The symmetry was perfect. On a beautiful Fall Day (Sept. 21, 2026), using a hiking trail I had a small role in rehabilitating (more on that later) I skirted below the summit of Mt. Shavano and over to the summit of Tabeguache Peak for the third time. Tab was my 99^th summit of a Colorado 14er and the last summit I needed to complete a threepeat of the 15 14ers in the Sawatch Range.

Then, on the return trip, I tagged the Mt. Shavano summit for the fourth time. It was my 100^th Colorado 14er summit spanning more than two decades.

I’ve climbed each of the 58 Colorado 14ers at least once (and most of them only once) and repeated 42. Here’s how the numbers shake out:

Six repeats: Mt. Yale.

Three repeats: Mt. Shavano.

Two repeats: Mt. Elbert, Mt. Princeton, Mt. Harvard, Missouri Mountain, Huron Peak, Mt. Belford, Mt. Oxford, La Plata Peak, Mount of the Holy Cross, Mt. Antero, Mt. Massive, Mt. Columbia, Tabeguache Peak and Mt. Sherman.

One repeat: Quandary Peak, Mt. Democrat, Mt. Lincoln, Mt. Bross, Mt. Cameron.

My wife and I summited Mt. Whitney in California on June 1, 1986. It was our first 14er (and her last). But I didn’t bag my second 14er (and first Colorado 14er) until Mt. Elbert on June 18, 2005. At the time I wasn’t climbing 14ers, I was “climbing/hiking/visiting” state highpoints, and I had no inkling of how many 14ers there were in California or Colorado. Nor was the notion of attempting to climb more of them, much less all of them, anywhere on the radar screen.

That began to change in the 2008–2011-time frame. I’d completed the lower 48 state highpoints, and a friend had gifted me a t-shirt that listed on its back the names of 53 of “Colorado’s Highest Peaks” along with their respective elevations. All the mountains listed on the shirt were, of course, over 14,000 feet.

I took a long hard look at the shirt and was intrigued by the massive list of peaks, most of which I’d never heard of. (The list omitted Mt. Cameron, El Diente Peak, North Eolus, Conundrum Peak and Challenger Point. It also misspelled Capitol Peak as “Capital Peak”).

So, I began doing a little on-line research and stumbled across, and read, Mark Obmascik’s book “Halfway to Heaven: My White-knuckled--and Knuckleheaded--Quest for the Rocky Mountain High”. That led me to 14ers.com, which has a prominent role in the storyline of the book.

Then, in 2010 or 2011 I stumbled over a blog written by a young couple, both schoolteachers from Tennessee, who climbed 54 14ers (they skipped Mt. Cameron, El Diente Peak, North Eolus and Conundrum Peak) on their 2009 summer break. Here’s a link to that blog https://www.cloudhiking.com/mountains/14er_trip_09/.

The book and the blog gave me a good feel for what I was getting into, and 14ers.com made it seem within the realm of possibility…sort of like a parent holding a toddler’s hand as he takes his first steps.

On May 13, 2012, I pulled my travel trailer into the Snowy Peaks RV Park in Buena Vista. The next day I drove over to the trailhead at Fourmile Creek and made it as far as the saddle between Mt. Sheridan and Mt. Sherman, where, bent over my trekking poles, head aching and gasping for air, I turned around.

The next day, May 15, I summited Sherman, approaching from the Iowa Gulch trailhead on the west. By the end of the month, I’d bagged 13 14er summits. Most of them were the low-hanging fruit, but the list of May summits did include Castle and Conundrum Peaks in the Elks. (Interestingly, I haven’t climbed a Colorado 14er in May since then).

I repeated Mt. Elbert in August and summited Mt. Yale (BV’s “backyard 14er”) four times, including the initial climb on July 3, back-to-back summits on August 30 and 31 and a celebratory season finale on Sept. 14 that pushed my total elevation gain for the summer over 200,000 feet.

By the time I pulled the trailer out of the RV park and headed for home, I had recorded 61 summits of Colorado 14ers in the summer of 2012 (bringing my lifetime Colorado 14er total to 62).

I wrapped up those 2012 climbing adventures in a trip report posted on Oct. 2, 2012, on 14ers.com. Here’s a link to that post: https://www.14ers.com/php14ers/tripreport.php?trip=13013&cpgm=tripmine

Obviously, the pace for the final 38 repeats was more leisurely and the scope limited to the mountains close to Buena Vista. Also, a lot of my time and energy was focused on the 15 California 14ers, which have proven to be considerably more difficult for me than the Colorado 14ers.

