nap.\u00a0 I awoke again with a desperate breath and continued, almost like in a dream world.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t heading directly up the slope, but more at an angle so I was half contouring, half moving up as I tried to maintain a west heading.\u00a0 I couldn’t keep my balance, and seemed to be leaning too far into the slope and fell often.\u00a0 Soon there was no grass and just big boulders, many of them loose.<\/p>\n

Somehow, I pushed on and after many more falls and a few more naps, I reached a ridge at about 13,200 feet.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t know where I was but was pretty sure Huron was to my left, so I headed in that direction.\u00a0 I was a lot further from Huron than I had thought, and still had about a mile to go along that ridge (I attained the ridge on the saddle between Browns Peak and Point 13,462).\u00a0 After a long ridge walk I crossed the Colorado 14ers Initiative trail, the standard route up Huron.<\/p>\n

At 1:38am I reached the summit of Huron.\u00a0 I took a nap on the summit.\u00a0 Coming down was almost as difficult as going up.\u00a0 The batteries in my headlamp were running out of power, so my technique of walking backward was difficult.\u00a0 I had to crank my head around so I could see where I was going, and my neck was sore.\u00a0 Even though the trail is a great trail, I was yelling obscenities at it.\u00a0 It switchbacked all the way down the mountain.\u00a0 All I wanted was to be down, and I wanted a short, steep trail.\u00a0 This trail was so long, it kept dragging and dragging.\u00a0 I had to stop for naps, but I kept getting up and continued stumbling down the hill.\u00a0 My knee and blisters were all hurting, I could not wait to get to my mountain bike.<\/p>\n

I hated that trail with every part of my body, it just would not end.\u00a0 I pushed on through the agony and I was a desperate man when I came to my bike.\u00a0 I got to my bike and to my dismay, no bike light.\u00a0 Mom had asked me how to hook up the light and I was too lazy to deal with it so I had told her not to worry about it.\u00a0 Now my headlamp was practically dead, it produced a tiny yellow orb that was almost not worth it.\u00a0 Mom had also forgotten my helmet, but at that point, I didn\u2019t care.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, I had kept in my pack a little handheld maglight flashlight.\u00a0 I got it out and turned it on.\u00a0 I rode down the bumpy four wheel drive road with the maglight either in my mouth, or in my left hand.\u00a0 Riding down one handed was hard, and the light shook around to much in my teeth so I had to go slow, and soon I couldn\u2019t believe how never-ending the bike ride was.<\/p>\n

At 4:30am I rolled up next to the truck.\u00a0 I yelled out for my mom, and lay down on the ground.\u00a0 She fed me, and I ate, chewing with my eyes closed. Then I hopped in the back of the truck and went to sleep while she hurried to get me to the Jennings Creek trailhead.<\/p>\n

Mom had her own adventure that night.\u00a0 When she hiked my bike up the road for me, she had taken the wrong road.\u00a0 She had traveled far and left my bike miles away on the wrong mountain.\u00a0 Later, while she was trying to sleep, she realized her mistake.\u00a0 She wouldn\u2019t have been able to retrieve it except that at that very moment some men driving ATVs were coming down the road.\u00a0 They had been hunting in the dark and were coming back empty handed.\u00a0 She flagged them down and they selflessly agreed to drive her all the way up to the bike.\u00a0 They not only drove her to the bike, but also took it to the correct location.\u00a0 On the way to the right place, my helmet had fallen off, which is why it hadn\u2019t been with the bike.\u00a0 They had dropped the bike off only a half an hour before I had reached it.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t even remember trying to fall asleep.<\/p>\n


\nDay 12 (September 8, 1999)<\/strong><\/p>\n

On day 12 I would need to climb 5 mountains.\u00a0 I would start with Shavano and Tabeguache, traverse over to Antero, and meet mom at the bottom of Antero.\u00a0 Then she would drive me to Mt. Princeton, and after that I would climb Mt. Yale to finish off the Sawatch.<\/p>\n

I woke up because I was getting bounced around in the back of the truck.\u00a0 I opened my eyes surprised to be looking through spokes, as my bike had fallen on top of me.\u00a0 Mom was driving like a crazed lunatic.\u00a0 Of course it always seems like the driver was a crazed lunatic when you were in the back of the truck.\u00a0 Several times as I was getting bounced around I would hear a huge bonk as the bottom of the truck slammed into some rock.\u00a0 Finally, mom reached the Jennings Creek trailhead.\u00a0 I pleaded for another hour of sleep, and while I lay there mom made some food for me.\u00a0 Around 9:00am I sat up and starting looking over my feet.\u00a0 I covered some heel blisters with the last of my compeed, and used athletic tape to wrap my toes.\u00a0 I did not want to start but as it was getting late, I crawled out of the back of the truck.\u00a0 Then I noticed the bumper on my truck was totally bent and half of it was twisted upward.\u00a0 I told mom she was a crazy driver and as she went on about how bad the road had been, I prepared to begin the hike.\u00a0 At 9:30am I got a very late start.<\/p>\n

