Hypoxic euphoria after completing a 21-year quest...
There aren’t that many events in life that take over two decades to complete. Usain Bolt finishes a 100-meter dash in a mere 9.72 seconds. Two cells miraculously emerge into a newborn in a quick 9 months, after just a few hours in the making (“your mileage may vary”). Kepler established that the Earth orbits the sun in 12 months. High school, college and medical school take roughly four years apiece, while a full sunspot cycle takes a long 11 years. So it’s with some excitement and relief that my Colorado Grand Slam is now complete after 21 trips around the sun.
Luke (in red) and his buddies in Denver, on the way to summer camp
I’ve had the joy of sharing the high Colorado Rockies with dozens of friends over the years, some 14,000-foot peaks being easy lung busters and a few becoming quite epic challenges. This past week I took my son Luke and three of his buddies to summer camp in Colorado, and made the most of the dwell time by topping out on the final three mountains on the 59-peak list (those being North Massive, Conundrum and South Maroon Peak).
Nicky, Cindy, Scott, Bob and Don atop Mount Massive
Some great friends, including my best college buddy, fellow Everest climbers, mountain rescue team members and some NASA rocket scientists, joined me on my way to the finish line. My sincere thanks to Don, Bob, Nicky, Jaroslaw, Keith, Cindy, Alan, Steve and Tim — and my many other Mountain Compadres over the years. Here are some photo highlights of the trip, which involved over 16,000 feet of vertical in 4 days, crossing over 6 summits in excess of 14,000 feet:
Jaroslaw and Bob on the grassy slopes below (South) Massive Peak
Upper face of (South) Maroon Peak, with Tim, Steve and Scott barely visible on the traverse
Scott & Cindy finish their Grand Slams the very same day --- it just took me four times as long!
It was an exhilarating feeling to take those final steps to the top of (South) Maroon Peak outside of Aspen. The clouds were rushing around the summit, bathing the long, narrow and steep apex in an eerie light. My overachieving friend Cindy Howard, whom I’d gotten to know when I led an effort to rename a Colorado summit in honor of the Space Shuttle Columbia (STS-107) crew, joined me on top, completing her Grand Slam in just 5 years! [Columbia Point dedication link: http://silgro.com/ColumbiaPoint/index.htm] We took some happy hero shots on top, and thanks to good cell coverage and cool technology, I posted our photo together from the summit of #59. Congratulations, Cindy!
"The hills are alive with the sound of muzak..." (!)
I love these mountains too much to say that I’ll never return. I hope my next circuit around these peaks will be with my son, and hopefully it won’t take another 21 years to finish the list! I had my handy SPOT tracker with me, generating an electronic breadcrumb trail along the way (http://www.spotadventures.com/user/profile?user_id=42312) Nicky “Haus Frau” Messner (Everest summit in 2008) also posted a great Picasa album from the trip here: http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=HausFrauNicky&target=ALBUM&id=5500075723366428113&authkey=Gv1sRgCJOHk67w2t7gbQ&feat=email
My good friend Bob “BoBo” Lowry, who’s life motto is “Climb High, Don’t Die,” has a blog here: www.boblowrys.blogspot.com
More general information about climbing Colorado’s 14ers can be found at: http://www.14ers.com/
View Scott's YouTube Videos Here!
August 1st, 2010 - 10:37 pm
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August 2nd, 2010 - 2:18 am
hola, scott, the mountains look beautiful, yes, the sound of music. speaking of which, i am going to order the san francisco symphony’s ‘das lied vonder erde’ cd with ‘song of the earth’ on it, inspired by ancient chinese poems. i am pre-ordering the mahler’s song with orchestra cd and will get symphony 7 and 8, which got multiple grammys, a little later. all with michael tilson thomas conducting:-) mahler was the conductor of the vienna orchestra many, many moons ago. he lost his little daughter, rachel, to a very nasty fever when she was 5, i’m sure that set the tone for the emotion in his compositions. i am hoping for a wee bit of energy to push the vacuum cleaner around my little trailer when the humidity goes down a bit from the monsoons. the monsoons are late, we finally got some beautiful rains for a few days, i hope we get more. so, i will cheer you on in my disabled state from the comfort of my little chair in front of the computer! luke has some fun years ahead of him! i did harvest some marvelous vine-ripened tomatoes from the 4 ft. high plants today and gave some away and will give a few more away tomorrow. they make delicious spaghetti meat sauce! and are pretty fine just sliced with a wee bit of kosher salt:-) fantastic lycopene:-) the italian cabresi, with sliced gourmet mozarella, balsamic vinegar and sweet basil leaves from my plant i will have tomorrow with a baguette of sourdough bread:-) take good care, best, anna martina
August 4th, 2010 - 2:00 pm
Scott-
Nice air guitar photo (if I do say so myself). Thanks for a great climb, and ‘hope you’ve recovered from that painful descent. Let me know if you decide to round out the top 100 peaks…
Tim
August 4th, 2010 - 8:20 pm
Scott-
I was glad to be able to summit at the same time as you finished your quest. There are lot more mountains to climb up here and don’t think you are going to get away with the just the top 59.
Best,
Steve