THE GREAT COLORADO FOURTEENER CLIMB

Chapter 1 - Who will Organize It?

There seems to be lots of media interest lately about Colorado Fourteeners - the 54 Mountain Peaks in Colorado which measure more than 14,000 feet of altitude. Besides local publicity about the annual run up and down 14,110 foot high Pike's Peak, there has been lots of press about the difficulty climbers now have getting permission to climb the mountains or use access routes that are privately owned. And most recently the Gazette has featured an academic study about how much climbing a 14er costs - in dollars! What a splitting of hairs!

Well, like everything else outdoors today simply climbing those wonderful Colorado mountains has now gotten awfully complicated and frustrating.

I might as well tell the story about how I successfully organized the simultaneous climb of all 55 - or was it 54 - or 53 of Colorado's 14ers way back 30 years ago on the occasion of the 100th Birthday of Colorado's Statehood - August 1 st, 1976. First and last time that has ever been attempted.

I and my two sons bagged our own peak that day also which turned out to be during one of the worst rainstorms in Colorado's history, when 144 Coloradoans and visitors were drowned and killed in the Great Thompson River rampage in Estes Park. That disaster dominated the news for days, and news of the Great Fourteener Climb was overshadowed. Few remember it. But those who succeeded in surmounting all but two dangerous, lighting drenched peaks, sure remember.

Now at the outset I have to admit I am not and never was a mountain climbing nut. But as a Colorado native, when the powers that be in that overgrown cow town of Denver were unable, and the Boulder based world class Colorado Mountain Club was unwilling, to organize the simultaneous Climb of all Colorado's Fourteeners on Colorado's 100th Birthday, I grabbed my pitons and said "Follow me!" They did.

Background: 1976 was Colorado's Centennial Year - along with the nation's 200th Bicentennial Year. When Colorado Springs couldn't seem to get its own celebration act together, I, recently retired from my military career, stepped up to the plate. I volunteered to be the unpaid Chairman of Colorado Springs, and El Paso County's Pikes Peak or Bust by '76 Committee. Starting very late we raised and spent over $200,000 while pulling together over 250 commemoration event projects. The Great Fourteener Climb was just one of them.The Freedom Train, the largest Air Show in Colorado history, and the revitalization of Old Colorado City and the Westside were just some others.

I thought that the idea of such a simultaneous 1 day climb on Colorado's 100th birthday in the State with more 14,000 feet peaks than any other was a wonderful one. It would be the very essence of the spirit of Colorado.

But the State's paid Centennial/Bicentennial Director told me only 60 days out from Colorado Day, he was having trouble getting any climbing group to plan and organize such a simultaneous climb of all of Colorado's Fourteeners - that the Colorado Mountain Club refused to do it - citing the extreme danger, given the number of very technically challenging peaks to be climbed.There were many nay sayers . There would be accidents, even deaths.And there would be too much bad, rather than good, publicity. Not to speak of law suits.

I exploded on the phone to the State Director and said the climbing elitists underestimate what Coloradoans can do and how sensible they can be. That I would organize the whole thing under the umbrella of our local El Paso County Centennial/Bicentennial Committee. That he had to do just one thing - he had to publicize all across the state that this venture was being planned, and that ANYONE who wanted to climb a Colorado 14er on August 1st to get in touch with our Committee or me. I gave out the phone number and the downtown Colorado Springs address of our Centennial Committee Headquarters.

I wasn't a naïve fool about this. I reasoned as a man who had organized many other and larger dangerous undertakings in my long military career and who 'knew' Colorado as a native, that:

(1) Colorado has tens of thousands of recreational mountain climbers, from just those on family outings to expert technical climbers who had already mastered the toughest Colorado peaks.

(2) That Colorado's 14ers range from easy, if long and boring climbs, to very difficult ones in the Sangre de Cristo and Sawatch ranges. A great variety.

(3) That many dedicated climbers were alreadydetermined to climb all 54 peaks over several years of effort, and that they would be glad to bag other than the most popular peaks like the Maroon Bells, or Mount Elbert, or Pikes Peak during their quest.

(4) August 1st would be a summer Sunday, when thousands of climbers would be clambering over our Rocky Mountains anyway.

And I had one other ace up my sleeve. I owned a small company called Enjoy Colorado where we specialized in selling tailored 'Colorado Information' - even before personal computers were around to make it easy. We had detailed information on every peak in Colorado. I knew, for example, that many of Colorado Fourteener peaks were grouped together with high saddles connecting them and could be climbed by the same party the same day. I estimated that as few as 40 hardy climbing pairs of qualified climbers could summit all 54 peaks the same day. We could do it with as few as 80 climbers if no others were interested. I could recruit them individually myself if needed. We had 6 weeks.

So I drafted a f ew simple rules for myself. I would listen to anyone wanting to get in on the Great Fourteener Climb - they could nominate WHICH 14er they wanted to climb.That they had to give me evidence they were qualified to climb the mountain they selected, that the minimum was 2 persons on a climb, and that I would limit the number of 'official' parties recognized on any given peak so they wouldn't interfere and endangerothers on singular climbing routes. Falling rocks are always a danger to following groups on tough routes. And if we ran out of popular mountains they would agree to climb a less popular mountain with the same degree of difficulty as their skill level.

And I wanted them to agree that when they climbed that they would bring back a small rock from the summit, leave evidence they had been there, take a photograph of their climbing party on top, and agree to write and submit to us a short piece about their experience to be included in a printedbooklet about the Centennial Climb which would be paid for by the State Centennial Commission.Thiswas justlike making a War Plan as far as I was concerned.

So it came to pass that the Colorado Centennial Director agreed and put out a press release to all Colorado media, including the largest circulation state newspapers for a Sunday paper release six weeks before August 1st.

That Sunday morning I got up early, read the Denver Post, and saw the announcement and invitation to call or visit our Colorado Springs Centennial Office, I thought I had better beat it downtown even though our volunteers office was not really open on Sunday. Some people might be already calling. Were they!

When I reached the glass doors leading into our street level public space and office, with 4 push button telephone lines, I saw even before I could unlock the doors that all four lines were lit up and the phones were ringing off the hook!

Before I left, exhausted by 10PM, having been there all day making lists with three other volunteers, answering the phones, andinterviewing scores of people who could not get through on the phone, socame in person, including driving all the way from Denver, every popular peak in Colorado had been asked for multiple times!

It was becoming a winner of a Centennial Event already. I just knew that Coloradoans would respond. They love their mountains!

Next Story Chapter 2 - Who Gets to Climb?

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