A sign at the trailhead asks climbers not to use the Jennings Creek approach, as the number of hikers was causing a great deal of erosion on this steep route.\u00a0 But I certainly didn\u2019t have the time to drive to another trailhead, and this was the quickest route so I had to ignore the sign.\u00a0 I maintained a slow but consistent pace.\u00a0 My legs were tired, sore, and even sunburned from the previous days.\u00a0 The route was short and steep so even though I wasn\u2019t hiking all that fast I still made the summit of Tabeguache in a reasonable amount of time.<\/p>\n

At 12:00pm sharp I made the summit of Tabeguache, I looked around but didn\u2019t see a summit register, then began the mile long traverse over to Shavano.\u00a0 The traverse to Shavano is very enjoyable after the saddle between the mountains.\u00a0 Shavano\u2019s South Ridge isn\u2019t like most Sawatch and was a combination of big, solid rocks and grass.<\/p>\n

I made the summit of Shavano by 12:45pm, and quickly found the summit register.\u00a0 I was too weak to unscrew the lid.\u00a0 I was embarrassed because there was a couple relaxing on the top of the summit, and I am sure they were thinking I was a serious wimp! I asked them if they wouldn\u2019t mind opening it for me, and the guy easily removed the lid.\u00a0 He apologized and said he hadn\u2019t thought he had screwed it on too tight.\u00a0 I signed the summit register and began the hike back over Tabeguache.<\/p>\n

On Tabeguache, I picked up my pack and began the long hike over to Antero.\u00a0 I was already out of water, and once again I had no iodine tablets with me.\u00a0 When I made it down to a small valley on my way north to Antero, I filled my water from a relatively clean looking stream and continued on my way.\u00a0 The route down to tree line involved a little bit of willow bushwacking and some muddy swamps to get the feet wet, but the difficulty was mild compared to what I was used to.\u00a0 The worst part about the bushwacking was having the branches scratching my sunburnt legs.<\/p>\n

Soon I made it to a 4 wheel drive road.\u00a0 The road continued and eventually would take me almost to the top of Antero.\u00a0 I made the summit of Antero at 4:15pm.\u00a0 On the summit there was a mountain goat who seemed pretty friendly, although he made sure to keep at least ten feet away from me.\u00a0 I stank, and now even animals couldn\u2019t stand my presence.<\/p>\n

I made my way down relatively quickly by taking a scree slope, although it wasn\u2019t very good so I almost regretted it.\u00a0 I finally made it down to another four wheel drive road, and when I\u00a0got to the big\u00a0stream crossing at about 10,800 feet, I found my mountain bike waiting for me.\u00a0 I rode down the jarring road and eventually came to the Baldwin Gulch trailhead at about 6:15pm.<\/p>\n

During the day, realizing how late it was getting, I understood that to set the record, I would have to hike straight through the night without stopping for the next three nights.\u00a0 I would have to make the most of the only time I had to sleep, when we were driving from one trailhead to another.<\/p>\n

Since I felt pretty comfortable that I could climb Mt. Princeton in the dark, I asked mom to drive me to the trailhead for Mt. Yale, which I hadn\u2019t climbed for a long time.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t want to get lost again and hoped that the hour of sunlight would be enough time to get me on a good trail to the summit.\u00a0 I also swapped the low power bulb with the halogen bulb on my headlamp, and took an extra set of batteries with me.<\/p>\n

I started limping away from the trailhead at 7:15pm,\u00a0 and it didn\u2019t take me long to get lost.\u00a0 I was trying so hard to follow the directions in the guide book, when I should have paid more attention to the map.\u00a0 The directions were to look sharp for a trail to the right of the main trail, near the junction of Delaney Creek and Denny Creek at 10,400 feet.\u00a0 I crossed Denny creek at about 10,500 feet, and thinking I must have already gone too far, took the first thing that even resembled a trail.\u00a0 I quickly crossed to the east side of Delaney Creek.\u00a0 I figured I would catch the trail I was looking for if I kept heading upstream, because according to the map, the trail I was trying to find crossed the creek at about 10,800 feet.\u00a0 I bushwacked along the stream (this brought back my memories of the previous night on Huron) until when my altimeter read 10,800 feet, I found a little trail.\u00a0 It was heading in the right direction, and so happily I followed the trail, thinking I was on my way.\u00a0 My happiness quickly turned to frustration as the trail petered out.<\/p>\n

I knew where my mountain was, and I knew where the South Ridge was (the ridge I needed to ascend) so I pointed myself straight up the slopes of the South Ridge and bushwacked through some thick trees in the darkness until I reached tree line.\u00a0 I continued up to the top of the ridge, then followed the ridge north towards Mt. Yale until I finally found the trail.\u00a0 The thing was a superhighway, how could I have gone astray?\u00a0 I was surprised at how big the trail was and was able to make pretty good time all the way to the summit ridge and then to the summit of Mt. Yale, which I reached at 10:30pm.<\/p>\n

