14ERS ARE GREAT, BUT MANY 13ERS ARE JUST AS EPIC
For those with a heart for Rocky Mountain adventure, there’s pretty much nothing like the experience of climbing Colorado’s fourteeners. There is a drawback, however.
They can get a bit crowded. After all, there are only 54 or so of them (it depends on how one defines them, because some lists include 14,000-foot peaks that other lists consider part of other fourteeners), and every year, the 12 busiest attract more than 15,000 hikers each, according to estimates by the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative. Mount Bierstadt, south of Georgetown at Guanella Pass, was trampled by more than 35,000 pairs of feet in 2017.
Consider, then, the not-sohumble thirteeners. There are nearly 600 of them in our state, and a lot of them are every bit as dramatic and fun as the most majestic fourteeners, beckoning us with their own special adventure.
Case in point, a short drive from Denver in the Front Range: Directly across Guanella Pass from the teeming hordes swarming Bierstadt looms the comparatively lonely thirteener Square Top Mountain, with a peak elevation of 13,794 feet. The trailhead for Square Top is less than 900 feet from the one for Bierstadt, where it can be harder to find a parking place than in LoDo on a Friday night. Despite its prosaic name, Square Top is a delightful climb with gorgeous views taking in Grays and Torreys peaks (twin fourteeners four miles to the northwest), not to mention Pikes Peak (65 miles) and Longs Peak (45 miles), yet you’re likely to encounter only a handful of people up there — if any.
“A lot of people go to the mountains looking for solitude, and you can more easily find solitude on the thirteeners than
you will on the fourteeners,” said Gerry Roach, who has climbed all of Colorado’s fourteeners, thirteeners and about twothirds of the 12,000-foot peaks. “That’s changing; more people are doing the obvious thirteeners, and even some of them are a little bit crowded, but nothing like the fourteeners. If solitude is your goal, it’s out there. You just have to do other peaks.”
Roach, who has climbed the highest peak on each of the seven continents (including Mount Everest in 1983), is a mountaineering author who has written guide books on fourteeners, thirteeners, the Indian PeaksandRockyMountain National Park, to name just a few. His book on Colorado’s thirteeners encompasses those ranking among the top 100 highest peaks in the state (Dallas Peak near Telluride, 13,809 feet, checks in at No. 100).
“It’s something that people can aspire to after they’ve finished the fourteeners, or even by itself,” Roach said. “That’s what I did. I finished the fourteeners the better part of half a century ago and immediately started working on the high thirteeners, many of which I’d already done. It’s an obvious next goal.”
Some folks get so singleminded about checking off every fourteener that they turn up their nose at the mention of any peak lower than 14,001 feet (the elevation of Sunshine Peak in the San Juans near Lake City) as an unworthy detour from their fourteener quest. After finishing the fourteeners, Jeff Golden discovered what he’d been missing.
“I did have that mindset a lot of people have, like ‘Fourteeners or bust, there’s no point in doing anything lower,’” said Golden, who lives in Arvada. “Since I finished, I still do fourteeners, 5-10 repeats a year, but thirteeners have kind of taken over what I like doing for a myriad of reasons. They are far less crowded.”
It may seem counter-intuitive, but it may be better to start with the fourteeners and move down. Thirteeners can actually be harder and more complicated.
“The fourteeners were like my Outdoors 101,” said Golden, publications director for the Colorado Mountain Club, who moved here in 2010 from North Carolina and finished all the fourteeners in 2012. ”They took me from knowing nothing about the outdoors to being fairly competent. The thirteeners are kind of the next logical progression because they are more wild, they are more rugged. A lot of them don’t have trails. If they do have trails, they’re hard to follow. There’s a lot more bushwhacking, a lot more talus and scree.
“The element of adventure is a lot higher on thirteeners vs. fourteeners. You’re going to be off-trail a lot, you have to know navigation. Fourteeners, there’s so many app descriptions, so many guide books, so many people doing them and sharing information. I don’t want to take away from them, they are still very challenging, and for a lot of people standing on the top of a fourteener is a lifelong accomplishment. But a fourteener is a like a groomed ski run and a thirteener is like skiing backcountry -- a little more wild, a little more out there.”
Roach, who is still avidly bagging peaks at age
75, has some advice for hikers seeking the state’s highest summits this summer.
“With the heavy snowpack, we’re getting a late start,” Roach said. “The range that has the most snow is the San Juans. We’ve just done some lower peaks, 11,000-foot peaks, and we’ve been on snow almost half the time — in the middle of July. So a word of caution for this year: The fourteeners and high thirteeners still are going to have significant snow up high, so go prepared for that.”
And there’s one more thing.
“I can summarize my advice in one simple threeword sentence: Don’t fall down,” Roach said. “You can quote me on that.”