[CRMTR Note]: This article was in the "Denver and the West" section of the Denver Post on Sunday, August 9th, 1998. I tried contacting Denver Post to find an "Online" version to link to, but apparently they never posted one. So... I typed it in... Dedicated or stupid. You decide. I've also written a trip report for this climb, if you're interested in reading it.
By Steve Lipsher Denver Post Staff Writer
WINFIELD - Gasping for breath at every step as he led a string of hikers up Huron Peak on Saturday, John Lewis figured his pace was just about perfect.
"If I go any faster, I'll die. If I go any slower, I'll fall backwards," he joked to the nine backpackers behind him representing Louisville's StorageTek computer software producer in a charity climb up the 14,005-foot peak. [CRMTR Note: Borneman lists this peak at 14,005 but Dawson, Roach and the USGS show it at 14,003']
The StorageTek team is one of about 30 teams attacking "14ers" around the state this weekend as part of the Emily Griffith Center's 10th annual "Peak Challenge" fund-raiser, a noble cause that nonetheless highlights the sometimes painful craze - literally and figuratively - over the state's highest peaks.
"When we first started, our goal was to have all 54 peaks summited in one day," said Meg Miller, resource development director for the center. "In '92 and '94, we did that. Now, in light of environmental issues . . . we've spread it out over the whole weekend, and we encourage that all 54 get sponsored, but not all 54 get climbed."
Part of that environmental concern was evident on Huron Peak, where a dozen braided descent routes cascade from the summit ridge of the popular "easy" peak southeast of Independence Pass.
With a 300-percent increase in "peak bagging" in the last 10 years - particularly in large groups such as the Peak Challenge - the fragile alpine environment is beginning to show the scars of every waffle sole that has tread on the tundra, requiring intensive trail preservation occurring, largely unseen and unappreciated, on Huron and other peaks around the state.
"We want to have the 14ers always to be a viable recreational resource, but we see the impacts from events like this," said Keith Desrosiers, executive director of the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative that is conducting the restoration work. "We've been created to deal with some of the impact that have resulted from the publication of guide books and events like the Peak Challenge."
Formed in 1994 as a partnership between the Colorado Mountain Club, Volunteers for Outdoors Colorado, the Colorado Outward Bound School, the Rocky Mountain Field Institute, and Leave No Trace, the stand-alone group now involves more than 350 people volunteering 1,000 work days.
StorageTek team member Renee Howbert, who has climbed all but one of the 14ers over the past 13 years, said she's seen a dramatic deterioration in the trails that have formed, typically following the most direct approaches rather than ecologically sensitive paths now being sought by CFI volunteers.
"I've been on the new trails they built on La Plata and Belford, and they're beautiful," Howbert said. "I was on both of those trails before they redid them, and they needed it."
It is tough, physical work, exacerbated by the lack of air at high altitude, and because of budget constraints, it is work that the U.S. Forest Service typically cannot afford.
"A typical CFI project could cost up to $100,000, and is valued up to $250,000 because of all the volunteer labor," Desrosiers said.
This summer, crews on Huron and Humboldt Peak are toiling to repair the damage to the tundra and delineate clearly marked, "sustainable" trails that don't contribute to erosion.
"One of the things that is different about the 14ers is that it's an alpine environment," Desrosiers said. "The plant species and tundra that exist there . . . are very fragile in the sense that once impacted, they won't come back."
On Humboldt, crews have spent this summer pouring about 400 tons of rock into an erosion gully that ranged up to 10 feet wide and 4 feet deep, and next year plans are to build a boardwalk through the notorious willow marsh on Guanella Pass, the start of the standard approach to Mount Bierstadt.
And on Huron, a work in progress, a series of flags like those used to mark construction sites show where the path eventually will weave across the face of the mountain in gentle switchbacks.
But until the volunteer crews finish their thankless task, the climb remains challenging.
"This is not going to be fun coming down," software engineer Doug Reiners said of the current trail, a steep route covered with coarse dirt that turned each step into a treacherous downhill slide. The StorageTek team, like others in the Peak Challenge, "adopted" the peak through a $2,000 donation to the nonprofit residential treatment center for troubled boys in Larkspur.
Although wildly popular and successful, the event last year was marred by tragedy.
"In eight years, we never even had a sprained ankle," said Miller. "Last year, for the first time, we had a death, on Capitol Peak."
In memory of Derick Exstrom, who fell to his death when a rock handhold gave way high on the mountain, participants in the Peak Challenge were asked to take a moment in his memory on the summits.
And, as a result, the Emily Griffith Center declined to allow groups to climb some of the most dangerous mountains, including Longs Peak, the Maroon Bells, and Crestone Needle.
Huron, considered an easy peak, was perfect for first-time climbers Jen Moeller and Lynn Clark. For others such as Chip Furlong, who has done them all, the climb was an opportunity to revisit an old friend.
"I've got all the maps, all the guidebooks to the 14ers in my cube - everything but work," he joked.
Under beautiful sunny skies, everyone on the team reached the summit and enjoyed the spectacular panorama, although newcomer Lynn Clark feigned indifference.
"What a letdown," he joked.