As I came down I was able to see where I went wrong.\u00a0 The Mt. Yale trail leaves the main trail at 10,600 feet.\u00a0 This was clearly marked on the map, and I was stupid for messing up.\u00a0 However, the description of the trail was a little out of date, there was now a big wooden sign that says Mt. Yale and points to the right.\u00a0 I hiked on down the trail and made it back to the trailhead at 1:10pm.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t sleep much on the way to Mt. Princeton, but was able to rest by abused little body and eat some food.\u00a0 Mom\u2019s driving had me scared again as she drove up the Mt Princeton road.\u00a0 She drove a little too high up the road, so I had to have her turn around and drive back down to about 11,100 feet.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t waste any time and was hiking by 3:15am.<\/p>\n

I felt right at home on Princeton as I have climbed it many times (due to it’s close proximity when I was a raft guide in Buena Vista), including one moonlight ascent, so I made excellent time and was on the summit by 4:50am.\u00a0 My knee prevented a fast descent though, and I didn\u2019t make it back to the truck until 6:45am.\u00a0 I happily crawled into the back of the truck and was looking forward to the long drive to Pikes Peak so I could get some sleep.<\/p>\n


\nDay 13 (September 9, 1999)<\/strong><\/p>\n

A couple of days before, we had learned that the Pikes Peak road would open at 7:00am.\u00a0 My plan was to have mom drive to 11,000 feet on the road, from there I would hike up the road.\u00a0 It wouldn\u2019t be a direct route, but at least the hiking would be easy, my body needed an easy road hike.\u00a0 Then we would drive over to the Tenmile\/Mosquito Range, where I would try to crank out five easy 14ers(Mt. Sherman, Mt. Lincoln, Mt. Democrat, Mt. Bross, and Quandary Peak).<\/p>\n

Mom drove to Johnson Village.\u00a0 The night before she had dropped the trailer and motorcycle off at the Gunsmoke Truckstop.\u00a0 Ever since I was little, I could remember us stopping and eating or filling up the gas tank at the Gunsmoke.\u00a0 We would stop there on trips to Denver or on early trips to climb Sawatch 14ers.\u00a0 They had a big parking lot and it seemed like a good safe place to drop off the trailer.\u00a0 Somehow the trailer was a little bent up, and we were having a difficult time getting it on the truck (I was totally worthless).\u00a0 So we made the decision to leave it there and pick it up after the trip, I was hoping Shane might be able to pick it up for me so I wouldn\u2019t have to worry about it.\u00a0 As we were about to leave I asked mom if she had told anyone at the truckstop she was leaving it there, but she said no and I didn\u2019t have the energy to care.\u00a0 I was glad that we wouldn\u2019t have to deal with towing around the broken motorcycle for the next two days.<\/p>\n

Later the trailer would turn out to be a real hassle.\u00a0 The unreasonable folks at Gunsmoke and the neighboring towing company teamed up and impounded the trailer in a little fenced off yard.\u00a0 A couple of days after my record attempt, when I was barely able to walk and totally fatigued, Natalie and I drove down to pick up the trailer.\u00a0 I had become impatient with Shane and wanted to get the motorcycle and trailer repaired and returned to their owners.\u00a0 I desperately pleaded with Jim at Gunsmoke to help me out, as I had just driven 4 hours to pick up the trailer, I even offered money.\u00a0 He refused to unlock the gate saying I had to be there between 8:00am and 5:00pm on a weekday.\u00a0 I wanted to kill the ?#%$*, and was headed over to the hardware store determined to buy bolt cutters.\u00a0\u00a0 But Natalie stopped me and calmed me down, \u00a0and we drove home empty handed.\u00a0 It took a long time to deal with that mess.\u00a0 I will never give them my business again, and if you ever have a chance to screw them over, you have my full support.\u00a0 One good reason to stop by might be to dump off any trash from your camping trips.<\/p>\n

Mom continued driving and in a couple of hours made it the Pikes Peak Road, where she\u00a0paid the fee and continued up the road.\u00a0 To my dismay we learned that hiking was not permitted along the road.\u00a0 My plan was history, and I hadn\u2019t researched a plan B very well, in hindsight I know about the Crags Campground trailhead, and I know that they just want you to stay off the actual road\u00a0 However, at the time I did not know this.\u00a0 She continued driving and when she was just past 11,000 feet I banged on the window because I still had to follow the 3,000 foot rule.<\/p>\n

She drove up the road, and she drove down the road.\u00a0 This continued for awhile as we tried to figure out what to do.\u00a0 Finally, she started heading up the road because she remembered a spot on the road where a trail crosses the road from the last time she had been up Pikes.\u00a0 She drove on up and it turns out that that trail was all the way up at 13,000 feet.\u00a0 I got out and slowly began my hike at 10:00am.\u00a0 The rest in the truck had allowed me to stiffen up and feet were absolutely killing me.\u00a0 That day I was dreading, when the blister pain would not go away had arrived, and it was slow, painful walking.\u00a0 I called Natalie on the cell phone and made arrangements to meet her and Kelly at 11,000 feet on Kite Lake road (the access for Lincoln, Democrat, and Bross).\u00a0 The Volkswagon had broken down, and Kelly was nice enough to get Friday off from work so she could drive Natalie down to join us.<\/p>\n

