EDITOR’S NOTE: Despite writing guidebooks on climbing Colorado’s famous mountains, it took Walter Borneman 24 years to “bag” his 54th fourteener.
Late in August 1980, I found myself kicking steps up a narrowing couloir of snow on the side of Colorado’s famed Maroon Bells. Three years before, I had climbed the North Maroon Bell via its standard northeast ridge route, but weather had precluded venturing across the airy, crumbling ridge to its southern twin.
My haste to climb the South Bell this day was twofold. First, I was the co-author of “A Climbing Guide to Colorado’s Fourteeners,” originally published in 1978, but despite my best intentions, I had climbed only 52 of the 54 summits in it. The far more pressing matter was that in just two days, my stalwart climbing companions, Omar Richardson and Gary Koontz, were rendezvousing with me to climb what would be their remaining 14,000-foot summit.
Overhead, dark clouds rose above the red ridges that gave the peaks their names. It was hot; perfect thunderstorm weather. A few minutes later, booms gave credence to that perfection. I did the only thing that made sense. I turned around and went down. Two days later, high above Como Basin, Omar, Gary and I celebrated on the summit of Little Bear – their 54th fourteener, my 53rd.
The years went by. I continued to revise the guidebook. Thousands, then tens of thousands of people began to make their way up Colorado’s fourteeners. It was a far cry from summer 1972, when Omar and I climbed 17 fourteeners and encountered only two other people the entire summer. I climbed many of Colorado’s other peaks, but the South Bell remained.
For years I thought about it only when asked, usually in the context of a guidebook discussion: “You’ve climbed them all, of course?” If the occasion permitted, I told the whole story, but more frequently, the moment permitted a nod or a mumbled “sure,” with only me knowing that 1,200 feet of the South Bell remained.
By the 1990s, the questions increased. Tens of thousands of climbers had given way to hundreds of thousands every summer.
I watched people blitz through the easy ones and then slow down as they tackled the hardest dozen. Only four to go, they would say. Down to the last two. Then victory: They had climbed them all, and sometimes they even came to my house to have me sign their copy of my book. They were ecstatic, but I was pretty smug. I hadn’t climbed them all, and I was mighty glad.
Then one day I went with Jim Gehres to reclimb Snowmass Mountain – my second time, his 12th. Jim introduced me to Marlene and, as they say, the rest is history. Snowmass was Marlene’s 30th fourteener. By the time we were married, she had only three to go.
Marlene already had summited South Maroon with Jim several years before, but one of the three she had left to climb was the North Bell. I still eschewed the South, but what if I ended up with her on the North Bell only 700 yards from the South’s summit?
In August 2004, 24 years after I turned around in the snowy couloir, the question was answered. Marlene and I started up the North Bell with Estes Park climbing legend Mike Caldwell and the ever-reliable Omar.
The morning was pristine. We traversed the big ledge, scampered up the two main couloirs, split a 20-foot crack on the summit ridge, and followed a lone mountain goat to the summit. Great views and Marlene’s 53rd fourteener.
It was damp, and clouds were beginning to build, but we still had a couple of hours. Was it time to climb my last fourteener? Mike looked over at the South Bell and said that he would go over there “in a heartbeat.” I had already told Omar that if I was ever going to do the traverse, it would be that day with him. Marlene was dubious, but clearly outvoted. Off we went.
Mike Caldwell is a real climber. The rest of us are aging amateurs in comparison, but he patiently shepherded us up and down a series of rocky steps.
One and a half hours, we had said, two at the max. Two hours came and went. Finally, we reached the low point and started up the South Bell proper. Spittle – that cross between snow and hail – hit us a second time, and the roll of thunder continued, but it didn’t matter. There was no place to go but up. We scurried up another small step and reached the slabs of the South Bell’s summit ridge.
We simply walked across the summit and continued down its south ridge. It was not the time to be the highest thing around. Twenty-four years in coming, less than 24 seconds in passing.
We continued down the messy maze of the South Bell’s standard route and reached the valley just as the rains began in earnest. Within an hour, there was heavy snow above 13,000 feet.
Omar and I took stock of our count. We were each 52 years old, and over 32 years had managed to climb 52 of the 54 fourteeners together. Inexplicably, the two summits we now hadn’t been on together were Mount Democrat and Mount Bross, usually ranked among the easiest. We made plans to climb them together some day at age 62 or 72. After all, what’s the rush?
