Peak Steward field training in June 2009. Photo by Brian Wallace

The Colorado Fourteeners Initiative is making a big push to expand its eight-year-old Peak Stewards program, in which 14er fans volunteer to spend several days educating visitors about the alpine environment, Leave No Trace practices, and peak-specific regulations. The nonprofit has added six one-day training sessions this winter and spring, hoping to more than triple its volunteer corps. We asked CFI education and outreach coordinator Brian Wallace to fill us in:

Mojo: So, briefly describe the Peak Stewards program.

Wallace: CFI’s mission statement in general is to protect and preserve the natural integrity of Colorado’s 14,000-foot peaks through active stewardship and public education. The Peak Stewards program exclusively focuses on the education portion. Peak Stewards receive specialized training in alpine ecology, 14er-specific Leave No Trace, Forest Service regulations, and visitor interaction techniques.

Mojo: How many volunteers do you have?

Wallace: We had 40 trained at the beginning of last summer and 30 active, completing a total of 140 days. This year I am hoping to recruit and train at least 100 more individuals, with aspirations of over 500 volunteer days on the peaks.

Mojo: What’s a typical day like for a Peak Steward?

Wallace: That depends on what their personal goals are. If they are looking forward to climbing the mountain, then by all means they can climb the mountain and volunteer as a steward at the same time. If they would like to steward without climbing (many of our older volunteers do this), then hanging out at the trailhead and educating visitors as they arrive is also an option.

Mojo: Do people get assigned to one peak, like a sort of adopt-a-peak program? Or do they visit multiple peaks during the summer?

Peak Steward's station at Lincoln-Democrat-Bross trailhead. Photo by James Jimenez

Wallace: Again, because I am trying to maintain a volunteer program that is convenient, it depends on the preference of the steward. We have a list of priority peaks that we try to fill. In general, though, I try to encourage stewards to visit the peaks they want to. We do ask that a Peak Steward volunteer at least four days per season, but some give two and some give 15, so it all basically equals out.

Mojo: Do the stewards ever end up feeling like cops? Do any hikers resent their presence?

Wallace: It’s funny and appropriate that you would ask this. There’s an educational technique called “authority of the resource” developed by George Wallace at CSU that transfers the authority from the “agency” (CFI, USFS, “laws,” etc.) to the “resource” (delicate tundra, for example). We basically train our Peak Stewards to avoid saying “You can’t do this” and instead say something like, “You would have less impact on the natural environment if you did it like this instead”—for instance, not cutting a switchback. We really try and avoid the police mentality.

That being said, there will always be people that don’t like someone giving them advice, even if it is for a worthy reason, and some hikers don’t enjoy seeing anyone from an agency while using public lands. But the majority of the people we interact with are very grateful to see volunteers trying to mitigate the amount of ecological damage that occurs on the peaks.

Mojo: What do the volunteers get out of dedicating their free time to this program?

Wallace: I would be willing to say that 90 percent of our Peak Stewards would be climbing the peaks regardless of whether they were volunteering. This allows people to volunteer while doing something they already receive great pleasure from. Instead of just being a user of public lands, they can actually help protect and preserve these lands, a mentality that will hopefully carry over into a general outdoor recreation ethic.

We do have some swag-type items that we try to offer Peak Stewards who post the highest number of days, but that all depends on what we receive in donations from gear companies. And there could be a tax break! Under most circumstances, volunteers can write off their expenditures as charitable contributions.

Mojo: How do people get involved?

Wallace: There will be trainings throughout the spring and early summer. The next one is this coming Sunday (March 7) at the Boulder REI, from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. All the trainings that are on the schedule so far can be found at our website.  If people want to register or get more info, they can contact me at 303-278-7650 or by email. We’ve also got a Facebook page that people can check out.

Mojo: Cool, Brian, have a great summer!

