Hey everyone! On 9/3/2023, myself and Sydney (AlessiaAscent on the forum, who is my climbing partner from school) both finished Colorado's 14ers on Ellingwood Point. When I started on the 14ers, I had no idea if I'd ever attempt them all, but was quickly hooked. Several peaks in, Sydney and I set a goal to climb all of them prior to graduating high school. Seeing as I'm writing this report now, this adventure was a success! It's been quite the project, and definitely one of my proudest accomplishments of my lifetime. In an effort to share some memories and photos from the adventure, I've written a little bit about the story from each peak below, but buckle up because this is going to be a long one. Hope you enjoy!

Note - Given the photo limit in trip reports, I've just chosen my favorites from this adventure, so some of the less exciting peaks won't have any photos.

DeCaLiBron

The first peaks of the adventure were on the DeCaLiBron. Sydney had been hiking mountains for several years leading up to this point, but these were a first for me. Utterly clueless about all things mountains, I went up with Sydney and her family. We ended up bring a whole box of Krispy Kreme donuts with us, which was quite the consolation for this being the hardest physical challenge I had ever undertaken at this point. I was also given a warm welcome to the high peaks by a healthy dose of icy mountain wind the day of our climb. Still, when I got home after this hike (exhausted), I was itching to plan another trip to the high country.

Mt. Yale - 8/29/21

Having caught the 14er bug, I successfully convinced my dad to hike a peak with me. After careful research given our inexperience, we settled on Mt. Yale. I had an excellent time (to this day, Yale is one of my favorite Sawatch 14ers), and felt much better physically this time. My dad, on the other hand, was not a fan of hikes of this nature. He had a decent experience, but did not enjoy the feeling of hiking at high altitude, so this would be the last 14er he'd hike with me.

Mt. Evans - 9/19/21

Carefully picking out a peak close to the Denver metro area that we could get a ride to, Sydney and I settled on Mt. Evans. We hiked from summit lake, and I saw my first proper alpine sunrise. Strong winds made this hike a little trickier than it should have been for the mileage, but I simply couldn't get enough of the alpine. This was also the start of my Swedish Fish addiction as a climbing snack. I wanted to keep hiking as much as possible, but alas, summer was ending.

Maroon Peak - 5/29/22

You may be thinking that this is an unlikely peak this early in the game, and you're absolutely right. The stars aligned such that Sydney and I were able to take part in a guided climb of South Maroon via the Bell Cord Couloir. In all honesty, we had absolutely no business being on that mountain. I had never self-arrested before, only used crampons once before for ice climbing, and had never been on such challenging terrain. However, this climb would prompt me to learn many more technical skills, and was also the moment that I decided that I wanted to pursue alpine climbing in a real way.

We met at Maroon lake for a very early alpine start in order to chase a weather window (narrow but existent). After the hike to the base of the couloir, we opted for the Y Couloir instead of the Bell Cord because the Bell Cord seemed to have the potential to be more waterfall than snow. We started up the garbage chute in a snowstorm, fairly certain that we'd have to turn around well before the summit. However, as we were roping up where the couloir steepens, the sun came out and we were greeted by some of the best cloud inversions I've ever seen.

We crested the ridge and started scrambling up towards the summit (short-roped, of course), myself still very clumsy in crampons. A cloud rolled in with strong icy winds, and some snow, but it gave way as we gained the summit.

Now comes one of my most terrifying moments in the mountains. As we started our descent, those clouds rolled in and formed another snowstorm. No big deal. Then the graupel started moving around in an unnatural way as it was falling. I was unsure what exactly I was looking at when suddenly, CRACK, BOOOOOM. A nice lightning blizzard was upon us in technical terrain with nowhere to hide, probably an hour from the top of the couloir, with an ice axe in hand to serve as a lightning rod. We raced down as fast as one can race in this kind of terrain, and somehow made it back to the couloir safely.

