We got Jase to the start line of the Leadville 100 at 4 a.m., had coffee, met some old friends, and then headed to Mt. Massive. I was slated to pace Jase from 87-100, so had a lot of time. Why not get in another 14er? One problem was that the road to the trail head was closed, so we had a long lead in, which we jogged and walked and talked. We ended up coming down the shorter way, but we still has a 16 mile, 6000′ day! And that put me up to 32 miles and ~ 15k of climb in just 3 days! I felt pretty strong on all of this, especially the climb (even though it is slow-mo after 13,500), but was a bit slow on the way down… This was the highest I’ve been to date at 14,421′

I flew out to CO to help Jase out at Leadville, and got there a few days early to hang out with Ben and Karrie and family. Since I had a day were they were all working or at school, I headed out to Bierstadt. I hit the climb pretty hard and ran down a fair bit, but the altitude finally hit me on the last mile which is relatively flat. Had to slow way down as I was at the edge of bonking! Once I stopped I was fine, but just shows you that hitting a 14er less than 24 hours from coming from sea level is always hard. :-). I’d note that I climbed Hope Pass the 2nd day, and Mt Massive the third day, and did much better!

Not many photos as I was solo and have summited this peak a couple times already.

Strava data:

Ok, almost 2 years late, but I realized I never shared anything about this 14er, and in the interest of documenting them all, as well as just having started to track (google sheet link), here’s a quick post…

Reece and I flew out to CO for the Man Maker project — a 5 night canoeing trip on the Green River in Utah — and we had a couple of days before heading that way. Reece wanted to see snow, so we originally were going to a 10k peak, but on the way (Evergreen?) decided to take a chance on Mt. Bierstadt and his first 14er (age 13 at the time). We had every intention of not summiting if it wasn’t the right day since we weren’t super prepared, but we made it up and down safely.

Reece was super strong on the way up, and I warned him that it would only get harder! But he kept pushing it, until about 13,500, where it always becomes slow motion, at least for me. We were early in the season so there was still A LOT of snow up there! And we were a bit under dressed and didn’t realize how cold it was until we got to the top. We both started shivering as soon as we stopped climbing, so only stayed a few minutes before heading down.

And that is when the altitude and the effort hit Reece! I’ll let the photos do the talking for that, but will say that I did have to carry him home some of the last mile.