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.

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

Summiting Sunlight and Windom, or half of what are arguably Colorado's most remote fourteeners, was a "fun" sort of reintroduction to climbing after my fall off Pyramid Peak, but eventually, I had to get back in the saddle or two that dwelled on my ultimate archnemesis mountain.

Written version: https://www.14ers.com/php14ers/tripreport.php?trip=21875

What looked like but a blip in my 14k' peak trip-reporting history was actually almost a year before I could get back to working on The List, but when I finally did stand (or rather, crouch) atop my first new summit after 51 painstaking weeks of recovery from falling off Pyramid Peak, it was quite the reintroduction.

Written version: https://www.14ers.com/php14ers/tripreport.php?trip=21729

Four years to the day of time to think about the aftereffects of falling and having to be airlifted off Pyramid Peak gave me plenty of material for a Buzzfeed-esque listicle about some things others might not consider (and will hopefully never need to know) about the before, during, and aftermath of being in a capital-I, rescue-necessitating Incident.

Written version: https://ofmiceandmountaineers.com/2025/07/06/what-to-expect-when-youre-expecting-search-and-rescue/

At the height of my self-confidence in my climbing skills, I thought I was about to break into the single digits of remaining Colorado fourteeners...only to deal with a different and far less pleasant sort of break instead.

Written version: https://www.14ers.com/php14ers/tripreport.php?trip=21207

After everything I'd put myself through in Colorado's Rockies throughout 2020, I figured I was ready for anything...and while that would turn out to be laughably false, at least I had some calm before the storm in the form of two vanilla-is-also-a-spice fourteeners.

Written version: https://www.14ers.com/php14ers/tripreport.php?trip=23069