After a million belayed down-climbs and a lot of plunge-stepping, we arrived at the base of the garbage chute, and hiked back to the car, arriving 15 hours after we had left. This climb was a serious wake up call for my technical skills (even guided), but I was still in awe at the beautiful, inhospitable, otherworldly land of the alpine.

Mt. Belford and Mt. Oxford - 6/8/22

Now for something a little more tame. Itching to get back into the mountains, we opted for Belford and Oxford. This was the most vertical gain I had done in a day leading up to this point, so I was pretty worked by the end.

This summer, I also did a NOLS course, mostly focused on alpine rock climbing. I learned so much, particularly in terms of technical skills for backpacking and climbing. By the end of the course, I was leading trad climbs and learned multi pitch skills, which opened up adventure options so much.

Grays Peak and Torreys Peak - 8/22/22

After spending a significant amount of time at sea level over the summer, I was back in Colorado, and Sydney and I decided to hike G&T. The peaks even had a dusting of snow in August. I wasn't a fan of these two, and had a horrible altitude headache most of the time. Still, I'd like to go back to do Kelso Ridge.

Mt. of the Holy Cross - 8/27/22

Wanting to try a peak with a slightly harder hike, we opted for Holy Cross. We ascend Halo Ridge and descended the North Ridge after camping at the trailhead the night before. The stargazing on the hike up was amazing, and we reached the Notch Mountain shelter right at dawn, with some cool cloud inversions.

Castle Peak and Conundrum Peak - 9/3/22

These were our first taste of the Elks. Sydney's dad (who completed the 14ers a couple years ago) and his friend were planning on climbing 13er Malamute Peak, so we were able to get a ride up to that point on the Castle road. We then made quick work of the talus up to the Castle ridge, and had fun scrambling up. We headed on over to Conundrum, then decided to descend the saddle (even though it was dry). The saddle descent wasn't as bad as I've seen it hyped up to be, but descend that much scree isn't an experience I'd like to repeat. Still, a nice, short day out in the Elks.

Maroon Peak and North Maroon Peak - 9/4/22

Sydney's dad had never done the Bells traverse even though he'd completed the 14ers, so he wanted to try it guided with us. However, his knee was out of whack on Malamute, so he deemed the Bells the next day a bad idea for himself. Sydney and I ended up going still, and could not stop being in awe at the Elks.

On the way up South Maroon (now a repeat), in one of the gullies, a party kicked down a pretty big rock, so we had a nice little sprint to the side of the gully. I guess that's what happens on a rockfall-prone route on a holiday weekend. After that, we made quick work of South Maroon and started the traverse. I found the climbing moves to be pretty easy, but the rock quality was less than desirable. Still, we had a great time and made it over to North Maroon on a perfect bluebird day.

Pyramid Peak - 9/11/22

Having fallen in love with the Elks, we were back to a guided climb on Capitol. We packed up and hiked into Capitol Lake, before being greeted by some serious lack of gear issues. So, we had a nice hike back out from Capitol Lake that same day. We decided to do Pyramid the next day instead, and had a great time, enjoying the late summer weather.

Pikes Peak - 9/17/22

This one is a little bit unusual. I had been getting into trail running a little bit on the side, and wanted to try my hand at a proper race. Having successfully completed a qualifier half marathon a few months prior, I signed up for the Pikes Peak Ascent (half marathon from Manitou Springs, up the Barr trail, to the top of Pikes). I trained a bit leading up to the race and was really just hoping to make the cutoff (5.5 hours), but ended up finishing in a little under 3:45, which I was quite happy about.

Mt. Shavano and Tabeguache Peak - 9/24/22

With a free weekend and some decent weather, Sydney and I headed down to the bottom of the Sawatch to tick these two. These weren't anything remarkable, although we did see a cool sunrise ascending Shavano.