Soon I came to a nice slope.\u00a0 I marked a spot at the bottom, and hiked up until my altimeter said I was 50 feet above the marked spot, and I marked this spot.\u00a0 I then went up and down those 50 feet forty times.\u00a0 I was sluggish, and the process took over an hour, but I wanted to get in an extra two thousand feet.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t the ideal way to meet the 3000 foot rule, but it was the best I could come up with.\u00a0 I tired myself out by trying to run some of the segments, and when I finished I looked on up at the summit of Pikes, still eight hundred more feet to go.<\/p>\n

I believe\u00a0the 3000 foot rule (which had never been written down as far as the record was concerned) was about ensuring that anybody went through a minimum amount of effort to reach a summit.\u00a0 I believed my interpretation of completing “laps” absolutely forced me to put forth that minimum amount of effort.\u00a0 In fact you could argue it was more difficult because I was over 13,000 feet for the entire time.\u00a0 [Later this decision, caused some grumbling from the previous record holder.\u00a0 He didn’t feel that these “laps” satisfied the 3000 foot rule.\u00a0\u00a0But the next summer he took his revenge by taking a day and a half off the record! So in the end it didn’t matter.\u00a0 I must say, that in my naivety, I had no idea that anyone would take it so seriously!\u00a0 Especially because I had more than “honored” the record by hiking extra stuff\u00a0and mountain biking stuff that other people were able to drive in their 4 wheel drives.\u00a0 In hindsight, I understand that people are very serious about their personal records.\u00a0 I think this is way more true today than it was in 1999. But now Teddy has written in very much detail what the rules are so there is no room for my type of “effort” interpretation of the rule.\u00a0]<\/p>\n

I made the summit at 12:30pm, and wandered around for awhile looking around for the highest rock.\u00a0 I went over and touched one possible candidate and then walked over to the truck.\u00a0 Mom was waiting for me, she fed me a little, cheered me on a little and then sent me back down the mountain.\u00a0 I slowly (very slowly since my blister pain had never gone away) made my way down and she picked me up at\u00a01:45pm back where I had started, then we headed down the road.\u00a0 At a brake check, the ranger informed her that the brakes on the truck badly needed replacement, so for the next two days she had to worry about that, since there was no time to have them fixed.<\/p>\n

While I was sleeping in the back of the truck, mom drove over to the dirt road that heads up Mt. Sherman.\u00a0 Somewhere on the dirt rode I woke up and looked at my watch.\u00a0 We were at 11,100 feet and mom was still going.\u00a0 I banged on the window so she would stop, but she didn\u2019t hear and continued up to 11,500 feet.\u00a0 Then she stopped and asked me what our elevation was.\u00a0 I angrily told her we had gone too high (I was in a bad mood).\u00a0 She offered to drive me back down but I told her to forget about it and got out and started hiking down the road at 4:10pm.\u00a0 I hiked a long ways down that road until my altimeter finally read 11,030 feet, then turned around and started up.\u00a0 Somewhere along the way my mood became more positive. When I got back to the truck, mom joined me and hiked about a mile up the road with me.\u00a0 Then she turned back and I continued past the Dauntless Mine on up to the Hilltop Mine.\u00a0 At this point I looked north and was confused.\u00a0 The mountain I thought was Sherman looked much smaller than the peak to the north.\u00a0 I thought that maybe I was going the wrong way.<\/p>\n

After doubting myself for awhile I decided I had been right in the first place.\u00a0 I headed right up that mountain and shortly made the summit ridge.\u00a0 I called Natalie again to verify that she would still be meeting us, and hiked up the nice trail to the summit at 6:45pm, where I found a summit register that was torn and tattered.\u00a0 I started down and was happy to find a nice scree slope to ease the knee pain.\u00a0 By now I was an expert at going downhill backwards, and I put that expertise to work.\u00a0 Around 8:30pm I made it back to the truck, and mom started the drive over to Kite Lake.<\/p>\n

Kite Lake is a high trailhead at 12,000 feet.\u00a0 So we had to stop before the end of the road.\u00a0 It works out well, because right at about 11,000 feet the road gets steep, and there is a nice little pull out where mom could park.\u00a0 The road was easy to that point and it would be easy for Kelly and Natalie to spot the truck.\u00a0 I only had a little more that a mile to hike on the road before Kite Lake. From Kite Lake Lincoln, Democrat, and Bross are about the easiest three mountains you could ask for.<\/p>\n

I asked mom for about 15 minutes more sleep, and after 15 minutes got up and prepared to leave.\u00a0 I put some new batteries in my headlamp (I complained the night before to mom because the cheap batteries she had bought had died quickly, so she bought me some real batteries), and started up the road at 9:30pm.\u00a0 No sooner than I started, Natalie and Kelly drove up.\u00a0 They left Kelly\u2019s truck running and started hiking up with me, with Buddie and Dave Dog.\u00a0\u00a0A few minutes later I said goodbye and continued up alone.\u00a0 I called Buddie, but wise in many ways, he didn\u2019t want to come up with me.\u00a0 I held a nice consistent pace and was able to climb the mountains faster that expected.<\/p>\n

