Of Mice and Mountaineers' final planned episode (at least as of its release) ties up as many loose ends as possible about mountains that most definitely did not need ropes but did seem to have me knotted up nevertheless, then leaves room for a future free of obsession over mountainous pursuits that are more about pure fun than filling out some checklist or another...ahh, who am I kidding? If this episode, like all its predecessors, is anything to go by, the spirit of compulsion will always be starving!

Written version: https://www.14ers.com/php14ers/tripreport.php?trip=23282

Being done with 14,000' mountains in Colorado did not mean mountains were done with me...after all, there were a select few 13,000' mountains that still had me under their spell, such as Mt. Meeker, the nearly next-door neighbor of the Longs Peak, a.k.a. the first fourteener that tried to kill me. With such an intimidating shadow looming as I went after its little sibling, what could possibly go wrong?!

After finishing Colorado's fourteeners, what better way to pay all my accumulated experience and knowledge forward than to give others a guide as to which to prioritize in a completely objective fashion?

After eighteen years (or nineteen, depending on how one decided to count), I was finally on the verge of climbing my last of Colorado's 58 officially designated 14,000' peaks...as long as I could finally prove I had learned enough from the first 57 to avoid serious self-sabotage.

Written version: https://www.14ers.com/php14ers/tripreport.php?trip=22333

My second-to-last new fourteener wasn't much fun to climb, but thanks to the second part of Crestone Needle's name, I was able to have some fun by taking numerous jabs at it that were in absolutely no way salacious, haha, in the writing that followed.

Written version: https://www.14ers.com/php14ers/tripreport.php?trip=22324

What I originally planned to be my final fourteener wound up being something of a nothingburger when it was merely my third to last, but it was a fine excuse to discuss my readiness to part ways with peaks that were more climbs than hikes in parts...and also be paradoxically pleased that the last two I had left would be such a pain.

Written version: https://www.14ers.com/php14ers/tripreport.php?trip=22232

Just because I'd finally faced down my nemesis peak, the one I'd fallen off in 2021, and come away with a new summit did not mean I was immune to finding a peak - one right across the valley - that would give it a run for its money in loathsomeness.

Written version: https://www.14ers.com/php14ers/tripreport.php?trip=22194

2022 was apparently the Year of the Revenge Peaks for me, and the Eoluses (Eolii?), the other half of the Chicago Basin quartet that I had failed to summit on my first trip into the basin earlier that year, were a doubleheader on which I was eager to score...and would have an opportunity to do so at the dawn of the Jewish new year.

Written version: https://www.14ers.com/php14ers/tripreport.php?trip=21986