For many a peak-bagger, Walt Borneman’s “A Climbing Guide to Colorado’s Fourteeners” has been as important to success as good boots and a sturdy pair of legs.
But after three major revisions and 14 printings, Borneman let the book go out of print a couple of years ago.
“It was a lot of work to keep up with the changes in trailheads and access, and even the conditions on the peaks,” he says.
When friends kept telling him how much they enjoyed the book’s historical aspects, though, Borneman began wondering how he might combine his knowledge of the state’s pioneering climbers with his love for the peaks.
The result is “14,000 Feet: A Celebration of Colorado’s Highest Mountains” (Skyline, $34.95), a large-format hardcover in which Borneman has blended climbing history, vintage snapshots and personal anecdotes with up-to-date color photographs by scenic photographer Todd Caudle.
The black-and-white shots of early climbers, obtained mainly from the archives of the Colorado Mountain Club, may give readers newfound respect for the men and women who traipsed up the peaks in the 1920s and ’30s without the benefit of Vibram soles, Patagonia jackets and GPS receivers.
And Caudle’s depictions of the mountains as they look today may leave more recent mountaineers wondering if their memories are failing.
“They’re unique views,” says Borneman, who was the first chairman of the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative. “He has worked real hard to get unusual views of these peaks, to photograph them from little-traveled valleys and different perspectives.”
Borneman, 53, of Estes Park, and Caudle, 45, of Pueblo, will give slide shows and sign copies of the book at three presentations on the Front Range this week: at 7:30 p.m. today at the Boulder Bookstore, 1107 Pearl St. in Boulder; 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Westar Bank community room in Estes Park; and 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Tattered Cover Book Store in LoDo. In addition, there will be a signing at 3 p.m. Tuesday at Macdonald Books, 152 E. Elkhorn in Estes Park.
Staff writer Jack Cox can be reached at 303-820-1785 or jcox@denverpost.com.