At 11:30pm I made the summit of Democrat, I continued up and over Mt. Cameron until reaching the summit of Lincoln at 12:30am, then continued over to Bross which I summited at 1:00pm.<\/p>\n

The descent of Bross used to be a nice scree slope.\u00a0 But the large numbers of people running down the slope has made much of the scree disappear.\u00a0 Still, it was better than nothing and I was back down to the truck in an hour and a half, at 2:30am.\u00a0 I had 27 hours to beat the fourteen day barrier, and six mountains left to climb.<\/p>\n


\nDay 14 (September 10, 1999)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Natalie rode in the back of the truck with me and gave my legs and feet a massage. We arrived at the Quandary trailhead at about 3:00am.\u00a0 I was mad again because I thought we were at the wrong trailhead.\u00a0 Instead of being on the south side of Quandary, at the Monte Cristo trailhead, we were on the north side of Quandary.\u00a0 After a little confusion we realized that the book was out of date and that this was now the standard trailhead up Quandary.<\/p>\n

It was nice to have some company on this hike.\u00a0 Kelly, Natalie, Buddie, and Dave Dog\u00a0were all going to join me.\u00a0 We headed up the trail.\u00a0 The trail soon became very steep, much steeper than I had remembered, and I left Natalie and Kelly behind, as I was able to get into my uphill groove.\u00a0 Just having them along helped me go faster.\u00a0 After a painfully long, rolling ridge I finally made the summit at 5:00am with Buddie and Dave Dog.<\/p>\n

I headed down and soon ran into Natalie.\u00a0 Natalie is attempting a record of her own.\u00a0 This was her fourth summit that she completed 95%.\u00a0 For varying reasons, it seems like she always has to turn around a few hundred feet from the summit.\u00a0 Soon we saw Kelly, and we determined that Kelly was a half hour from the summit.\u00a0 Kelly decided continue up to the summit, and we mistakenly thought that she wouldn\u2019t be able to catch us on the way down, and she said she would drive over and meet us at the next trailhead.\u00a0 She turned around in a couple of minutes though, realizing that she wanted to stay with the group.<\/p>\n

I descended as fast as I could. \u00a0I hopped, leapt, went backwards and did everything I could to go fast.\u00a0 But when I looked at Natalie and Kelly I could see that they were leisurely walking down the mountain.<\/p>\n

We decided to have Kelly descend ahead of us and help get everything ready to go.\u00a0 I knew I had a chance at the record but I knew it was going to be a nail-biter.\u00a0 I was impressed with how quickly she descended and soon it was just Natalie and I.\u00a0 We lost each other near the trailhead because I took a shortcut and Natalie stayed on the trail, but we found each other again and made it to the trailhead at 6:30am.<\/p>\n

We climbed into the back of the truck and Mom and Kelly began the drive over to Bakerville, the access to Torreys and Grays.\u00a0 On the way up to Stevens Gulch trailhead I was frustrated, because I wasn\u2019t sure there was anyway I was going to be able to set the record.\u00a0 Natalie reassured me, she knew I could do it and that helped lift my spirits.<\/p>\n

I started up the trail to Grays at 9:05am.\u00a0 I made great time up the mountains, which I have since deemed \u201cBeautiful Torreys and Grays\u201d because it was such a fast hike for me.\u00a0 I made it to the top of Grays in one hour and eighteen minutes (10:23am).\u00a0 On the way up my ankle was starting to bother me, probably from my descent off Quandary.\u00a0 I ignored the pain and figured it would go away.<\/p>\n

I made the summit of Torreys a short time later, at 10:46am.\u00a0 Not wasting any time, I immediately turned around and headed full hiking speed back down to the car and finished at 12:00pm sharp.\u00a0 I had completed the mountains in just under three hours, an entire hour faster than I had estimated.\u00a0 I had a new hope that I could actually set the record, and I knew that the next two mountains could either make or break me.<\/p>\n

Mom drove to Guanella pass like she was racing in the Indy 500.\u00a0 Passing cars on turns on the windy mountain road and speeding out of control (At least that is how it felt from the back of the truck).\u00a0 Originally I was going to have her stop a little early because Guanella pass is all the way up at 11,670 feet.\u00a0 However, the trail up Bierstadt begins by descending a little, and I didn\u2019t want to do one foot more than I had to.\u00a0 So I had her drive all the way to the pass, and using my altimeter I would see how much extra elevation I needed to gain, and I decided to make up the elevation on the steep slopes of Bierstadt, in the same manner I had chosen on Pikes. [Big mistake, more grumbling by previous record holder!\u00a0 Like I said before, in future don’t do laps!]<\/p>\n