Mt. Bierstadt - 10/15/22

Myself, Sydney, and Clark (clarkakuthota on the forum), had spent the previous few weekends putting those new multi pitch skills to the test in the Flatirons and on Royal Flush, but I was hoping to get back to some hiking and scrambling. This time, I went up to Mt. Bierstadt solo, with about 4-6 inches on new snow on everything. I decided to do the Sawtooth (made a little more fun by the snow) as well, but didn't quite have enough time to tag Evans before heading back home. Descending through the willows was not great, but I enjoyed listening to the audiobook version of Into the Wild on this hike.

Mt. Elbert - 10/30/22

Armed with a good weather forecast, I headed out for a solo attempt on Mt. Elbert. Everything was blanketed in a bit of new snow, especially up high. I also ended up accidentally spooking someone while passing them in the woods at dawn. This hike would re-ignite my fascination with climbing in the snow; I couldn't have asked for a more beautiful bluebird day out there.

Quandary Peak - 11/5/22

I clearly became too confident in shoulder season weather on Elbert, because I had the exact opposite weather experience this time around, solo on Quandary. There was zero visibility pretty much the whole day and very unpleasant winds. I can't seem to find a lot of redeeming factors about this mountain.

Humboldt Peak - 1/8/23

This winter would be the winter of learning to backcountry ski, as well as avalanche education (AIARE 1 and rescue). Still, I was antsy to get back into the high peaks. There wasn't enough snow to ski much of anything safely up high yet, so I opted to hike Humboldt solo. After the coldest night of car camping I'd ever experienced, I set out on snowshoes through the woods below the east ridge. I ran into plenty of mountain lion tracks in the woods while it was still dark (terrifying experience), but eventually gained the ridge under VERY windy conditions. Still, the level of satisfaction from reaching the summit in winter was unparalled.

Mt. Sherman - 1/22/23

Set on ticking some of the less exciting peaks in winter, Sydney and I decided to ski Sherman. CAIC didn't think that persistent weak layer risk was very high on southern aspects in the Mosquito range. We were met by great skepticism from a group of snowshoers on the way up that there would be enough snow, but we managed to link some pretty decent turns for January. We ascended the SW ridge (with a little talus variation to avoid the annual cornice), then carefully pitched out the steeper rollovers on the South Slopes. The snow was mostly rock-hard, but eventually started to resemble corn as it heated up. Remarkably, we managed to ski all the way to the summer trailhead before reaching a major dry patch. Finally we skinned out on the mostly flat road.

La Plata Peak - 2/4/23

Out of hatred for snowshoes, I decided to head up La Plata with skis, solo. The persistent weak layer stars didn't align for a descent of the North Face, so I decided to see how much I could ski on the Northwest Ridge. This was as dumb of an idea as it sounds. I skinned up to the base of the headwall on the winter route, and then booted up to the summit from there (although I was able to skin another section part of the way up the ridge). On the short skinning section up the ridge, the snow became icy and one of my skis popped off, causing me to slip and have to arrest using the other ski. I am yet to buy ski crampons, although this experience convinced me that it would probably be a good idea. Surprisingly, the ski from the summit was possible (albeit with plenty of rock skiing) down the NW ridge or just below it, to the low point of the ridge. The east facing chutes from there were very enticing, but CAIC made it clear that those were a bad idea. I booted down the headwall, then clicked in for a terrible ski through the super dense woods, back to the trailhead. So yes, a ski of the ridge is possible, but never a fun idea.

Culebra Peak - 4/1/23

Sydney and I had been anxiously awaiting the consolidation of the snowpack for what felt like an eternity, but alas, winter part 2 was upon Colorado, so we'd have to stick to some of the lower angle peaks for a while. Given that I didn't know my summer weekend availability yet, we opted to tick Culebra in the spring. We car camped at the gate the night before, and started skinning up the road after checking in the next day. There was another party hiking at the start, but they quickly turned around due to lack of flotation. We skinned up to about halfway up the main headwall, then booted up to the big cairn and ditched our skis, before hiking up to the summit. The ski down from the big cairn was fun, easy, and fast, and the solitude on Culebra (especially with snow) is unparalleled. The next day, I was reminded that I forgot to put on sunscreen for this hike, and ended up with a heinous goggle sunburn that lasted forever.