The gorgeous south face of South Maroon. Courtesy of 14skiers.com

Frank Konsella, the fourth person to ski all the 14ers from their summits, recently posted a great series on his blog speculating on a new 14er skiing challenge. He writes: “There are still some firsts left on the 14ers—first snowboarder (maybe Eric Kling or Jarrett Luttrell), first woman (Brittany Walker, Pam Rice, and Christy Sauer are all closing in), and first to do them all in one season. But for somebody who isn’t in a hurry to be first at something, maybe getting the best possible descents would be the crowning achievement.”

In six posts, Konsella lists his nominations for the best descent line on each of the 54 peaks, including beauties like South Maroon’s southwest face, “a wilderness classic.” Inspired by his posts, we asked Konsella to pick a few superlatives—the best of the best:

Best Overall Line: The Landry Line on Pyramid. “Nothing else can match its steepness or especially the amount of vert on which this line stays steep. I’ve skied in a lot of places: Alaska, British Columbia, Chamonix, South America. Plop the Landry line in any of those places and it would still stand proud as a steep, committing, and aesthetic line.”

Find the line: The northwest face of Capitol Peak. Photo by Frank Konsella / 14erskiers.com

Best Unskied Line That Will Make Even the Jackson Boys Say “Whoa!: North Face of Capitol. Ummm, sure. But on his blog, Konsella offers a more likely possibility: “Everything skied so far has required either a rappel, roped skiing, or switching back and forth between climbing and skiing during the descent. For my own aesthetics, a route without ropes or mid-descent climbing would be the ultimate Capitol route. I believe that this route exists as a variation of the Davenport/Beidleman line, just to the skier’s right of their route. [However], in several trips to Pierre Lakes Basin, this route has rarely looked good—I believe it gets scoured by wind and avalanches more than other routes. It will take timing for someone to get this line.”

The intriguing couloir on La Plata's south face. Photo by Brittany Walker / 14erskiers.com

Best Unique Route on a Peak that Gets Skied All the Time: La Plata’s South Couloir. “La Plata is a great peak with a number of fine climbing and skiing routes. The north face is aesthetic and regularly sees ski descents, but a couloir on the south side looks promising, so that gets my vote.”

Best 14er Line from a Historical Perspective: North Face of North Maroon. “It’s true that this peak has been skied by routes other than the north face, such as the standard summer route and the west-to-north face variation. But Stammberger’s groundbreaking 1971 descent is one of the major events in American ski mountaineering history. As such, this route reigns supreme.”

The wild looking west face of Mt. Lindsey. Photo by Frank Konsella / 14erskiers.com

Best Line No One Has Heard Of: West Face of Lindsey. “This is one of the peaks that inspired me to write the “54 Best Descents” series. I’m not sure if anyone has skied the line that I think is the top-notch line on this peak. Invariably, the north face couloirs get skied, which are fine routes, but the west side has a wild looking route.”

Frank Konsella’s Best Descents series starts with the Front Range, where you’ll find links to the five other profusely illustrated posts.

Longs Peak: First of 73.

You know that sticker that says, “My best vacation is your worst nightmare”? Josh Holley  is planning a summer vacation that’s jaw-droppingly difficult. Time will tell if it turns out to be a dream or a nightmare.

Holley, 20, is going to attempt to climb every 14er in the Lower 48, solo and self-supported, without ever getting into a car or plane. Holley, who lives in Fort Collins and works at Noodles & Company (and also builds and sells single-speed and commuter bikes for extra cash), is building a custom bike on which he’ll carry all the gear for his three- or four-month odyssey. We asked him to describe his plan in more detail:

I got the idea for this journey about four years ago, just after I got my first car. I was then able to get to the mountains on my own, which was huge for me. While on the long drive to Holy Cross one day, I had a lot of time to think—and watch my gas gauge go down. I remember thinking that I could save so much money if I just rode my bike to the 14ers I wanted to climb.