I started hiking at Bierstadt at 1:00pm.\u00a0 The infamous willows of Bierstadt, which I had bushwacked many times in my life, were no problem due to the great trail provided by the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative.\u00a0 I was feeling very sluggish however, and gaining the extra 500 feet and dropping back down to meet the 3000 foot rule was mentally difficult.\u00a0 I\u00a0didn\u2019t make the summit until 3:00pm.\u00a0 Just before I summited I saw a big thunderstorm in the distance, and I was worried.\u00a0 I figured it was about time my luck run out, because I had\u00a0enjoyed an entire week of great weather.\u00a0 As I reached the top it started sprinkling, but the meat of the storm missed Evans and Bierstadt completely.<\/p>\n

The ridge that awaited me had been an important variable in my chances to break the record.\u00a0 I had no idea how long it would take me.\u00a0 Called the Sawtooth ridge, it is very intimidating when viewed upon from Guanella Pass, although it is only rated Class 3, and it surprisingly pretty easy.\u00a0 I began the hike off Mt. Bierstadt, and my right ankle began to scream.\u00a0 It hurt so bad that everything else that was hurting me was instantly healed.\u00a0 Every step down sent a sharp pain up my leg.\u00a0 I slowly but steadily continued.\u00a0 Although my ankle hurt so badly, the ridge turned out to be very nice, even fun.<\/p>\n

I finished the Sawtooth Ridge and had only to hike a little over a mile up Evans North Ridge.\u00a0 I limped past a few mountain goats, then tried to radio into mom that I needed a bag of ice.\u00a0 The ridge lasted longer than I thought, and just as I reached the summit of Evans at 5:15pm, the storm that had been hovering around but not over Evans finally hit.\u00a0 Mom, Natalie, and Kelly were waiting for me and they pointed me in the direction of the right trail to follow on the way down, and got in the trucks to drive down and meet me.<\/p>\n

The storm now hit at full force. There were loud claps of thunder, and there was a mixture of rain, sleet, and snow falling from the sky. Dave Dog joined me on my descent, and I quickly realized the descent was not going to be easy. My ankle was hurting so bad I was crying. I was also frustrated when 15 minutes later, I looked at my altimeter and had only descended to 13,900 feet. I could see the road at 12,800 feet where the trucks were going to wait for me. When I got there I would be approximately half way down.<\/p>\n

I was in so much pain that I had to stop and lay down. I saw Kelly\u2019s truck come to a stop where she would wait for me. I went down another couple of hundred feet and had to stop again. Finally, I told myself to stop being such a baby, and I found a nice rock that fit in the palm of my hand. I squeezed that rock in my left hand as hard as I could, trying to focus all of my pain into that rock, and ran down the mountain. The storm would not relent, but neither would I, and soon I made it to the road, and I crawled into the front of Kelly\u2019s truck.<\/p>\n

We decided that we would drive down a little ways, and try to find a good place for me to descend another 1600 feet. The storm was worse than ever, my truck\u2019s brakes were shot, my ankle was in terrible pain, my mom was worried about me. Was I taking this record too seriously? I asked Kelly what she thought, and she said she didn\u2019t think I should finish the descent.\u00a0 My mom was very concerned with the snow and driving the truck with bad brakes.\u00a0 I felt terribly guilty for putting everyone in this situation.\u00a0 Kelly even asked me if the 3000 foot rule said anything about descending.\u00a0 I didn’t know, but in my mind it mattered to me.\u00a0 I had been so adamant about that 3000 foot rule the entire record, I didn’t want to short change it this close to the end.\u00a0 It was a tough decision.<\/p>\n

In the end I made the decision to just leave. I moved to\u00a0the back of my truck, and with Natalie massaging my ankle, we began the long drive to Long\u2019s. It was a tough decision, but I felt like it was the prudent decision. My ankle was in so much pain, it would have been hard emotionally to endure more. And the bad weather was now completely socked in. The electrical storm had turned into a full on snow storm, and I could only hope that it wasn\u2019t socked in all the way up at Long\u2019s. I quickly forgot about not descending the entire 3000 feet.\u00a0 And started thinking about the climb up Long’s.<\/p>\n

[This is another spot where the previous record holder complained.\u00a0 Later on Long’s, I essentially added 1600 feet of descent that in my mind’s “effort” paradigm cleared my conscience of not descending 3000 feet on Evans.\u00a0 However, this was described as transferring elevation from one mountain to another.\u00a0 When worded like that I know it sounds bad.\u00a0 I even read in the newspaper that I had never actually ascended Pikes, but had chosen another mountain to do 3000 feet on, and called it the same as ascending Pikes.\u00a0\u00a0In hindsight, if I were in the same position I think I would do everything I could to finish that descent.\u00a0 I just did not understand at the time how serious people were about these records.\u00a0 The previous record holders had been, in a sense, heroes of mine.\u00a0 I had assumed they would, above anyone else, understand what I had been through and be more than excited to meet a kindred spirit.\u00a0Look at the monumental effort it took for me to shave a few minutes off their time!\u00a0 I was shocked when I found out about the malice directed towards me, Denesik was quoted in the post as saying I had “Cheapened the record”.\u00a0 It was like waking up from a wonderful dream where everything is perfect, and then slap! Back to reality, people hate you! ]<\/p>\n

