Of Mice and Mountaineers

Training for the Big Event of my peakbagging career - Mt. Whitney, high point of California as well as the Lower 48 + Hawaii - proved that I really had learned something from Colorado fourteeners, namely that I really suck at outrunning thunderstorms. Written version of this episode can be found at https://www.14ers.com/php14ers/tripreport.php?trip=22697

Baby’s First Search and Rescue and fourteener-related hospital visit finally take place, though not until after I’d received visits from Jim Morrison and a mystery lover. Written version here: https://www.14ers.com/php14ers/tripreport.php?trip=22673&cpgm=tripmine

Published on a different day from my normal schedule so it would be released in time for the tenth anniversary of Baby’s First Search and Rescue encounter - arguably the "best" part of a Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day - I finally talk in full detail about the questionable decision-making that led me to name Longs Peak my first nemesis fourteener. Link to written version here: https://ww...

The build-up between my first attempt of the Front Range’s most obnoxious fourteener and my summit was more dramatic than the five fourteeners I summited in the interim…not that those summits weren’t a Massive undertaking in their own way. Link to written version here: https://www.14ers.com/php14ers/tripreport.php?trip=22637&cpgm=tripmine

My fifth or sixth summit of a fourteener, depending on how one counts, proved to me years too late that one should always listen to advice from one’s father about getting into a car with a stranger. (Script for this episode here: https://www.14ers.com/php14ers/tripreport.php?trip=22622)

Reflecting on climbing the highest mountain in Colorado also made me reflect on the nature of the relationships, romantic and otherwise, that were bringing me down at the same time. (Link to written version here: https://www.14ers.com/php14ers/tripreport.php?trip=22595)

A third outing in Colorado’s fourteeners may not have been as epic as Lord of the Rings, but there was a volcano involved. (Link to written version: https://www.14ers.com/php14ers/tripreport.php?trip=22580)

Getting revenge for a failed attempt on America's Mountain helped prove to me that mountains may be Romantic in the capital-R sense that inspired poets like Katharine Bates, but they are not conducive to romance in the lowercase sense. (Link to written version here: https://www.14ers.com/php14ers/tripreport.php?trip=22565)

A first time on one of Colorado’s easiest 14,000-foot mountains proved that love or at least lust aren’t so easy but may be electrifying, especially when one’s father and the high country’s thunderous weather are involved. (Link to written version here: https://www.14ers.com/php14ers/tripreport.php?trip=22550)