Colorado 14ers

As some of you may know, I am attempting to climb the Colorado 14,000 foot peaks this summer. These are known as 14ers and there are somewhere between 53 and 73 but most put it between 53 and 57 or so (sub peaks that have less than 300 feet of prominence are the reason). If they are nearby to another 14er and easily done or considered a significant peak (like N Maroon and El Diente) I plan on doing them too.

In any case, I was going to do these with Sam and Raquel who last year got me to run an Ultra (100K race) but didn't finish it themselves. They sent a list of days and I came up with a brutal schedule to try to squeeze all the peaks in - then the available days became less and less - so I am trying to fill in the rest of the peaks myself.

Right after Wanderlust Colorado we started strong but with only 3 days in the Elk Range -

July 4th Castle and Conundrum
July 5th Pyramid Pk
July 6th Maroon and N Maroon peak (with a rather exciting traverse between them)

Fisheye pic on the summit of N Maroon

Later I got Capitol and Snowmass peaks. I did those as overnights hiking in to the base of the peaks with Nalumon but climbing them myself.

Nate took a pic of me posing on Capitol

here is a Video Nate made of Capitol - I joined him for most of the peak from the camping area and show up in the video about 1:40

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2tt9L4Vcks&feature=youtu.be

This is Nate coming back on the knife edge of Capitol - he is the one who made the video

Then it was on to the San Juans... Once again Sam and Raquel were able to do less days than originally planned. We didn't meet up as planned either and on July 20th I did the Wetterhorn by myself and then hiked back to the car where we met up and headed up Uncompahgre - too late to avoid the lightning which hit a little too close for comfort.  I was tired and moving pretty slowly by then too.

Then on a much longer drive to the Purgatory Flats TH where we hiked in from 5:30 to midnight to Chicago basin. There on the 22nd we did Sunlight and Windom peak one day and the 23rd Eolus and N Eolus. Then we hiked partway out. Nalumon took the train and joined us at base camp. She also was able to take more weight out with her making our packs lighter for the hike out. Then we went and did Sneffels the 25th before Sam and Raquel headed off to SLC.

Nalumon and I hiked into the Navajo Lake basin and up above the lake to a camp spot at the base of El Diente... The next morning on the 27th of July I started early and climbed El Diente, Mt Wilson, and Wilson Peak before returning to camp and hiking out.

Nalumon has been acting as "support car" and slowly acclimating to the altitude and hiking up hills and mountains. She has been a great help in keeping me properly fed and sane.

17 peaks in - although according to 14ers.com I've done 11 of the top 15 most difficult peaks so perhaps between that and getting somewhat acclimated to the altitude and long uphill days things will get easier? - probably not.

Hopefully over the next few days I can finish the San Juan 14ers before the OR show.

This is a pretty rough cut of what I've been up to - but I mostly haven't had much time and internet access. I hope to do a much more complete set of trip reports eventually with things like pictures and elevations and a count of tears and goats and so on...

Meanwhile you might be able to see where I am on the spot tracker...

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0Dc9Uh3Nfi5gSoXCZcVqStstGq6beNZ8X