It was 6:00pm, and if all went well we would be at the trailhead for Long’s well before 10:00pm.\u00a0 The drive to Long\u2019s took longer than expected.\u00a0 Part of the road we had been planning to take (the Peak to Peak Highway) was closed, so we had to make a long detour through Boulder.\u00a0 I was not at all confident that I could set the record.\u00a0 Earlier in the year, I had climbed Long\u2019s in five hours and twenty-two minutes.\u00a0 I had not been running and had been caught in an electrical storm.\u00a0 I had been guessing that if I were given an extra two hours, then I should be able to set the record.\u00a0 That is why I wanted to start by 10:00pm.\u00a0 But I hadn\u2019t counted on my ankle being in so much pain.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, Shane was going to meet us at the trailhead.\u00a0 He was going to carry my pack for me and hike with me all the way up.\u00a0 I felt that with someone with me I would probably be able to make the record in the time I had available.\u00a0 When we got to the trailhead, Shane was nowhere to be found.\u00a0 Kelly made me some grilled cheese sandwiches and soup, and I ate while we all hoped Shane would pull up.\u00a0 But he never made it.\u00a0 Natalie offered to hike up to the keyhole with me.\u00a0 And I was glad to have her along.<\/p>\n

We said goodbye to Kelly and mom and started hiking at 8:50pm.\u00a0 That would hopefully be plenty of time.\u00a0 But I knew only too well that Long\u2019s was not a quitter.\u00a0 When Ricky Denesik set the record of 14 days, 16 minutes, he had been on pace to set the record almost eight hours faster.\u00a0 But just after reaching the keyhole, only 1000 feet from the top, a terrible storm had blown in and forced him to retreat.\u00a0 Although the skies were clear and the stars were out, I wasn\u2019t going to be happy until I was back down at the truck.<\/p>\n

I struggled on the way up the trail.\u00a0 Although my ankle was wrapped and I had taken lots of Advil, the ankle still hurt on every step.\u00a0 I was also very tired.\u00a0 I was falling asleep as we were hiking up, and I never got into rhythm and found my fast pace.\u00a0 All I could do was follow Natalie, and I gave it everything I had just to keep up.\u00a0\u00a0 Without Natalie I don\u2019t know if I would have had the willpower to keep moving.\u00a0 We made it to the boulder field around 11:30pm.\u00a0 Natalie prepared to wait for me in one of the tent shelters.\u00a0 She had carried up a blanket, and I gave her my poncho.\u00a0 She tried to make me take the poncho, but I refused telling her there was no way I was stopping, even if it rained.<\/p>\n

I continued alone up to the keyhole and beyond.\u00a0 I noticed that I could no longer see stars in the southern part of the sky.\u00a0 Under normal conditions, it is hard to get lost on the keyhole route, because there are bullseyes painted on the rocks marking the path.\u00a0 The route is only rated class 3, but I was still taking it seriously because every time I had ever climbed the mountain, I had bad luck and ended up with an epic adventure.\u00a0 The bullseyes weren\u2019t too hard to follow on the way up, and soon I made it to the Trough, an 800 foot gully that you have to ascend.\u00a0 At first I actually went past the Trough, and after ascending to 13,500 feet I realized my mistake and descended back until I found a bullseye.\u00a0 Now my luck changed for the worse as a thick fog rolled in.\u00a0 I checked my altitude (13,400 feet) so I would know on the way down at what elevation I should exit the trough and traverse over to the keyhole.\u00a0 I ascended the trough and near the top the clouds broke for a few minutes, but then rolled back in for good.\u00a0 At the top of the Trough I followed the Narrows and when I reached the Homestretch, I noted my elevation again so I wouldn\u2019t descend too far on the way down.\u00a0 On the way up the Homestretch, I noted my elevation at a couple of the bullseyes so I might be able to find them on the way down.\u00a0 It was so fogged in now that my bright headlamp was almost too bright, I couldn\u2019t see farther than a few feet.\u00a0 I finally reached the summit.\u00a0 I remembered that Long\u2019s has a huge, flat summit, and that to get to the summit register I have to walk all the way to the south end of the summit (I reached the summit on the north end).\u00a0 I figured to be safe, I would build a little cairn where I was supposed to go down.\u00a0 As I walked over to the summit register, it began to sleet very hard and the wind picked up.\u00a0 The wind was at my back though, and quickly I found the summit register, it was 1:04am.<\/p>\n

I turned around and headed into the wind.\u00a0 I made it to the north end of the summit, but I could not find my cairn.\u00a0 I started walking along the summit crest until five minutes later I finally saw the cairn.\u00a0 It was a good thing I built that because without it I would not have been able to find me way down.<\/p>\n

