FEVER PITCH

The author on tn the summit of South Lookout Peak.

top of ninety-four peaks higher than 13,000 feet. I learned valuable lessons along the way, pushed myself to achieve things I never thought possible and gained a newfound appreciation for the incredible adventure in my own backyard. All of those things are true except one: I didn’t actually succeed. Only in writing this article did I discover my failure — I climbed 94 of 98 peaks — unknowingly missing four by about a quarter mile each due to my lack of thoroughness in counting dots on a map.

If the goal was to feel success, I achieved it — each summit I stood on slowly boosted my confidence. AN IDEA

Over a year ago, the COVID-19 pandemic descended upon the Southwest and the rest of the world. Like so many others, I found myself out of a job, unable to visit friends and overwhelmed by uncertainty.

The timing couldn’t have been worse. I had left my comfort zone and community in Durango six months earlier to take a chance on love. That meant moving to the mining-turned-ski hamlet of Silverton — approximately 48 miles north, 2,796 feet higher and roughly one twenty-eighth the size of Durango — to start a new life with my partner in the heart of the San Juan Mountains. At the time, it was a dream come true.

However, along with the onset of the COVID pandemic and the “Stay at Home” order, my dream had been unraveling for months; and without work as a distraction, I was forced to face the reality of a failing relationship. Everything seemed to be spinning out of control; so I did what I always do when nothing makes sense: I turned to the mountains.

They delivered.

After two months in lockdown, my existential anxiety and restlessness reached a fever pitch. By mid-May, I came up with a solution — to climb, hike or ski all of the thirteeners (peaks above

Wildflowers on Red Mountain Pass.

13,000 feet) within a 10-mile radius of my house before the end of the year. I figured if I couldn’t find relief from my emotional prison through the usual coping strategies (work, spontaneous cross-country road trips, drinking wine with friends, etc.), I might as well channel that energy closer to home. I desperately needed to believe I had direction, even if just up the side of a hill.

TECHNICALITIES

The journey began on May 19, 2020. I downloaded a file of waypoints called “CO Thirteeners” and started hiking. Well, technically, skinning — since my first thirteener, Bonita Peak (13,286 feet) was still caked in snow at the time.

At first I didn’t tell anyone about my plan. I kept it close for several weeks, silently evaluating the thirteeners on my list saying I was “going for a run” (a believable fib when you live in a town where 12,000-foot peaks outnumber year-round residents three to one). After a few cruiser summits, I gained confidence that I stood a reasonable chance of success, and took to social media to announce my plan.

It was a perfect road map to success — a unique list of peaks that no one else cared about (the epicenter was my actual house, for starters) which I knew I could finish by the end of the year. At the time, it didn’t seem like a big deal that I hadn’t counted every single waypoint within that 10-mile circle I drew on the map. There were a lot (at least 70); I knew that much because of how many times I lost count trying to tally a total. It didn’t matter if the total was 69 or 96 — I was committed. There would be plenty of time for counting dots on the map later. Now, it was time to hike.

HIGH POINTS

A little context: "peak bagging" is the widely acknowledged terminology for the hobby of ticking off summits usually based around some measure of topographical prominence. For instance, Colorado’s fourteeners — a list of 54 (or 58, depending who you ask) peaks higher than 14,000 feet — draw thousands of peak baggers from across the globe each year to their summits (often with a hand-drawn sign, for proof) on a quest for the bragging rights that come with ticking off the whole list.

The thing about peak-bagging is there are a lot of rules. Most people take the 54 or 58 number as the officially recognized total count of 14ers in the state and call it good. If you start digging, however, the total number of peaks higher than 14,000 feet in the Rocky Mountain State reveals itself to be between 59-74. Um, what?

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, there are 59 points in Colorado measured above 14,000 feet. One of these points, “Sunlight Spire,” gets bumped off the official list due to years of being thought to measure five feet below 14,000 (inconvenient, really). Then there’s the prominence rule. Somewhere between when people started climbing mountains and today, the decision was made to only “count” peaks with at least 300-feet of topographic prominence. This means a mountain must rise at least 300 feet above the saddle connecting it to the next highest point. In fairness to our brazen forefathers taking on the impossible task of measuring mountains, they needed to narrow it down somehow.

If you think counting fourteeners is tricky, please do not attempt to tally the thirteeners. It’s a mind-bending black hole of mathematical equations, “hand-over-hand” measurement units and a whole lot of people trying to make claims and official lists to fill the information void.

LOW POINTS

It was July by the time I realized my mistake. My project was going swimmingly. I’d even gone back to work and still managed to tick about 40 summits on top of a 40-hour work week. The dent was big enough that I sensed the time had come to figure out exactly how many peaks I had left. Turns out, you shouldn’t trust everything you get from the Internet. The most widely accepted figure when it comes to how many thirteeners in Colorado is 637. I’d assumed my canonical folder of waypoints represented this number since it was commonly referenced on the sites I used for route beta. This was not the case.

By the time I realized my list also included unranked thirteeners (bumps on ridgelines, essentially), I’d already done at least 10 of these unrecognized blips — peaks discarded by the mainstream peak-bagging community. Well... I can’t quit now, I thought. Summer was halfway over and my goal just grew from 79 to 94 total peaks to truly succeed at what I’d started.