I was a triathlete at the time, and doing a lot of cycling, and the idea stuck in my head. A couple of years ago, I had the idea of riding to all the 14ers in Colorado and climbing them. But I never got the opportunity, and then I found out that it had been done by a couple of people. So I just decided to take it further than anyone and add the 15 or so 14ers in California and the one in Washington. Now the planning takes up at least four hours a day and is all I think about.

My trip will start June 1 next summer in Fort Collins. The first stop on the list is Longs Peak. It’s one of my favorites of the Colorado peaks, and I wouldn’t want to start anywhere else.

From there I will progressively work my way south, zigzagging across Colorado for approximately 1,250 miles on my bike. I will be paying the $100 to climb Culebra to ensure that I complete all 54 of the recognized Colorado 14ers. I also will be climbing some sub-peaks that don’t get officially ranked due to prominence issues, but those will be for fun.

I will be ending up the Colorado segment on Pikes Peak, where my family will easily be able to greet me at the top of my last Colorado 14er. From there I will be heading 1,200 miles west to California. I’ll start climbing Langley and then head north, climbing in the Sierra and Palisades, then go to White Mountain, and end on Shasta. I will be climbing the 13 recognized peaks in California plus two extras that have prominence issues. From Shasta, I will be heading to Mt. Rainier. I hope to arrive on the slopes of Rainier sometime toward the end of August or early September.

In total, I will be climbing every recognized peak over 14,000 feet in the Lower 48—the “official” count will be 68, but it will actually be 73 peaks in all. The total on the bike will be somewhere around 3,500 miles.

I will be riding a loaded-down bike with front and rear panniers, probably carrying around 60 pounds. Tent. Ice axe. Crampons. Food. The bike is a touring frame that I am building up—I need very specific things on this bike as far as gear ratios and frame geometry, so building it was the only comfortable option for me. I’ll have a 2,500-cubic-inch pack for packing into base camps for multiple 14ers. I will essentially be a backpacker on wheels.

I will be riding and climbing completely solo. I will stay every night in a tent, so no bed and breakfasts or hotels. I will be buying and making all of my own food along the way to cut down on costs, and I will not receive help from anyone along the way except in case of emergency. I’ll do all bike maintenance and repairs myself, too. I’m building the bike now—it’s about halfway completed. I’m trying to keep to a true self-supported solo.

The problems along the way are mostly going to be in California and on Rainier. In California, all of the areas that I will be climbing require backcountry permits, and a lot of these areas have quota systems and permits are hard to obtain, especially in the Mt. Whitney area. I’ll hang around as long as necessary to get the Whitney permit. Mt. Williamson will also be a problem, seeing as it is closed most of the year due to mountain goat protection, so any ascent on this mountain would be illegal. And the last problem will be Rainier.  I am confident in my abilities on Rainier and will be attempting a solo ascent up either the Disappointment Cleaver or preferably the Emmons Glacier route. The only way to do a solo on Mt. Rainier is to have a meeting with the superintendent of the park and receive the OK. So that meeting will be inevitable, but I am hoping by the time I have made it that far they will at least give me a shot at Rainier.

I have climbed 21 of the 14ers in Colorado and a lot of those a couple times. But this time around it will be that much more special, for sure. I will be turning 21 along the way, which will be really cool as well. I just want to look back in 20 years at my journey and know that anything is possible. In the future, when I have kids, I want them to know what I did and know that they will have a lot of catching up to do if they want to top their old man!

Ken Nolan below Rio Grande Pyramid in February 2008. Photo by Ken Nolan

Climbing all of the 14ers is challenging enough, and only three people are known to have climbed them all in calendar winter. Now imagine climbing each of the 14ers in every month of the year. Welcome to “The Grid,” a peakbagging concept that will seem utterly impossible to most people and yet inspiring to a few.

Ken Nolan, the third man to climb all of Colorado’s 12,000-foot peaks, is inspired. At age 62, Nolan says completing the requisite 708 ascents (59 14ers X 12 months) in his Grid is a “no hoper,” but that’s not stopping him from trying, and he’s more than halfway through the list. We decided to ask him about it.