Mt. Princeton - 4/8/23

In November 2021, I had made an attempt at Princeton with some family friends in perfect conditions for November, but our pace was a little slow so we decided to turn around near 13.7k. This time, I wanted to tag the summit for real. Sydney and I opted for the winter route (Tigger Peak) because the snowpack was still in slightly iffy condition. We made quick work of the road walk, the did some obnoxious snowshoe side-hilling up to the base of Tigger. We did see a neat sunrise to the east on the way up. We then just talus hopped for an eternity on the ridge until we reached the summit. Also, in the talus field, I found a dog leash, which was pretty creepy. That just reinforced how much I don't like Mt. Princeton.

Missouri Mountain - 4/23/22

The snowpack was finally getting the memo about springtime, so Sydney and I went for a route that had been on our ski list for a while: Missouri North Face. The road was clear to the trailhead, so we car camped there, then got an alpine start the next day, skinning from just above the car. We were able to skin pretty much all the way to the base of the couloirs around 12.8k, and caught an otherworldly sunrise on the way. We then started the boot up the couloir in bluebird conditions. The surface of the snow seemed slightly wind-affected, but fine otherwise. Sydney ended up losing a crampon near the top of the couloir, which made some of the final steps a bit scary. We clicked in on the summit, then tentatively started down in pitches. I made a couple ski cuts, and the snow seemed good. On my 3rd or 4th cut, there seemed to be a bit of sluff, so I stopped at the side of the couloir, then the sluff ran all the way to the apron. The 1-2 inches of wind slab had slid down on a bed of consolidated spring snow. Nothing that dangerous, but that was quite the sluff. We then continued pitching it down to the apron, before cruising out through Missouri gulch. The skiing was excellent, and it was fun to be able to ski from the summit to basically the car in late April.

Snowmass Mountain - 4/29/23-4/30/23

Time for the culminating ski descent of this year. We drove up to just below the summer Snowmass Creek trailhead, and started the seemingly endless skin up to Snowmass Lake, packs in tow. The lake is stunning when it's covered in snow. We set up my (3 season) tent, made dinner, and went to sleep. Early the next morning, we skinned across the frozen lake, booted up the first headwall, then skinned up the snow mass. Both me and Sydney had fueled pretty poorly that morning, so we were kind of bonking, but we were determined to continue, especially with the gorgeous conditions. The summit direct line looked to be in, so we switched to crampons and booted up the intimidatingly steep headwall before topping out on the narrow summit. We quickly transitioned as the snow was heating up fast, and eyed the line down from the summit. The coverage was there, it was just briefly very steep (~55-60 degrees, looking at my photos of the line). We had a short pitch of survival skiing, followed by endlessly fun, mellow turns back to camp at the lake. From there, the skin/shuffle back to the trailhead was ENDLESS, but definitely worth it for the beauty of the Elks with snow.

Uncompahgre Peak - 5/16/23

Both of us somehow managed to each get a day with no exams in the middle of finals week, so it was off the San Juans for a quick trip to Uncompahgre. We managed to drive about halfway up Nellie Creek Road, before being greeted by a river crossing that was above the pay grade of our driving skills. So, we car camped and then got an alpine start the next day. Sydney's headlamp was broken, so we had an exciting single headlamp walk up to the summer trailhead. Despite my displeasure with snowshoes, they were the flotation of choice for this hike. We cramponed up the SE face, and were greeted by spectacular views of Uncompahgre. After a quick jaunt to the summit, we walked down in the blazing hot sun. All seemed well until we popped a tire on the drive down Nellie Creek Road. Alas, the Subaru is not invincible.

