Any article about death on a mountain is difficult to write. I am concerned about getting the facts wrong, perhaps offending family and friends. However, it serves a purpose of exploring the reason for incident and reminding everyone that mountains can be deadly. The best source year after year is the American Alpine Club’s – Accidents in North American Mountaineering published annually to members. This article is a partial overview of the tragic events thus far in 2010. Many people associate death in the mountains with the well publicized events on the big climbs like Everest or K2. But each continue reading

Sometimes a goal is not a goal until you near the end. That is my story for climbing all of Colorado’s Mountains over 14,000 feet. My first 14er was Longs Peak in 1992, then a few more in 2002. I got serious after meeting Patrick Vall and Robert LeClair. They both wanted to climb all the 14ers and I needed the training for my Himalayan climbs throughout the decade. Thus one by one, we started climbing them all. This weekend I will travel to an area named the Chicago Basin and climb three of the ranked 14ers thus competing my continue reading

Late June 2010, I teamed up with my regular 14er partners, Patrick and Robert to complete some unfinished business. The 14er combination of Castle, 14265′, and Conundrum, 14060′, stand outside of Aspen at the end of a long mining dirt road. I had completed both in 2009, (see the reports for last year’s Castle and Condundrum) while Patrick had climbed Castle with me and Robert had been thwarted twice for both peaks. So as a team, we took on the pair to check them both off once and for all. The early summer of 2010 had been hot with periods continue reading

I just returned from a 4 day climb of three 14ers in the Sangre de Cristo range in southern Colorado. I summited two of the three but turned back on Little Bear due to extreme veriglass on the summit gully. You can read all about it in the trip report. Turning back from any climb – whether a 14er or Everest is a complex decision. I have done both. For me, the decision becomes a fact based decision, not an emotional one. On Everest, it was a factor of my climbing speed or declining health or weather conditions. On Little continue reading

A full trip report is now on the site but here is a teaser for now. I summited Capital around 11:00 AM on September 10, 2009. I was solo all the way and then joined by father, son team Scott and John Scott on the summit. John took this video of my return across the Knife Edge on the summit ridge. I found Capital to be one of the top 3 toughest Colorado 14ers. Please read the full trip report for more details on a great climb. Climb On! Alan

My grand plan was to knock off a quick climb of Snowmass Mountain then backpack later that day to climb Capital Peak, one of the more difficult Colorado 14ers. Well I accomplished half my goal. You can read about my climb of the 14, 092 Colorado mountain on my trip report. During that climb, my 53 year-old knees kind of said “enough”. That is not too much of a surprise since it happened half way down a 2,000 gully that was covered with small pebbles or scree – kind of like ice without the cold. You see back in 1979, continue reading