Mojo: When did you climb your first peak in Colorado?

Ken Nolan: I came to Colorado from the San Jose area in 1978 and climbed Longs Peak two days after arrival. During a pre-move business trip, I picked up a copy of the Borneman and Lampert 14ers guide and was obviously itching to get started.

Mojo: Who came up with the Grid idea?

Nolan: My friend John Prater got me interested with a thread on FourteenerWorld. He’d stumbled on an article about a White Mountains 4,000-footer Grid. I soon updated my peak management program to compute a 14er Grid by month and by season. I’ve now filled in 182 of the 236 slots in the Four-Season Grid, with spring being my least active season.

Mojo: Are you now specifically working on filling in the 12-month Grid, or are you just happy to fill a blank space when it happens? Put another way, are you hoping that someday you’ll complete the Grid?

Nolan: Complete the 14er Grid? That’s a no-hoper for an aging arthritic cripple. As you would imagine, the snowy months are the issue. I think I can complete the Grid for the Mosquito, Tenmile, and Sawatch ranges, although Holy Cross can be ornery when the snow lies deep.

The only real problem in the Front Range is Longs; if I stay sort of functional for a few years, I can probably bribe friends to winch me up for several more winter ascents. Coaxing a single winter summit out of the tougher Sangre de Cristo, San Juan, and Elk range peaks is an accomplishment.

Bottom line: I always have several peak-list projects under way and have been delighted to add the Grid to those.

Mojo: What’s the appeal of the Grid to you?

Nolan: I completed the 14ers in 1984, the 13ers in 1992, and the 12ers in 2003. I naively imagined that I’d call it good with that and play with non-elevation-related projects (like the 125 named peaks in Rocky Mountain National Park—that’s a fun list that took some years to finish). What I need is a tangible goal that lures me back into the alpine world during the summer months. The 14er Grid is perfect, although, come to think of it, the Centennial Grid might be even better. It’s an entertaining game and just another excuse to be hanging out with the mountain gods.

Mojo: Have you done any of the 14ers in all 12 months? Any others that are close?

Nolan: I’ve climbed eight of the 14ers in all months (Elbert, Antero, Yale, Columbia, Grays, Torreys, Democrat, and Sherman) and have six others with at least 10 months.

Mojo: Which 14ers have you done in the fewest months?

Nolan: I’ve been up El Diente three times, but always during September, and my ascents of the Chicago Basin group have all been in August. My computer tells me that I’ve currently made 562 14er ascents, but only filled in 356 of the 708 Grid slots, so from the Grid’s perspective, I suppose I’ve wasted more than 200 ascents.

Mojo: It sounds like you must be counting 59 14ers in the Grid. Is that your official total?

Nolan: I like to count 59—the more the merrier, eh? It’s the list that Steve Hoffmeyer uses on FourteenerWorld. For the moment, as long as the Grid (or any other list) is being pursued for personal satisfaction, I suppose the number is whatever anyone wants it to be. Maybe 20 years from now, the Grid will be a popular goal with who-knows-how-many people claiming completion, and it’ll be useful to establish some criteria.

Mojo: Which peaks do you think will present the greatest challenges to someone intent on completing the Grid?

Nolan: No surprise: the Chicago Basin group, the Wilsons and El Diente, Crestone Peak and Needle, Little Bear, the Maroon Bells, Pyramid, Capitol, Snowmass. Surviving multiple ascents of those puppies in winter will be a notable accomplishment.

John Kirk during the day he completed the 231-summit Park County list. Photo by Steve Knapp

Let’s say you really want to know the name, elevation, and location of every peak in the state along the Continental Divide, from 14,270-foot Grays Peak to an unnamed 9,296-foot summit north of Kremmling. Or all the mountains in Colorado that require fifth-class climbing. Or the high point of each of Colorado’s 64 counties. If categorizing and tracking peak ascents is your thing, you need Lists of John, the compulsive climber’s ultimate online resource.

