The Trip

The Sawatch range is the mountain range in Colorado that is just west of Leadville and Buena Vista Colorado. Of the 54 fourteeners in the state 15 of them are in the Sawatch range. My focus for this challenge has always been on the Sawatch Range. Two of the highest mountains in Colorado are in this range, Mt. Elbert and Mt. Massive.

Mt. Elbert and Mt. Massive due to their proximity will be the objective of my first day of hiking. In evaluating the routes to take the considerations are the distance, difficulty and the elevation gain. The 14ers website also posts user climb times. The climb times come in handy but they are difficulty to evaluate because there is the average hiker as well the the younger more energetic climber that is looking to set a speed record. The first climb will be the Northeast Route up Mt. Elbert. This is one of the very common routes up the mountain, and is a class 1 climb. The round trip distance is 9 miles with an elevation gain of 4,700 feet. I am hoping to meet up with a more experienced climber on this route to help guide me through my first climb. The next objective will be Mt. Massive. The trailhead to the route I plan to take for Mt. Massive is just a few miles down the road from the Mt. Elbert trailhead. The route up Mt. Massive will be from the Southwest. The round trip distance is 8 miles and the elevation is 3,950 feet.

Day two will focus on two mountains further west of Mt. Massive and Mt. Elbert. They are LaPlata Peak and Huron Peak. The route up LaPlata Peak will be from the Southwest. The round trip distance is 7 miles with an elevation gain of 3,380 feet. After LaPlata Peak, I will travel a short distance to the south to get to the trailhead for Huron Peak. Huron Peak at elevation at 14,003 feet is a round trip distance of 6.75 miles with an elevation gain of 3,500 feet.

Day three will be an attempt at a triple play, Missouri Mountain, Mt. Belford, and Mt. Oxford. All three will be attempted on the sample climb since they are so close to each other. The first peak to tackle will be Missouri Mountain at elevation 14,067 feet. The distance to Missouri is 5.25 miles one way with an elevation gain of 4,500 feet. The route to Mt. Belford from Missouri Mountain is not so well defined. From my reading of trip reports, the route on the ridge from Missouri Mountain to Elkhead Pass is not a good idea. One of the reports and maps from one of the people that completed the Nolan's 14 recommends going to the south west to the saddle and the dropping down in elevation south of Missouri Mountain to intersect the Elkhead Pass trail. Then there is a trail to Mt. Belford at elevation 14,197 feet. From Mt. Belford is is 3 miles round trip to Mt. Oxford back to Mt. Belford. Mt Oxford is at elevation 14,153 feet. After returning to Mt. Belford the distance back to the trailhead is 5.5 miles. This is going to be one of the more difficult trips. The trip has been done by a few people. The only portion of this trip that needs further examination is the route from Missouri Mountain to Mt. Belford.

Day four will be a light day. One mountain and that mountain will be Mt. Princeton. At elevation 14,197 feet, Mt. Princeton is the 20^th highest peak in Colorado. The trip up to the peak is 6.25 miles round trip with an elevation gain of 3,200 feet.

Day five will be a Mt. Harvard, Mt. Columbia combination. The route will go to Mt. Harvard first. Mt. Harvard has an elevation of 14,420 feet. It will be 6.75 miles to the summit. The route to Mt. Columbia is 2.75 miles. Mt. Columbia has an elevation of 14,073 feet. From the summit of Mt. Columbia back to the trail head will be 5.75 miles. The total trip will be 14.25 miles.

Day six will be Mt. Yale. This is another light day. The elevation of Mt. Yale is 14,196 feet. The elevation gain from the trailhead to the summit is 4,300 feet. The round trip length of the trip is 9.5 miles.

Day seven will be Mt. Antero, Tabeguache Peak, and Mt. Shavano. This will be the longest trip on which I need to do further research on the route. The trail to Mt. Antero is along Little Brown Creek. The elevation of Mt. Antero is 14,269. The route I will take will then go south to Tabeguache Peak at an elevation of 14,155. The route will take me a short distance to Mt. Shavano at an elevation of 14,155 feet. I will travel back towards Tabeguache Peak and then take the trail along Browns Creek back to the trailhead.

