14ers.com

If you haven't already, you should talk to your doctor about risks to your ankle. It is very easy to turn an ankle on talus.

As for your sons, stick to mountains with level 1-3 exposure. IMO, level 4 is a big jump exposure wise. Go to routes and click on grouped by exposure.
Dave

14ers by Difficulty ranked by 14ers.com users http://www.14ers.com/php14ers/usrpeaksrall.php All the routes are links to more info.

Start at the bottom, work your way up, and when it gets to hard, stop.

TallGrass wrote:Start at the bottom, work your way up, and when it gets to hard, stop.

Perfect advice. And you probably won't stop.

Although it does remind me of this:

You learn so much by hiking with people who are more skilled or experienced. In a year or so, I am sure that you will be comfortable with any of the Class 3-rated mountains in Colorado. Your son will probably be fine on the class 4 peaks in a couple years, but alas several of them (Little Bear, Capitol) will definitely evoke child-inappropriate obscenities from you.

I will be out hiking with my soon-to-be-12 year old son almost every weekend this summer. Send me a PM if you are interested in joining us one of the weekends.

A couple of summers ago I was easing back into hiking after recovering from knee surgery. If you'd like I could give you some hikes that I started with. i have also done some hiking with my 7 year olds, so can also understand hiking with kids. Just send me a message if you'd like to discuss. In the meantime, I wish you a speedy recovery! And I also wish you the best of luck introudcing your son to hiking!

When my wife first asked me (as she pointed to Grey's), "when are we going to climb one of those?", I signed us up for rock climbing lessons. After a summer at The Red and a Wilderness Medicine course, we started climbing 14ers with a tiny bit more confidence than if we had started cold. We've never had to use those skills for rescue or first aide, but maybe our comfort zone is bigger.
I just wish there had been a 14ers.com when we first started. This is a tremendous resource and you'll get even better advice than mine from this forum.

Bearcrawl,

Couple of thoughts.

If you have any concerns with your ankle, a good idea would be the hike with trekking poles, if you don't
already do so. They can provide that balance you might need where either (i) you might not fully trust your ankle
or (ii) the ground is loose and the pole can take some of the load off your foot/ankle and reduce the risk of a
load bearing injury like turning your ankle on loose talus.

Also, to your main question on route difficulty for those peaks suitable for hiking; one thing to consider
is that the classification for those which are "hiking" peaks, i.e. class 1/2 assume you are on the standard route
and don't get off the standard route-which can quickly upgrade the difficulty of a peak and routefinding, depending
on the circumstance.

Good luck in your adventure!

Thanks all! I appreciate the conversation on it. The chart will be a good place to start, so thanks a ton. It was pointed out to me that my lead out post might have been offensive to some, hopefully not. It was a conversation starter, but if I came across as expecting others to do my dirty work, I apologize. I simply like the personal advice that is so plentiful here at 14ers.com as preferable to having to look stuff up myself, not be sure and then have to ask the question anyway. So thanks for the posts, it was very useful. Thank you. Good stuff!