SUCCESS

I saved an easy one for last. On October 14, 2020, I hiked a long, but straightforward trail up the 13,222-foot Macomber Peak on the northeast edge of town. It was only fitting to have views of Silverton on the final 10-mile radius thirteener. I brought Oso, my dog, for his 56th peak of the season, along with a granola bar and a mini bottle of champagne for the summit.

In less than two hours, we reached the top. I took summit selfies, drank celebratory bubbles and allowed myself to feel proud — something I hadn’t really done when the pressure of more mountains lingered. Today, I gave myself permission to feel good — happy, accomplished — like a total badass. Ninety-four peaks between May 19 and Oct. 14 wasn’t bad, especially since I’d been back at work full-time since June. I worked hard to get there — often tagging summits on the way home from work in Ouray, rarely making it to the car before dark. I’d put in the effort and now, I could reap the rewards. It felt good.

Gazing over the picturesque mining town, I sensed a well of emotion behind the smile I put on for the camera — for myself. With the joy, there was deep sadness. In the triumph, a pervasive sense of failure. Town reminded me of what I go to the mountains to avoid — tricky nuances in the “real world” of clocks, toilets and complications.

FAILURE

Anyone who climbs mountains knows and accepts (to varying degrees) some level of failure. It’s part of the game, and you can’t enter the arena without signing the waiver. Climbers who “fail” because they recognize when potential risks outweigh potential rewards are generally praised, not condemned. This unspoken pact, however, ends at treeline.

The real world below is not so forgiving. You don’t get credit for “failing” at a job or relationship or not making a deadline. No one tells you it’s the “right thing” when you bail early on a promise because you perceive it to be a risky endeavor. Put simply, it’s not that simple on the ground.

SECOND CHANCES

As of April 2021, I’ve reached 95 of 98 peaks. I no longer live in Silverton, and call Ouray home. I fell madly in love with the San Juan Mountains while working on my Thirteeners Project.

The honest version of this story is that I did fail. But this has allowed me to realize something: 95 of 98 means I get three more rounds — three more chances to enter that wild mountain arena I don’t always push into without external motivators. There’s no end to this story because it’s not over yet. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

SUZANNA LOURIE is a former journalist turned wilderness guide whose love of the San Juan Mountains inspired her to pick up a pen and paper after a six year hiatus. You can usually find her above the treeline on some remote peak between Durango and Ouray running (downhill) with her pup, Oso.

The V3/ Ulysses S. Grant Peak ridge traverse in late summer snow conditions.

Dispersed Dilemma: Colorado Camping 101

As throngs of unschooled campers stampede over treasured natural resources, an increasing number of national forests are transitioning to designated camping

BY MORGAN TILTON

A starry night sky while camping in the Gunnison National Forest near the edge of the West Elk Wilderness. photo by Eric Phillips

Are these new outdoor lovers here to stay? Nearly half of all North American campers either picked up or restarted camping during the pandemic...

“I think we can make it up there,” said my partner Eric, who’s behind the wheel of his ’96 Ford F-150. His sister Carrie and I look at each other with raised eyebrows. He pushes in the clutch and shifts into reverse. We’re all shoulder to shoulder on the bench seat. A wide, deep untracked layer of snow coats the bumpy, off-camber road we’re about to plow into. It’s the only barricade blocking us from a gorgeous and unoccupied dispersed camp spot beneath a ring of towering Douglas fir. W e’d already driven to the end of Spring Creek Road, which parallels its namesake river in Gunnison National

Forest, 30-plus miles from our doorstep in

Crested Butte, Colorado, and back. After nearly two hours of roaming around, this was the only unclaimed place we could find. Plan B was to drive up the adjacent Taylor Canyon, which we wagered was chock-full of weekenders, too. Plan

C was to head back to the house. Eric shifted into gear and we powered through the snow.

AN EXPLOSION OF CAMPING

It was early May 2020 when we camped in Spring Creek. The weekend’s high-volume visitation foreshadowed what would be a record year of adventure travel in Gunnison Valley.

“Visitation completely exploded with flocking RVs, compounds and tents,” said David Ochs, the executive director of the Crested Butte Mountain Bike Association (CBMBA), a mountain bike club and nonprofit organization. “The summer backcountry traffic was already growing at a massive unsustainable rate, and with COVID changing the way people live and work, it all compounded.”

The organization was founded in 1983, and maintains more than 450 miles of singletrack in the area. Ochs volunteered with CBMBA for 15 years before being nominated to his role as the nonprofit’s first-ever executive director. He first noticed the growth of out-of-town backcountry traffic and subsequent impacts circa 2013, and started to consider how the valley could manage that impending traffic.

CBMBA’s mission to build trails goes hand-inhand with preservation and educational outreach. The team had the tools, trailers and boots on the ground to address those burgeoning backcountry issues, Ochs thought. So he launched the Crested Butte Conservation Corps (CBCC), CBMBA’s professional trail and stewardship crew program, in 2016.

To tackle projects and secure funding, the crew works alongside federal land managers, the towns of Crested Butte and Mount Crested Butte, the Crested Butte Land Trust and private landowners. landowners. Last summer, the CBCC decommissioned 105 illicit fire rings and blocked off 31 illegal routes. They also cleaned 342 campsites and collected 910 pounds of trash.