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.