I can control my training for this trip, I can plan for the trip by understanding and fully investigating the routes, and with a little luck from the weather, I should be able to complete this seven day adventure.

This blog is about a challenge. A challenge to myself. What I want to do in this blog is to document that challenge and to get advise, recommendations, encouragement on the best way to complete this challenge. It will also be a document of my preparation for and attempt at this challenge.

This is how this challenge got started. My family and I were is Augusta Georgia for Thanksgiving 2011. My younger brother Scott who lives in Augusta mentioned wanting to go to Washington State to climb Mt. Rainier. When I returned home to Harrisonburg Virginia, I starting investigating what it would take to climb Mt. Rainier. I was a little discouraged about what I was seeing on websites concerning climbing of Mt. Rainier. While it looked like a great challenge, the costs on getting to Washington, the mountaineering classes that had to be taken prior to making the climb starting adding up cost wise and time wise. The appeal of mountains intrigued me. In looking for alternatives, I started searching where the tallest mountains in the lower 48 states were located. Colorado seemed to be the “gold mine” of mountains in the lower 48 states. In looking further into the mountains of Colorado, there was a website that specialized in those mountains. The website is the 14ers.com. In Colorado, there are 54 mountains over 14,000 feet in elevation. Fourteeners refers to any mountain that is over 14,000 feet in elevation. While the 14,000 feet for a mountain is Colorado is a little different than the 14,000 ft of Mt. Rainier represents. “Mount Rainier has a topographic prominence of 13,211 ft (4,027 m), greater than K2 at 13,189 ft (4,020 m). - from Wikipedia, Mt. Rainier. This compares to the 14,000 ft mountains of Colorado, where a topographical prominence is about 4,500 ft. So, that is the big challenge of Mt. Rainier.

So the idea was to climb a couple of the “14ers” in Colorado. The thought was to do 14, 14ers in 14 days. That was neat. 14 – 14 – 14. A little more searching on the internet. Yes, it had been done. 14, 14ers in 14 days. There where not a whole lot of people that had accomplished the endeavor, but it had been done.

The other concern about climbing these mountains was the technical climbing requirement needed to accomplish the climbs. Mountains are classified into five different classes. Class 1 being the easiest climb, and a Class 5 mountain being the the must technical climb. The mountains in Colorado are in seven different ranges. One of those ranges is to the west of two towns, Leadville and Buena Vista. If you draw a line between these two towns, they put a highway there, the Sawatch mountain range is located to the west of this highway. Fifteen of these 14ers are located in this range. Most of the mountains in the Sawatch range are class 2 climbs, or most of the routes to the summit of these mountains are class 2 climbs. From the 14ers website, a class 2 climb is listed as a hike and is described as, “More difficult hiking that may be off-trail.  You may also have to put your hands down occasionally to keep your balance.  May include easy snow climbs or hiking on talus/scree. “ OK, that's no big deal, I can put my hands down on the ground for balance every once in a while.

The more I read about the mountains in this range, I discovered another amazing challenge. It was not only a challenge, but a foot race. The Nolan's 14. The starting point of this race was at a fish hatchery outside of Leadville. The finish point was a point somewhere near Buena Vista. In between these two points the participants has to touch the summits of 14 peaks, and do it in less than 60 hours. This amounts to 100 miles horizontally, and about 90,000 feet in elevation change. While it used to be a race, park regulation prohibit that from happening more, so it is a challenge and if you complete the event, your name gets listed on the website. Seven people have completed this challenge.

Wow, while Nolan's 14 was definitely out of the question. Climbing 14, 14ers is less than 14 days was a possibility. Spending 14 days in Colorado presented a problem time wise. Travel there, travel back, and acclimation to the altitude, so to spend 14 days climbing would take a total time commitment of about three weeks. That was too much time off from work. So, the current challenge to myself is to climb fourteen, 14ers in seven days.

 Links:

Fourteeners - http://www.14ers.com/
Mt. Rainier -  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Rainier
Nolan's 14 -  http://mattmahoney.net/nolans14/