My situation did not improve.\u00a0 The wind was blowing straight up the homestretch, and the sleet in the wind stung my face when I looked down trying to find my route.\u00a0 I started descending and was surprised at how slick the rock had become.\u00a0 I finally understood what Gerry Roach meant when he said the Homestretch turns into a bobsled run when it is wet.\u00a0 I went down with visions of the body I had seen on Eolus in my head.\u00a0 I was fearful that I would not be able to find the Narrows again.\u00a0 I cautiously made my way down and one by one found all of the bullseyes.\u00a0 I made it to the narrows.\u00a0 Thinking I was past the worst of it, I continued down to the trough.\u00a0 The adrenaline rush I had on the Homestretch finally gave way and once again I could think of nothing but the pain in my ankle.\u00a0 It screamed on every step.\u00a0 When I made it down to 13,400 feet, I couldn\u2019t find the way back to the keyhole.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t see any bullseyes.\u00a0 I dropped down to 13,300 feet and still couldn\u2019t recognize anything, I had no idea if the trail was up or down.\u00a0 I try not to place blind trust in my altimeter because changes in weather can throw off the elevation readings.<\/p>\n

My instinct made me go up and soon I found the trial.\u00a0 I had forgotten how much it descended before reaching the entrance to the Trough.\u00a0 I slowly made my way towards the keyhole.\u00a0 As I reached the keyhole, I noticed that the sky was clear down here and the rocks weren\u2019t so slick anymore.\u00a0 I rounded the corner and saw a light on at the shelter at about 2:30 am.\u00a0 I figured it must be Shane.\u00a0 I thought he must have hiked up to meet me and waited for me at the shelter.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs that Andrew?\u201d asked an unfamiliar voice from the darkness.\u00a0 \u201cYes,\u201d I answered, \u201cWho are you?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cYou\u2019ll never guess,\u201d he responded.\u00a0 It was Buzz Burrell, what a surprise!\u00a0 I had met Buzz the year before during an adventure race.\u00a0 What the hell was Buzz doing here?\u00a0 We hiked down the boulder field together.\u00a0 He had heard about me trying to set the record, and been frustrated because my website, which was following my progress on my record attempt, didn\u2019t have any information on how to contact us.\u00a0 He had read that we were going to be at Long\u2019s late on Friday night, and had decided to come up and offer some support.\u00a0 This was kind of a tradition for him, as he had been there when Ricky Denesik and Rick Trujillo set the record in 1995, and then again with Ricky Denesik in 1997.<\/p>\n

Having Buzz to talk to lifted my spirits.\u00a0 My ankle pain seemed minor, and I was able to walk normal, even jog down.\u00a0 I told him I wasn\u2019t sure that three hours would be enough to get down, considering my condition, but he assured me that it was \u201cin the bag.\u201d\u00a0 We came down and picked up Natalie, who was happy to see me.\u00a0 Although I was jogging as fast as I could, Buzz and Natalie leisurely walked down the trail behind me as we made our way down.<\/p>\n

On the way down Buzz told me that on the previous record attempts, the clock had always been stopped at 11,000 feet.\u00a0 Something about that just didn\u2019t feel right to me.\u00a0 When I stopped the clock I wanted to be able to lay down and relax, and not have to hike or anything for a long, long time.\u00a0 Stopping the clock at 11,000 feet would be great, but I still had a couple miles and a lot of downhill to hike.\u00a0 So I decided to officially stop the clock at the trailhead.\u00a0\u00a0Once we passed 11,000 feet.\u00a0 We started passing lots of hikers who were on their way up.\u00a0 Streams of headlights working their way up the mountain.\u00a0 Most hikers like to get an early start on Long\u2019s, but this was ridiculous.\u00a0 We made our way on down the trail.\u00a0 Someone hiking up helpfully suggested that I was going the wrong way.\u00a0 But I responded that I was the one going the right way, they were going the wrong way!\u00a0 Eventually we ran into Shane and Kelly who had been hiking up the trail.\u00a0 We all hiked down, made out way through streams of people heading up, and at 4:18 am made it to the trailhead.\u00a0 I was finished.\u00a0 I laid down, wanting to fall asleep, but Buzz didn\u2019t let me stay down for long.\u00a0 He helped me back up, I sat down on a bench and started talking to a reporter (Nadia White), who had driven all the way at that early hour to interview me.\u00a0 I answered her questions and at some point she asked what the official time was.\u00a0 It took us awhile to do the math, but it came out to 13 days, 22 hours and 48 minutes.\u00a0 I had only beaten the record by an hour and a half, but I was still more than happy.<\/p>\n

I was ready for some serious rest and relaxation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fourteen Days When I was eleven years old, my step dad Henry took me hiking up Mt. Hesperus in the La Plata range near Durango, Colorado.\u00a0 It was July 4, 1986.\u00a0 Even on that first hike, we took a bad gully on the way down, and Henry had to help me down some icy, rocky … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Andrew Hamilton’s 1999 Attempt”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/andrewhamilton.com\/14ers\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/57"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/andrewhamilton.com\/14ers\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/andrewhamilton.com\/14ers\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/andrewhamilton.com\/14ers\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/andrewhamilton.com\/14ers\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/andrewhamilton.com\/14ers\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/57\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71,"href":"http:\/\/andrewhamilton.com\/14ers\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/57\/revisions\/71"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/andrewhamilton.com\/14ers\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}