America’s Mountain This year’s journal gives voice to Pikes Peak, a mountain embedded deep within the history of Colorado College climbing. Perhaps no other climbing area central to our community is steeped in such an array of myth and secrecy, and for good reason too. Through a conscious local effort, climbing on the Peak has remained an island of the past while everything around it seems to change at a rapidly quickening pace. Even today, climbing on the Peak proliferates the space of legend despite it being dubbed “America’s Mountain” and one of the most travelled mountains in the entire world. To this day, existing routes await further ascents. Bryan Becker described his mixed feelings to me about climbing on Pikes Peak this summer. In the early free-climbing days, Pikes Peak was about getting there and finding one’s own way, and it was only shared among friends. Just climb something and walk away. Leave the experience unchanged for another. Just climb. It still is guarded by those who know it well as a way to preserve a sense of adventure, mystery, and peace. Bryan’s tone changed, though, and there was a reticent uneasiness in his voice, as he described how things are subtlety changing. When he asked, “Is that era over with?” he responded, “I don’t know…” The anxiety on his face was no less apparent than my own. The worry is in the change, perhaps something as recognizable as the shift from Yosemite in the 60’s to its current place in the mainstream of climbing. The place remains intact, the walls as big as ever, the original aura perhaps only a [This page] Kishen Mangat (‘96) halfway up a massive, nameless route, Bottomless Pit, Pikes Peak. Bosier Parsons 10
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memory. Detailed guidebooks, route descriptions, well-trodden approaches, advanced technology, and modern climbing’s ever-growing propensity to security over risk have profound power to change this place. And then there’s the highway to the summit, which allows for unprecedented access to an otherwise wilderness area and climbs that would require ten-mile approaches. The line between solitude and crowding in this place will eventually rest on the existence of something twenty-feet wide with curving yellow lines and the integrity of those who climb here to retain a strong traditional ethic. In my own exploration and climbing on Pikes Peak, a fear of change still remains despite only subtle evidence that it has. At least for now, the prevailing ethic that has long coated the Peak’s high alpine rock faces still seems intact. As I imagine myself running down the Rumdoodle Ridge, there’s but a bare trace of another. The solitude of the alpine world gracefully unfolds. Yet, I’m not alone. I feel the watchful eye of history gazing down upon me. The footsteps of the stone masters I follow in guide me, those guardians of this sacred temple. As I descend for yet another remarkable climb, I remain thankful that the myths, secrets, and legends are not a thing of the past. A wild and mysterious unknown still awaits. I only hope the presence of past and present protectors is enough to ward off the troubles to come. -Erik Rieger (’12)
[Facing page] Drew Thayer atop Warbonnet, Cirque of the Towers, WY. Erik Rieger