Huron Peak - 5/28/23

I had been climbing in Eldo and the Flatirons for the previous few days to wait out bad weather, and eventually got some nice high country conditions. For this solo ascent, after parking in Winfield, I did the road walk and then snowshoed up to the upper basin. The trail up the saddle near 13.4k was sort of dry. From there, I was itching for a more interesting snow climb, and spotted a line on the East Face. I traversed a couple of couloirs from the saddle before climbing up one that looked good, making for an exciting, short couloir climb. I topped out on the windless summit with insane views of Ice Mountain and company, then descended the summer route back to the saddle. I then spotted a nice-looking glissade line back into the basin. The glissade was top-notch, if not a little icy, but allowed for over 1,000 feet of fast, fun descent. At the bottom, noticing that the snow felt a little rough while sliding, I realized that the icy, rough snow had scraped a hole through my pants, revealing just my base layer. Learned my lesson on glissading on that one.

Mt. Massive - 5/31/23

In my opinion, this mountain is pretty forgettable. Sydney and I drove up to the trailhead for the SW slopes, and made our way up the mostly dry trail, until we reached the somewhat snowy gully. An easy snow climb later, we topped out on the summit, then had some lackluster glissades down the gully as clouds rolled in. Not a terrible mountain, but nothing special either.

Longs Peak - 6/5/23

In very full-on conditions, Sydney and I climbed the Keyhole route. This may very well be my favorite alpine climb to date. I wrote a full trip report on this climb that you can read here.

Mt. Antero - 6/11/23

This mountain is in the running for the least interesting of the 14ers. Still, doing it with snow on parts of the road is a good idea since it is relatively Jeep-free, and made for a quick solo ascent. I did manage to fall in on one of the river crossings, but aside from that, made quick work of the Jeep road to the top. I still wanted a little more, so I went and tagged Cronin Peak from the SE ridge; that mountain is definitely on my ski to-do list now.

Mt. Harvard - 6/17/23

After camping at the trailhead, getting an alpine start, getting somewhat lost, and tagging Harvard, I had to bail on the traverse to Columbia due to whiteout. You can read the full report I wrote here.

Mt. Columbia and Mt. Harvard - 6/24/23

A week later, back for redemption on these peaks. I ascended Columbia's SE ridge (now done with the Sawatch 14ers!) and made the traverse over to Harvard, making for quite a lot of elevation gain in one hike. I then descended Harvard into Horn Fork Basin in significantly drier conditions than the week prior. The downside of this loop is that you have to walk a mile or two down the road between trailheads at the end, but it avoids the west slope route on Columbia, so I deem it worth it.

Now comes a marathon of 14ers. The San Juan 14ers are pretty far for weekend trips during the school year, but Sydney and I devised a way to see them all. We opted for 17 day 14er road trip to climb every San Juan 14er except Uncompahgre, as well as a handful of peaks in the Sangre de Cristo Range. First up: Chicago Basin.

Windom Peak, Sunlight Peak, Mt. Eolus, and North Eolus - 7/21/23-7/23/23

Having booked train tickets months prior and only allowing one summit day for our Chicago Basin trip, we were really hedging our bets on good weather, and it paid off. We had a great time on the train from Durango, and hiked the approach, before setting up camp in the goat-dense Chicago Basin.

We set out just after 2am on 7/22 to give ourselves the best chance of bagging all 4. We opted to start with Windom to do the peak with the easiest route finding in the dark. As we hiked through a cloud on the ridge, I got nervous about the weather for the day, but remarkably had enough cell service to check the forecast and see that we had nothing to worry about. We reached the top of Windom just before dawn, and basked in the sunrise for about half an hour.

Sydney and I then descended the combo route to Sunlight while watching a goat make a pretty impressive free solo ascent of some of the near-vertical cliffs on the apron of Sunlight. The Sunlight gully went quickly, which led to fun, straightforward scrambling to the base of the summit block. The summit block itself is not joke, with some fairly slabby down climb moves, but it was still gorgeous.