John Kirk, 33, created this remarkable website in 2005, building upon his personal online database. Kirk, who lives in Arvada, moved to Colorado in 2001 and has climbed all the 14ers and county high points. Curious about the Lists of John, we sent him a few questions:

Mojo: What was your first Colorado peak, and what’s on your personal tick list?

Kirk: My first was Blanca Peak (14,345 feet). I completed the 14ers in 2004, and the 64 county high points in 2005. I’ve been chipping away at the 13ers list and have it down to a couple hundred now. I’ve completed all summits in Park County (231 peaks; first ever to complete this list), Gilpin County (22 peaks), Clear Creek County (64 peaks), and Lake County (47 peaks). Boulder County and Chaffee County will probably be completed next. I’d like to complete the highest 1,000 list—I’m over halfway.

Mojo: What motivated you to create Lists of John?

Kirk: I had a website built in 2001 that covered my personal accomplishments at the time, mostly 14ers, 13ers, prominence, and county high points. I decided to build something that was more of a multi-user tool in 2005, mostly because of the lack of such functionality at the time available via other websites, and other sites were charging fees despite lacking this kind of functionality.

Colorado’s complete peak list was put in the database in the spring of 2006. It has come a long way, mostly through user feedback and suggestions, and the thousands of hours I’ve put into it.

Mojo: What’s been the most popular list on the site?

Kirk: The Colorado 13ers list probably has attracted the most members—people want something to do after the 14ers that has some similarities. The most unique thing about Lists of John is the complete listing of all peaks using a 300-foot prominence criterion. This has spawned a number of interesting lists, but the most frequent application is the county summits lists. It gives people an impetus to explore their home county or expand beyond, in a divide and conquer type of fashion.

Mojo: What’s the toughest list for people to complete?

Kirk: The most difficult “popular” list is probably the Colorado 12ers list, for a few reasons: more technical and dangerous summits, remoteness of many peaks, and sheer number (676), combined with the distances across the state one has to travel to collect them all.

The most difficult list I can imagine? Climb all 4,300-plus ranked summits in Colorado! The closest to completing this is Mike Garratt, currently at 3,012.

At this time of year, the operative question for hikers, climbers, and skiers often is, “Can I still drive to the trailhead?” (In the spring: “Is the road open yet?”) For the 14ers, at least, there’s an answer waiting online at 14ers.com, whose amazing Trailheads page is updated by users nearly every day. In the last five days, users have commented on access to Sherman, Red Cloud, Lindsey, Belford, Holy Cross, and several other 14ers. (The gist: 4WD will still get you there, but probably not for long.)

If only there were similar updates for trailhead access to the 13ers and lower peaks. Does such a service exist? If so, let us know, and we’ll add the link to our Conditions page.

Mark Rikkers making the first known snowboard descent of Mt. Sneffels, via the Snake Couloir, in 1998. Photo by Barrows Worm

Lou Dawson was first to ski all 54 of Colorado’s 14,000-foot peaks, and Chris Davenport famously skied them all in 12 months, in 2006–’07. But what about snowboarding the state’s highest peaks? Who did them first, and how many remain to be ridden?

The Colorado 14er First Snowboard Descents Project is a website created by Avon resident Zach Taylor to chronicle the history of snowboard mountaineering in the state. Taylor has built photo-packed web pages for most of the 14ers, with information on first known descents of each route that’s been ridden, plus links to trip reports. He’s seeking information on more descents, especially from the early days of snowboarding in the state.

According to Taylor, all but one of the 14ers has been ridden. Fearsome Capitol Peak is the lone holdout, but, as Taylor writes, “We would expect that to change in the next year.” Erik Kling from the Golden area and Jarrett Luttrell from Gunnison are the two most likely to be first to ride all the 14ers; their tick lists are both in the “high 40s.”