This was a self-supported attempt to summit as many 14ers as I could in one 24-hour period. I followed the 3000-ft rule (incl. starting down the road from the trailhead in multiple cases), drove myself between each peak in my own car, and climbed each peak by myself.
I began the approach walk / hike from the Missouri Gulch parking lot to Clohesy Lake at 1:54pm. I got to the lake (3,000-ft below Missouri) around 4pm.
I chose to start in the late afternoon to make sure my legs were relatively fresh for the overnight portion, since I knew I would be totally alone. I also wanted to ensure I had daylight for the Nolan's trail cuts in the Missouri Gulch group. I chose to start with this group because I wanted to get progressively closer to home (and my emergency contacts) and be on the shorter, more popular front range trails as I became more fatigued.
This proved to be a safe strategy: at around the 12-hour mark, soon after beginning the hike up the road to Guanella Pass for Bierstadt, I puked up all my water and nutrition. After that, I was unable to eat and barely able to keep water down for the entire rest of the effort. I proceeded to bonk / sleep walk for the next 7.5 hours of the Bierstadt / Blue Sky linkup. I called it when I got back to my car. I didn't meet my goal, but I learned a lot from the experience and had a great time in the mountains!
Start: 4:04pm (activity link): 11.37mi / 6,010ft / 4h45m
1 - Missouri (5:40pm)
2 - Oxford (7:17pm)
3 - Belford (7:52pm)
Start: 10:21pm (activity link): 11.61mi / 4,764ft / 4h28m
4 - Democrat (12:13am)
5 - Lincoln (1:18am)
6 - Bross (1:49am)
Start: 4:13am (activity link): 12.75mi / 4,649ft / 7h38m
7 - Bierstadt (6:36am)
8 - Blue Sky (8:53am)
End: 11:51am
Total elapsed time: 19h47m
Thank you to coach Guy Love for helping me get back from injury and prep for this on short notice (about a week after Eric Lee gave me the idea to attempt his challenge). If you asked me in May if I could physically do 17k ft in a day (the total if you count 1,545ft on the approach) I would’ve laughed — just running down Boulder's Green mountain was painful. I'm so grateful to be back!
Thank you to so many friends and family who checked my tracker, texted me, and made sure I was still alive while I was pushing for so many hours by myself. This was my first time pulling an all-nighter since college, but I now have unfinished business on this “self-supported 14ers in 24h” objective. So I suspect it won’t be my last.