We walked back down to twin lakes, before hiking back up to the notch on the Eolus saddle. We found the catwalk on Eolus to be fairly straightforward, but we were not expected just how exposed the final Eolus face would be. The route finding is challenging, and the terrain is very consequential. The mountain was stunningly beautiful, but not to be underestimated. North Eolus, on the other hand, was quite chill. It only took 6 minutes from the notch to the North Eolus summit. Standing on that summit, we knew we'd succeeded at our ambitious Chicago Basin Plans.

Wilson Peak - 7/24/23

Sydney had already done the Wilson group, so she decided to take this day as a rest day. Clark had joined us at this point, so he and I went for Wilson Peak. Nothing too crazy on the ascent, and then we hung out on the summit for nearly an hour because it was warm and windless. From the top, the Coors face looked scary but enticing for next spring. On the way down, Clark attempted a questionable axe-less glissade, but somehow managed a high speed elbow arrest.

El Diente Peak and Mt. Wilson - 7/25/23

Starting from the Kilpacker side in the wee hours of the morning, the 3 of us had our sights set on the traverse. After getting jump-scared by a deer in the dark, we made it to the base of the South Slopes of El Diente just before dawn. We slowly meandered through surprisingly steep and icy snowfields, along with plenty of lose rock, up to the ridge. From there, a fair degree of exposed scrambling led to El Diente's summit. We took a quick break, and then started across the traverse, whose route I had meticulously studied the night before. This route often gets the reputation of "the easiest great traverse," but it definitely should not be underestimated. While it has a fair degree of talus walking, there are several challenging climbing moves and exposed sections, especially the ascent up the headwall from the low point in the ridge. Still, it was a very fun route in a beautiful place. We met a fun group of climbers on Mt. Wilson, with whom we down climbed the gully and glissaded into Kilpacker Basin. That was definitely a long, difficult hike, but a fun traverse and satisfying day in the mountains.

Mt. Sneffels: The First Attempt - 7/26/23

Note: the climbers mentioned in this story gave their permission to be written about here

Note 2: content warning about descriptions of an injury

We chose Mt. Sneffels as an easier day to recover after the El Diente/Wilson hike. Clark decided to take a rest day at our camp near the outhouses in Yankee Boy Basin, while Sydney and I ascended the SW ridge of Sneffels. Around 13.5k in one of the gullies on the ridge, we hear "ROCK!!!!" from above us. We sprint to the sides of the gully as a rock the size of a mini fridge careens down into oblivion. We check to make sure there was nobody below. We then see a climber in the 2 person party above yank his shoe off. He explains that his partner had pulled a rock off, it had pushed him over, and landed on his foot. Sydney had just completed her wilderness first responder training, so she began an assessment of the climber. As the climber took his sock off, it became clear that his middle toe was barely attached, and bleeding at its base. The damage to the rest of his foot was unclear, but there seemed to be some potential for him to lose his foot. Sydney irrigated and dressed his foot, and my first aid kit had some Advil and Tylenol to help with the climber's pain. We then had enough cell service to call 911 to see what they thought we should do. The climber thought he could probably walk down, but wasn't sure. After talking on the phone with the local SAR team, the plan was that we'd all attempt to walk him down, and SAR would start heading up, and we'd meet in the middle at some point. Sydney and I, along with the injured climber and his partner started down the ridge very slowly, carefully picking a route that would require the least footwork possible. After nearly 2 hours of descent, we reached the Blue Lakes saddle, and a friendly stranger on the trail gave the injured climber a pole, which seemed to help with his pain by taking some pressure off that foot. About 5 minutes down the trail from there, we met up with the SAR team who did their assessment, and then continued to hike the climber out, before driving him out in their truck parked at the upper trailhead. A few days later, the injured climber's partner messaged Sydney on social media to let her know that the climber was able to keep his foot and toe after many stitches! Clark, who was also fresh out of wilderness first responder training, was quite disappointed that he was not up there to help out. After this whole experience, we decided to chill out at the hot springs in Ouray before making another attempt at Sneffels the next day.