Eventually, I noticed that my Colorado 14er summit total was getting “reasonably” close to 100 and that, with a little strategic selection of repeats of mountains that I probably would not have otherwise repeated (Mt. Antero, I’m looking at you), I could cobble together a “Sawatch Threepeat”.

I was also paying close attention to the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative's work schedule, repeating Columbia for the first time just days after the CFI crew completed its fantastic work on Columbia’s west slopes in September of 2020, and holding off on another Shav/Tab hike until the CFI work on the Mt. Shavano trail was finished.

When it became apparent that CFI was wrapping up on Shavano this year, I got a burst of energy over the last few weeks and bagged my third summits of Holy Cross, Massive and Columbia. And that set me up to close out the Sawatch Threepeat on Tab and get my 100th Colorado 14er summit on Shav in a single hike using the new and improved Mt. Shavano trail that I helped (a little bit) to build.

Since 2012 I’ve been a regular donor to CFI and I’ve volunteered to work on trail crews on four mountains; Harvard, Quandary, the DeCaLiBron loop and Shavano. The Shavano gig in 2021 was the best. The group car-camped near the trailhead and hiked a couple of miles every day to build log check-steps on a section of the trail about a quarter mile below tree line. I think our group got maybe 15-20 steps in the ground in about three days of work. On Harvard and Quandary, I helped build rock retaining walls.

The best thing about working these volunteer gigs was learning firsthand just how difficult it is to build check steps and retaining walls. Now, when I’m hiking, I have much greater and fuller appreciation for the skill and hard labor that it takes to build and maintain the tread I’m walking on.

On my recent Tab-Shav hike I was blown away by the extent of the work and effort that has been invested in the Mt. Shavano trail. For example, up-trail from those 15-20 check steps I helped build were, at least, 100 more. It’s crazy how many logs have been planted in the ground up there.

But what really blew me away were the numerous, massive retaining walls. When I worked with CFI on the Harvard trail in Horn Fork Basin another volunteer and I needed the better part of two days to build a small retaining wall on a mellow section of trail. Based on that experience, it’s hard for me to fathom the time, effort and skill that was invested in some of the huge retaining walls that CFI crews have constructed on the steep slopes of the upper Shavano trail.

Nonetheless, I think my favorite part of the “new and improved” Mt. Shavano trail is the brand-new tread that CFI works crews constructed, from scratch, in the lower section. When I was there volunteering on the trail rehab crew in 2021 there was a separate CFI-funded effort underway to build a completely new two-mile alternative that would replace the rocky, eroded trail that we were using to get to our work site (and hikers were using to get to the Shavano summit).

It took several years to complete and open, so I’d never seen this new trail section until my recent hike. And it is incredible, like walking in a city park. After spending a long day in the rocks trying not to fall and break something (if that happens, I’ve told my wife to have SAR chopper me straight to the nursing home) it was such a relief to hit that new, mellow trail section, pick up my poles, relax and stroll those final two miles.

Speaking of being thankful, I want to close with a shout out to Bill Middlebrook and his fabulous creation, 14ers.com. To say that I’ve leaned on the website over the years would be a vast understatement. The fact is I’ve depended on it and would not have anywhere close to 100 summits without it.

Here’s a link to a great article about Middlebrook and 14ers.com that ran in the monthly magazine “5280”.

https://5280.com/the-founder-of-14ers-com-finally-shares-his-story/

Take note that the article was published more than a year ago and, at that time, Middlebrook had recorded 513 14er summits! Folks, that’s bonkers. And, of course, Middlebrook’s not just piling up day hikes in the Sawatch like I did to get to 100. He’s going all over the state, climbing the hardest and most remote peaks multiple times, while also taking the photos and the notes he uses to write his detailed route descriptions that people like me depend on. In his spare time, Middlebrook has skied off the summit of 44 14ers.

It’s hard to wrap your head around those numbers.

Fortunately, it’s a lot easier to wrap your head around my numbers. So, I’ll close with a breakdown of my 100 Colorado summits by month, year, range and age…and these closing comments:

I’ve been incredibly fortunate over my two decades in the Colorado mountains, never aborting a summit attempt due to weather (even though I probably should have on La Plata Peak in 2012 when the electricity in the air raised the hair on my head). Nor have I had a serious fall or health issue in the back country, which is a good thing because 79 of my 100 Colorado summits have been solo.