Re: How many people have climbed them all?
Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2012 3:15 am
Hyadventure wrote:I’m attempting my last 3 California 14’ers this summer. After that I plan to turn my attention to Rainier, and then the balance of my Colorado 14’ers. If I finish this up how small a club would I join? 100? 1,000?
In Colorado bagging 14’ers seems to be quite a popular pastime. I’m guessing there maybe thousands of people who may have bagged them all? Here in California most people don’t even know what a 14’er is outside of Mt. Whitney. And since a half dozen of the California 14’ers require serious skills/effort I’m guessing far less than a thousand have bagged them all.
How many people do you think may have climbed every (72?) fourteener in the continuous 48? Do you know any? I know a half dozen people who have climbed all 15 California 14’ers, but I haven’t heard of/met anyone whose climbed them all
<Bump> Rather than start a new thread I decided to resurect this one and try to get it back on the topic started by the OP. I finally get to join the ranks of those who have been to the top of All of the recognized (and often disputed) California Fourteeners.
Shasta proved to be most elusive for me, taking six attempts. This was for various reasons including lack of preparedness, sever weather, partners getting sick or injured, and partners just wanting to turn around. Five of my six attempts of Shasta were on Snow with A/T skis.
For most of the other peaks I was able to summit on the first attempt. The only other exception was Thunderbolt. Thunderbolt was my second Fourteener in the sequence.
I completed this quest along with a good friend and my brother. We were also pondering the question of how many people can honestly claim they've summited the most widely recognized list of the 15 California Fouteeners. Our educated guess is similar to other posters who estimated it to be over 1,000. And that estimate was two years ago I'm sure the count rises more rapidly each year. But we're still guessing that it's less than 4,000.