Friday, September 17, 2004
2004/09/11 - Celebrating the completion of my "Continental Divide Century Project"
This past Saturday I completed my 100th summit of Grays Peak and now I'm celebrating.
A brief background:
Some years ago, while trying to climb all of the 14ers, I was thinking about what I would do when I finished. At some point I came to the conclusion that I would not climb any 13ers and I would concentrate on the 14ers instead. Subsequent to that I learned that Grays Peak was the highest point on the Continental Divide in the Continental United States. Now that sounded really neat to me. So, I began to formulate a plan to climb Grays Peak on a regular basis and find out what it was like to know one mountain really well and stand on highest point of the Continental Divide over and over again. Eventually I started to wonder if I might be able to climb Grays Peak 100 times. In other words, do a Century Climb on an individual 14er. That's when I formally declared my intentions and decided to call the project the "Continental Divide Century Project". That was in 1999.
Here are a few project details (still being confirmed):
- Number of times Grays was climbed in combination with Torreys: 64
- Number of miles of climbing: 1,018
- Elevation gain: over 360,000'
- Hours of climbing: 585
- Climbed at night
- Bivouacked on summit
- Climbed by all routes listed in the Roach Guide Book and by a few others
- Climbed in all seasons
- Climbed in every month
- Climbed at least once a month for 12 consecutive months
On my final climb, this past Saturday, I felt quite lucky to step onto the summit and have it completely to myself for about 5 minutes while I contemplated what it all meant to me. As others began to arrive I was able to shake hands with 3 different climbers who were summiting their very first 14er ever. For me it was a great day.
This past Saturday I completed my 100th summit of Grays Peak and now I'm celebrating.
A brief background:
Some years ago, while trying to climb all of the 14ers, I was thinking about what I would do when I finished. At some point I came to the conclusion that I would not climb any 13ers and I would concentrate on the 14ers instead. Subsequent to that I learned that Grays Peak was the highest point on the Continental Divide in the Continental United States. Now that sounded really neat to me. So, I began to formulate a plan to climb Grays Peak on a regular basis and find out what it was like to know one mountain really well and stand on highest point of the Continental Divide over and over again. Eventually I started to wonder if I might be able to climb Grays Peak 100 times. In other words, do a Century Climb on an individual 14er. That's when I formally declared my intentions and decided to call the project the "Continental Divide Century Project". That was in 1999.
Here are a few project details (still being confirmed):
- Number of times Grays was climbed in combination with Torreys: 64
- Number of miles of climbing: 1,018
- Elevation gain: over 360,000'
- Hours of climbing: 585
- Climbed at night
- Bivouacked on summit
- Climbed by all routes listed in the Roach Guide Book and by a few others
- Climbed in all seasons
- Climbed in every month
- Climbed at least once a month for 12 consecutive months
On my final climb, this past Saturday, I felt quite lucky to step onto the summit and have it completely to myself for about 5 minutes while I contemplated what it all meant to me. As others began to arrive I was able to shake hands with 3 different climbers who were summiting their very first 14er ever. For me it was a great day.
