Triple crown for Suicide prevention

[jgar15]

I hope everyone is getting ready for another great season of climbing the 14ers! After living in Colorado for over a year I am doing something a little bigger this summer. I am hiking the triple crown of hiking (Appalachian Trail, Pacific Crest trail and Continental Divide Trail) all in the same year for about 9 months and 7,500 miles of hiking. I am doing it for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention not only to just raise money but more importantly to bring awareness to a cause that none of us like to talk about. I write a blog/journal post every day on my site and facebook page and invite you to follow along, or at the very to just bring up the cause that is near and dear to me. I am currently 270 miles and two weeks into my great adventure!

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I hope everyone stays safe in my favorite state climbing some of my favorite mountains (Capital Peak is my favorite)

-Jeff

[aweskamp]

Good luck!

[spiderman]

Good luck and have an amazing journey. CapitOl is definitely one of my favorite mountains in Colorado and I am glad never to have to go across that knife edge again.

This is a great cause. I have lost several friends to suicide over the last 30 years. That is one of the leading causes of death in my age category, yet not talked about too much in the media compared to terrorism or mass shootings. When was the last time that a presidential candidate addressed this issue? With 41,000 suicide deaths a year, it is like a 9/11 every single month of every single year.

Of particular importance when we are on this topic, I lost one friend last year partly due to cyber bullying on a different climbing forum. I would like to stress the importance of good manners and supportive messages on 14ers.com. For some of us, climbing and hiking is a large part of our identity and contributes to a major part of our self esteem. We all have different ability and experience levels and must encourage each other, regardless of our relative talents. Most of the time we are all very cordial, but occasionally someone opens up a large can of anger...

[ezabielski]

Very, very few people have completed a calendar year triple crown (3 or 4?). I hope you join that select group. I don't think any of them did the AT first, so you're doing something different. Good luck!

Haymaker (PCT '15)

[Shattuck311]

Agreed with Eli, only a handful of people have ever accomplished this in a calendar year. However, I know of a handful that are attempting this year. You'll probably run into Jabba (the real hiking viking), and the woman who wrote 'married to the trail' on the AT. Both are on it now, looking for a calendar triple. Best of luck to all of you, even just getting out there and attempting is very admirable!

[Wish I lived in CO]

Sounds exciting! Good luck and be safe.

[Yukon Ron]

Incredible task, but a tremendous opportunity for adventure. Have fun, be safe.

[quackquackcolorado]

Good luck, Jeff! I stumbled across your blog a while ago - and also Mary's marriedtothetrail, another AT nobo going for the calendar triple crown. If done, you guys will be joining a very small and elite group of hikers.

[Jesse M]

Jeff is now in Colorado! He is a hiking machine!

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[ezabielski]

Pretty amazing what Legend is doing. A very small number of people have done the AT, PCT, and CDT in a year. He's averaged 29.4 miles per day for the past two hundred and twelve days, including days off. He's still going to have to hoof it across Colorado to make it before the snow flies in the San Juans!

[vusteph]

Pretty amazing what Legend is doing. A very small number of people have done the AT, PCT, and CDT in a year. He's averaged 29.4 miles per day for the past two hundred and twelve days, including days off. He's still going to have to hoof it across Colorado to make it before the snow flies in the San Juans!

And he takes side trips!

[pbakwin]

Just clarifying some terms/history: Flyin' Brian Robinson was the first person to complete the Calendar Triple Crown in 2001. When he said "calendar" he meant a calendar year, i.e., 2001. Brian started at Springer Mtn on January 1 with the intent to thru-hike the AT. That was an unusually snowy spring in New England, and he got bogged down by snow in I think March, so bailed on northern New England and went to hike the southern CDT instead. He returned to the AT at the end, and finished on Katadin around the last of Oct.

On a personal note, a read about Brian's trip on the Ultralist in early Sept that year & was blown away by what he was doing. As he was coming thru CO on the CDT just then, Buzz & I drove over to Grand Lake to meet him & hike with him for a couple days (it must have been almost exactly 15 years ago today). Talking to Brian & seeing what he was doing opened my eyes to some things and really changed my life in some ways. Later, I was able to do some wonderful trips with him.

Live the dream!

Edit: I looked it up, it was 9/8/2001 that we met Brian!