Mt. Sneffels: For Real this Time - 7/27/23

I'm not superstitious about much, but I sometimes am a little in the mountains. For that reason, all 3 of us decided to ascend the standard route of Sneffels this time, rather than the SW ridge. The scree on this route is obnoxious, but the rockfall risk is lower by comparison. We reached the summit as storms were brewing, and then quickly scurried down.

Wetterhorn Peak - 7/28/23

Remarkably, the Subaru managed to survive the drive up to the upper trailhead. Sydney decided to take a rest day on this one since she had already done it about a year prior. This peak has got to be one of my favorites; the scrambling and scenery is all very aesthetic. Clark and I made quick work of the trail up to the saddle, just in time to see a porcupine strut across the saddle, at a pretty fast clip. After some excellent scrambling, Clark and I reached the summit, and lingered up there for a while to use our solar panels to charge our phones.

Handies Peak - 7/29/23

Clark's mom wanted to join all of us for one of the peaks on this trip, so she settled on Handies, especially because she wanted to bring their German Sheppard, Cornelia. I also wanted to hike one of the peaks on this trip in Chacos, and decided on Handies. Through the beautiful, wildflower-filled east basin, we meandered up to the top.

Redcloud Peak and Sunshine Peak - 7/30/23

We camped at the Grizzly Gulch trailhead for another night and set out the next morning for a hike up Redcloud and Sunshine. These two weren't very remarkable, but the scenery was quite nice. Sydney and Clark both took a nap on the re-summit of Redcloud. We descended into the trees just as a gnarly thunderstorm rolled in.

San Luis Peak - 7/31/23

Clark and Sydney (would have been a repeat peak for her) were both planning on joining for this one, but they weren't feeling it early in the morning, so this one ended up being a solo effort on the South Ridge. I had never heard of the La Garita Wilderness before this hike, but fell in love with it. It's a very unique looking mountainous area. I caught an epic sunrise up the ridge, and then hung out on the summit for a while.

Challenger Point and Kit Carson Peak - 8/1/23

With a proper alpine start for this huge day, the 3 of us started up towards Willow Lake. I perpetuated my tradition of telling elaborate, very lengthy shaggy dog stories on long ascents, and they seemed to be mostly well-received on this one. The switchbacks up Challenger were somewhat hard to follow, but we eventually gained the ridge. After hanging out for a few minutes, we started over to Kit Carson, and had fun climbing (what I think is) The Prow. The way the summit of Kit Carson rises above the surrounding landscape is really impressive; the Crestones also looked epic from there. There was then a seemingly endless descent back to the trailhead from there.

Crestone Peak and Crestone Needle - 8/3/23-8/4/23

After a rest day at the Sand Dunes, Clark had to head home, and Sydney and I, along with her family friend who knows the route, packed into South Colony lakes. We started early the next day, and headed up Broken Hand Pass before descending to the west side. After some confusion over which gully was correct, we started up the correct Red Gully, and had some fun scrambling up to the peak. It briefly dusted snow on the peak as some ominous looking clouds on the horizon formed, but they miraculously blew past. From there, we started across the traverse to the Needle, which was fairly straightforward, especially the earlier parts. We roped up for the final headwall, and climbed it on belay, admiring the awesome Crestone conglomerate, until topping out on the Needle. As we stood on the summit taking pictures, we see...something creep over Broken Hand Pass, and then suddenly it's right above us. It quickly became clear that a fighter jet had done some precise maneuver through the pass, and was now doing a barrel roll directly overhead. And wow, it was deafeningly loud. Then suddenly a second plane comes through doing the exact same thing. That was a real highlight of the whole trip, and an excellent way to close out the San Juan/Sangre adventure.

