First Married Couple To Complete the Fourteen Thousands

[gore galore]

FIRST MARRIED COUPLE TO COMPLETE THE FOURTEEN THOUSANDS, PAUL AND RUTH GORHAM, 1944
by gore galore

It would be inevitable that when Carl Blaurock and Bill Ervin became the first to climb all of Colorado’s 14,000 foot peaks in 1923 and then Mary Cronin as the first woman in 1934 that there would eventually be a first married couple to climb them all.

It would be another twenty one years though when Paul and Ruth Gorham of Denver climbed Capitol Peak on August 15, 1944. It was their second attempt at Capitol and thus they completed climbing all of Colorado’s 52 mountains higher than 14,000 feet. They became the 16th and 17th persons as listed in the Colorado Mountain Club’s records of “Men and Women Who Have Climbed Them All.” Ruth Gorham also became the third woman to climb all of the 14,000 foot peaks.

Their first attempt at Capitol was in the late summer of 1943 when a group of eight went to Aspen with the express purpose of “finishing the fourteen thousands” for the Gorhams. Almost at once they encountered difficulties of rainy weather and route finding “as none of us was acquainted with the terrain and we relied upon information given us by persons who later proved to know no more about it than we.” On their way out with their pack horses they stopped to chat with some “natives” who were building a bridge across Snowmass Creek and “we were earnestly assured that no one had ever climbed that peak.” (Capitol)

But the Gorhams still had Capitol to finish and a party of nine under the leadership of Carl Blaurock returned the following year. They reached the top amidst threatening storms and the lateness of the hour. “We rejoiced in the completion of the fourteen thousands by Ruth and Paul Gorham and it was an elated group which met around the camp fire that evening.”

Among the members of the party were Charles A. and Marion R. Rymer who wrote the outing report and they would later become the second married couple to climb the 14,000 foot peaks in 1948. Ruth would later write of their Capitol Peak trip with Carl Blaurock that “this was home territory to Carl.” After the Gorhams finished, “The Saturday Evening Post” noted their accomplishment with an article and illustration. (I have not been able to locate this undated article.)

Paul Gorham came from Connecticut and graduated from Colorado College in 1928 where he became enamored with the mountains. Ruth also was from Connecticut where they married in 1929. Paul climbed Pikes Peak in 1926 and Ruth climbed Grays Peak in 1933 when they joined the Colorado Mountain Club “to get acquainted” with others. They were active climbers with the club in the 1930's and 1940's. They averaged one peak each weekend a season with their own record being seven peaks in a week.

Among their memories was the return in the dark from climbing the Maroons, when they found their way down “by the Braille system.” Ruth would modestly credit their success in climbing the 14,000 foot peaks “to the pair of feet ahead of hers which showed her where to step.” They climbed all but two together.

In the Gorham’s opinion, “sunburn cream, denim jeans, short rain coats, hob-nailed boots, and probably two pairs of wool hose are about enough in the way of equipment and clothing for a climb.” And of course food, sleeping bags, “and more food.” “You get mighty hungry after a hike up a mountain,” the Gorhams said in a newspaper interview. “And we always go in groups which is much the safest way.”

One of their climbing projects was to reclimb all the 14,000-foot peaks with their two-and-a-half-year-old daughter Nancy who “will be initiated into the joys of mountain climbing just as soon as she’s old enough.”

Paul Gorham held many positions in the Colorado Mountain Club becoming its president in 1958. Two weeks before he was to receive his 40-year membership certificate from the CMC Paul Gorham passed away in 1973. Ruth accepted the award for him at the annual dinner. Carl Blaurock would write that “Paul was a gentleman of the first order.”

Almost fifty years after the Gorhams completed the 14,000 foot peaks and twenty years after Paul passed away, Ruth Gorham placed a notice in a 1993 issue of the Denver Group Newsletter appealing to club members to help her find a photograph book that was lent to the club and mistakenly returned to someone else. The book labeled “All the 14s” is “very dear to me because my deceased husband compiled it when we were very young . . . I am truly grieved at its loss.”

I am not aware of whether Mrs. Gorham’s book was ever returned to her so “it could go to her children,” as she said. I can only imagine the stories that photograph book would hold of climbing the Colorado 14,000 foot peaks in the 1930's and 1940's. Perhaps the newspaper photo of the young married couple on the summit of Capitol Peak in 1944 and the photo of Paul Gorham in “The Saturday Evening Post” were from the book. I don’t believe though that the Gorhams ever reclimbed all of the 14s with their children as they might have wanted to do.

Paul and Ruth Gorham are long forgotten and unknown today. But they were the first married couple of many more couples and families to come to climb the Colorado 14,000 foot peaks. And because of this something of their story deserves to be told.

[susanjoypaul]

Thank you for researching this story, writing it up, and posting it! I love reading about the climbing history of the 14ers.

In the Gorham’s opinion, “sunburn cream, denim jeans, short rain coats, hob-nailed boots, and probably two pairs of wool hose are about enough in the way of equipment and clothing for a climb.”

Yep, that about covers it

[Mtnman200]

Great story; I love the history! Thanks for posting...

[Teresa Gergen]

We need more history lessons! The stories do deserve to be told.

And in more recent history, husband and wife Tim and Carrie Cooney ("The Climbing Cooneys") finished all the 584 13ers, having climbed each one of them together, in August 2013.

[d_baker]

I think it would be great if this site had a dedicated forum (CO mountaineering history?) for posts such as this one and the other posts by gore galore, and for any other posts as they relate to our mountain climbing history.

Thanks gore galore for once again educating us on those that came before us. Nice addition too, Teresa.

[Jay521]

Thanks gore galore for once again educating us on those that came before us. Nice addition too, Teresa.

My thoughts exactly. Thanks to both of you.