1st 14'er climbed!

[mgl45]

Congratulations for getting into the arena.

Good luck wherever you go from here.

Thanks much!

[mgl45]

That's great! Congratulations. Must feel good.

Thanks, yes, watching my compass app show elevation exceeding my high point (12,500 last year on Unvea and 13,250 a week ago on Sniktau" felt great and then when I reached the top, wow!

[mgl45]

Congratulations! I figured if you could climb Guadalupe Peak, you should be okay with Sherman.

Thanks!

Yeah, the wild card to me was when I did Guadalupe Peak in February the PFS in my knee had not started.

But from an endurance standpoint, Sherman was no problem, I just kept chugging along. I did a lot of altitude acclimation too, gradually increasing sleeping elevation from 7500 feet to 10k over the last 4 weeks, and that seemed to do the trick for that part of it.

[Gene913]

Yesterday I climbed Mount Sherman from Fourmile Creek road. I have wanted to climb a 14'er my whole life and finally it happened

On the heels of your success, let me encourage you a little more: Go get Elbert now.

My wife and daughter had never done a 14er before when they joined me on the Elbert climb. Afterwards, I asked them if they wanted to do another one. My wife looked at my daughter, and then looked back at me, and said "Didn't you say Elbert was the tallest 14er in Colorado?" When I replied, "yes" she immediately said, "Well then why would I need to do another one?"

No matter how many 14er summits you do after Sherman, if you do Elbert you will have the always have the satisfaction of knowing you stood at the summit of the tallest peak in Colorado.

I think you will get as much joy out of doing that as others get out of doing them all.

You can do it.

[mgl45]

Yesterday I climbed Mount Sherman from Fourmile Creek road. I have wanted to climb a 14'er my whole life and finally it happened

On the heels of your success, let me encourage you a little more: Go get Elbert now.

My wife and daughter had never done a 14er before when they joined me on the Elbert climb. Afterwards, I asked them if they wanted to do another one. My wife looked at my daughter, and then looked back at me, and said "Didn't you say Elbert was the tallest 14er in Colorado?" When I replied, "yes" she immediately said, "Well then why would I need to do another one?"

No matter how many 14er summits you do after Sherman, if you do Elbert you will have the always have the satisfaction of knowing you stood at the summit of the tallest peak in Colorado.

I think you will get as much joy out of doing that as others get out of doing them all.

You can do it.

Thanks for the encouragement!

"No matter how many 14er summits you do after Sherman, if you do Elbert you will have the always have the satisfaction of knowing you stood at the summit of the tallest peak in Colorado. "

Exactly. That is a huge draw to Elbert for me!

Here is my concern though. Assuming my knee with the PFS would hold up for nearly double the miles and elevation gain of what I did on Sherman, there is the more mundane consideration of time/speed. It took me 7 hours to do Sherman, 0.71mph, because the knee brace is slowing me down.

IIRC Elbert is a little over 10 miles, and steeper. If my rate of speed was still 0.71mph, that would be a 14 hour day, which would mean staring the hike around midnight to be before the treeline by noon (I'm ballpark a bit, haven't researched exactly where the treeline is on Elbert). I've never hiked anywhere near that many hours straight or started anywhere near that early.

I think I've got to wean myself off of this knee brace and get my speed back to something more manageable before tackling a hike as long as Elbert.

[Mtnman200]

IIRC Elbert is a little over 10 miles, and steeper. If my rate of speed was still 0.71mph, that would be a 14 hour day, which would mean staring the hike around midnight to be before the treeline by noon (I'm ballpark a bit, haven't researched exactly where the treeline is on Elbert).

Treeline is typically around 11,500'.

[-wren-]

a big ol’ kudos to you, stoked that you had a wonderful time, we hope to have you back very soon!! Happy trails

[MaryinColorado]

Congratulations!! That's really exciting especially given the physical hardship. Great perseverance! And sounds like you were smart to be cognizant about bringing extra gear. (There are plenty of people out there who aren't carrying as much as they should, so this is great.) Best of luck to you in whichever 14er you may pursue next! Sherman was a great choice to start with. Cheers!

[daway8]

...and had a 15lb pack of "just in case" stuff, which didn't appear to be typical.

Awesome, congrats on pushing through to a successful summit!!!

As for the "just in case" stuff, I almost always win the largest pack on the mountain contest - oftentimes it mostly goes unused but I've had many a times when those backup layers and such have saved the day. Even when they're not needed it's good conditioning.

Obviously you can overdo it and really bog yourself down needlessly but I don't think 15lbs sounds unreasonable at all and I always remember the day I decided to stop packing all the extra stuff and got caught in a freak summer snowstorm and thought I was going to freeze to death...

[schumi248]

Yesterday I climbed Mount Sherman from Fourmile Creek road. I have wanted to climb a 14'er my whole life and finally it happened

On the heels of your success, let me encourage you a little more: Go get Elbert now.

My wife and daughter had never done a 14er before when they joined me on the Elbert climb. Afterwards, I asked them if they wanted to do another one. My wife looked at my daughter, and then looked back at me, and said "Didn't you say Elbert was the tallest 14er in Colorado?" When I replied, "yes" she immediately said, "Well then why would I need to do another one?"

No matter how many 14er summits you do after Sherman, if you do Elbert you will have the always have the satisfaction of knowing you stood at the summit of the tallest peak in Colorado.

I think you will get as much joy out of doing that as others get out of doing them all.

You can do it.

Thanks for the encouragement!

"No matter how many 14er summits you do after Sherman, if you do Elbert you will have the always have the satisfaction of knowing you stood at the summit of the tallest peak in Colorado. "

Exactly. That is a huge draw to Elbert for me!

Here is my concern though. Assuming my knee with the PFS would hold up for nearly double the miles and elevation gain of what I did on Sherman, there is the more mundane consideration of time/speed. It took me 7 hours to do Sherman, 0.71mph, because the knee brace is slowing me down.

IIRC Elbert is a little over 10 miles, and steeper. If my rate of speed was still 0.71mph, that would be a 14 hour day, which would mean staring the hike around midnight to be before the treeline by noon (I'm ballpark a bit, haven't researched exactly where the treeline is on Elbert). I've never hiked anywhere near that many hours straight or started anywhere near that early.

I think I've got to wean myself off of this knee brace and get my speed back to something more manageable before tackling a hike as long as Elbert.

Nice work!! Judging from how you did on Sherman, I would suggest either bierstadt or democrat as your next ones. Bierstadt is a little longer, but not much, Democrat is actually shorter, but just as much elevation gain, so steeper. If you don’t care about 14er or not, the sniktau/Cupid/grizzly group is a good one to build up endurance. If you do sniktau first, you can go over to Cupid if you feel like it, or turn to head down, and if you feel good after Cupid, head for grizzly.

[mgl45]

a big ol’ kudos to you, stoked that you had a wonderful time, we hope to have you back very soon!! Happy trails

Thanks much for your kudos and welcoming spirit!

[mgl45]

Congratulations!! That's really exciting especially given the physical hardship. Great perseverance! And sounds like you were smart to be cognizant about bringing extra gear. (There are plenty of people out there who aren't carrying as much as they should, so this is great.) Best of luck to you in whichever 14er you may pursue next! Sherman was a great choice to start with. Cheers!

Thanks for your congrats and compliments!