One of many
trip reports under the
SilGro home page for Alan Silverstein and Cathie
Grow.
Email me at
ajs@frii.com.
Last update: February 24, 2025
(Previous trip report: 1987_0417_GreenMountain.htm)
(A
Fourteener
trip report.)
I and five others repeated the Colorado Fourteeners flight we first made the previous June 28 by two of us and three others. In a single day we flew near or around, and identified, every one of the 54 recognized Colorado peaks over 14000'. Well, all except Culebra Peak, unfortunately, as I'll explain...
We took a Cessna 210 Turbo Centurion, N4655Q, a five passenger retractable gear aircraft. Jer/ Eberhard was Pilot in Command. John Lang, also a pilot, and I (avid passenger) each took the right front seat for one of the two longer legs. With us were Bob Lienhart and Reid Shay, also of Hewlett-Packard, Fort Collins, and Karl Williamson of AT&T. Karl joined us after reading about our first flight in the computer "newsgroup" called rec.aviation.
We departed Fort Collins Downtown Airport (3V5 [2023, long since shut down]) at 0515 and landed at Boulder Municipal at 0532 to pick up Karl, whom we'd never met before except electronically. With six on board we took off again at 0547, circling a little to gain altitude and meet the rising sun just two minutes later. We reached our first target, Longs Peak, 14255', at 0602.
We followed the same minimum-distance traversal route we developed last spring using USGS location data and lots of computer time. This time again we flew the route counter-clockwise, meaning we passed 38 of the 54 peaks, in the Front Range, Mosquito Range, Elk Range, Sawatch Range, and San Juan Range, before landing for munchies and potty break at Telluride at 0852.
This time we had plots showing subsections of the route, in addition to the overall route plot and heading/distance chart. They were useful for reminding everyone, especially the pilot, of the relative positions of the peaks in each cluster.
Weather conditions were superb for the first half of the flight. Since we made the trip almost two months earlier than the year before, there was a lot more snow in the mountains, including numerous large avalanche traces. Unlike before I didn't take a VCR this time. So I had a lot more time free to focus on still photography and to help fly. Also, where feasible we flew somewhat lower than some peaks, placing them prominently above the surrounding terrain in our pictures.
Landing at Telluride, 9086' and sloping, was quite a thrill, especially in springtime. A runway high on a large flat mesa, above the valley holding the main road into town, surrounded by emerald green hillsides sloping up to crystal-white summits... Unforgettable.
After a long and leisurely break we took off again at 1053... An endless uphill run, fully loaded, with squirrelly winds. At Telluride you only got to land east and depart west. Just off the runway the ground dropped away abruptly into the valley, which could provide an "out" down and to the left (for a while). Beyond the valley, a high ridge. We cleared it easily... And came slowly up and around to the north to view Mount Sneffels, 14150'.
Like last year the weather got worse faster than anticipated, in fact, even faster than the last time. With Jer/ being IFR (instrument flight rules) current, it wasn't as great a concern as it might have been. We did have to be careful to avoid IMC (instrument meteorological conditions) as we headed west, south, and east through the rest of the San Juan Range along our route. Miraculously, all the peaks of interest were quite in the clear. However, the ride was bumpy at times.
The longest leg of the flight was from Windom Peak to Culebra Peak, 137 miles. We never had to deviate from our route except to go a bit north of this beeline. On the way it became apparent that clouds were thick over the Sangre de Cristo Range.
We came east toward Culebra, an uninteresting 14047' summit just a few miles north of New Mexico, and descended some to look under the clouds. No go, a thunderstorm with occasional bolts sat right on the peak. Only the base was visible, about ten miles distant. We turned north to the rest of the Sangres.
To our surprise the other Fourteeners in the range were quite clear. They were some of the most spectacular mountains in the state too. Where last year we saw every peak at least once, but from as far as a mile away and away from the clouds, this time we missed one completely (other than the base), but got very good looks at all the others.
We caught a look at the cog railway trains clearing the tracks to the top of Pikes Peak, 14110', last of the mountains on our route. By 1347 we were back on the ground at Boulder after one go-around due to someone else's low and slow takeoff. Following bidding farewell to Karl we shuttled back to Fort Collins from 1403 to 1421.
Total elapsed time, 9:06. Estimated time aloft, 6:34 (the Hobbs meter read 6.7). Cost was about the same as last year, $148, with Karl picking up the overhead for the side-trips to Boulder. Nominal route distance, 870 miles, or from/to Boulder only, 792 miles.
Re: Fourteeners flights
After our first flight last summer we discovered we weren't the first people to undertake this adventure. Dave Landers accidentally (while studying an unrelated topic) made an interesting discovery at the Colorado Mountain Club (CMC) library -- an article about one earlier flight. Then using an index of publications, he found these reports:
So we weren't the first to fly all the Colorado Fourteeners. However, we were almost certainly the first to use USGS locations data (available circa 1981) and a computerized route-finding package to discover a best (we think) route for the trip.
(Next trip report: 1987_0606_PalisadeMtn.htm)