Bonus 14er: Longs repeat and nearby 13ers - 8/20/23

In an effort to do a longer (pun intended) training run in preparation for the Pikes Peak Marathon this year, I decided to run around in the park a bit. Longs on a summer weekend is definitely an experience; I had to drive half a mile down the road from the lot just to find a space. I jogged up to the keyhole, then scurried up to the top. I was planning on the traversing to Meeker, but the descent to the loft looked a little complicated, and I also didn't bring a helmet. I opted to return to the keyhole and hike up to Chasm View instead to get a look a the Diamond. From there, and went up Storm Peak, where I took a little tumble in the talus and scraped up my ankle quite a bit. From there, I traversed the Boulder Field over to Mt. Lady Washington, then ran back to Granite Pass and over to Chasm Lake (a new favorite alpine lake for me). Longs is definitely one of the most aesthetic 14ers, and I can't wait to try some of the more technical routes on it.

Capitol Peak - 8/26/23-8/27/23

Time to climb Capitol for real this time! Sydney and I met up at the trailhead with the same family friend from the Crestones, and packed into just below the permit zone for camping. There was a super narrow weather window in the forecast for the next day, which meant an early start. We motored up to Capitol Lake, and started up the switchbacks to the saddle. On the switchbacks, the sky lit up like there was lightning, as something that looked like a shooting star flew by, leaving a fiery contrail in the night sky. In reality, it was probably some piece of space junk, but it looked really cool, and was quite a highlight. My headlamp batteries were super low, making it super dim, meaning that the talus hopping up to K2 was a little tricky. We neared K2 just in time to see an insane sunrise.

We started across the ridge, quickly roping up for the knife edge and other exposed areas, then carefully found a safe route up the upper east face. We topped out on the summit as clouds were gathering on the horizon, so we hung out for no more than 10 minutes before carefully descending back to the knife edge.

As we traversed past K2, clouds gathered overhead, so we were glad to be off the ridge. Capitol is a cool peak, and is probably my favorite in the Elks.

Little Bear Peak, Blanca Peak, and Ellingwood Point - 9/2/23-9/3/23

Here come the final peaks! Armed with a good weather forecast, myself, Sydney, Clark, and Sydney's family friend packed into a VERY crowded Lake Como. Given the nature of the hourglass, we left camp at 2:30am to have a shot at being first up (a success). Clark was not planning on doing Little Bear, so he planned to meet us on top of Blanca. Some top-notch scrambling in the dark in the hourglass gave way to the summit of Little Bear just before dawn and the summit sunrise of a lifetime.

We stood in awe at the sunrise for over an hour, waiting for it to become light enough to start the traverse over to Blanca. We eventually started the traverse, belaying the initial slabby downclimb and a handful of the especially exposed sections, like the catwalk on top of tower 2. Of the 4 great traverses, this one is definitely my favorite. It's consistently engaging, overall decent rock quality throughout, and is unbelievably aesthetic. It's also the hardest of the 4 in my opinion, but it's 100% worth it.

We met Clark on the summit of Blanca (he waited nearly 3 hours because we took so long on the traverse), and quickly fueled up before our giddy hike over to Ellingwood. I made sure to make plenty of jokes near the top like "I'm tired...we should turn around." But, at long last, the ridge line gave way below, and we were standing on top of the world, on number 58.

We grabbed the mini pies that we had bought in Colorado Springs on the way in just for this occasion. Standing there, pie in hand, a long term goal had just been completed.

Some final stats on this whole adventure, including repeats (assuming that all my math is correct):

-531 miles hiked in the mountains, 67 of which were on skis

-208,000 feet of vertical gain

-9 bonus 13ers

-27 nights spent camping

-An ungodly amount of Pop Tarts and Swedish Fish consumed

Wow, getting to this point has been an unbelievably exciting adventure. I'd like to take a moment to thank everyone who has supported me or climbed with me throughout this project, especially Sydney and Clark. This is has been the adventure of a lifetime.

What next? I guess it's time to take up crocheting.