2011 will probably go down as a year of hiking never to be equaled. I must have stretched my legs on over 30 hikes -23 of which included reaching the summit of a mountain. This blows away my previous record in 2000 by nine additional summits.
This was also the first year I climbed a mountain in every month of the year, including first time summits in the months of January and February.
Enjoying a snack on Bergen Peak in January.
Resting on the top of an unnamed peak in February. An unusually mild winter made hiking much easier in the early months of the year than it normally would.
The only notable accomplishment I did not make was adding another Colorado 14er (14,000-foot peak) to my slowly growing list of 25 (out of 54). Doing so has become more of a challenge since I have climbed all but a couple 14ers in fairly close driving range. 14ers take a long time to climb and also are very grueling, mostly due to the distance and elevation gain.
This was a year of convenience, so the excess generally came in the form of numbers of peaks, and not elevation. However, I did climb five 13ers, and if you add up everything I climbed in 2011, the grand total comes to 228,948-feet above sea level! That is 105,428-feet higher than the jet aircraft flight altitude record (set in 1977 by A. Fedotov in a Russian YE-155, in case you were curious).
This was also the first year I had climbed mountains in three different states (Colorado, Utah, and Oregon).
(On the top of Mollie Hogans in Utah standing among slabs of petrified, ancient shoreline)
(The wife and I on the top of Garfield Peak next to Crater Lake in Oregon)
(On Mount Scott, the highest peak in Crater Lake National Park)
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So here is the roll call for 2011:
January: Bergen Peak (9,708)
February: Unnamed Mountain in Bear Creek Canyon (7,065)
March: Sugarloaf Peak (8,501)
April: Cathedral Spires (8,537)
May: Mollie Hogans in Utah (5,015)
June: Berrian Mountain (9,147)
July: Unnamed Peaks in the Mount Evans Wilderness (12,988/12,959)
Mount Spaulding (13,842)
Gray Wolf Mountain (13,602)
Unnamed Peak near French Pass: (12,520)
August: Mount Flora (13,132)
Legault Mountain (9,074)
Garfield Peak in Crater Lake National Park, Oregon (8,054)
September: Mount Scott in Crater Lake National Park, Oregon (8,929)
Unnamed Peaks near Loveland Pass (12,915/13,152)
Mount Sniktau (13,234)
October: Unnamed Peak in Lost Creek Wilderness (11,270)
November: Unnamed Peak near Conifer (8,770)
Unnamed Peak near Evergreen (7,971)
December: Unnamed Peak near Conifer (8,563)
One of many rewards for climbing mountains.
Awesome!