The Backyard Adventure: A different kind of push (50 peaks from the front door)
"A challenge is a lot like riding a horse, if you are comfortable while doing it, you are probably doing it wrong" ~ Ted Lasso
The Goal
The goal is to summit all 9000ft+ peaks within the Pikes Peak region of the front range (i.e. the "Backyard") from my front door and back under only human power. Along the ways, I look to learn new things about myself and my surroundings, and will share a critical lessons learned with each effort.
The backyard adventure is what you make of it. It means different things to different people. To me it means following three simple rules:
1) The effort must start and end at your house
2) All movement in this effort must be self powered (run/hike, bike, ski/splitboard, etc.). A backyard adventure = a low carbon footprint adventure!
3) It is entirely self supported (no resupplies or caches en route, though supporting small local businesses along your route is highly encouraged when able!)
At the start of the project, I identified 50 different peaks to summit. In alphabetical order, they are (with elevation in ft above MSL):
Almagre Mountain - 12363 - Completed (30 June 2024)
Bison Mountain - 12392
Black Mountain - 10135
Blodgett Peak - 9426
Blue Mountain - 9840
Bottomless pit - 11400
Cameron Cone - 10706 - Completed (10 June 2023)
Cheyenne Mountain - 9564
Cow Mountain - 11129
Crystal Benchmark - 10504
Devils Playground - 13060
Devils Kitchen - 9138
Ormes Peak - 9722
Eagle Mountain - 9023
Elk Park Knoll - 11838
Gray Back Peak- 9341
Horns - 9177 - Completed (23 July 2023)
Kenosha Mountains - 12425
Kineo Mountain - 9456 - Completed (20 August 2023)
Knights Peak - 10460
Little Pikes - 13363
Little Pike North Peak - 13240
Mary's Mountain - 9856
McReynolds Peak - 12438
Mount Arthur - 10804
Mount Big Chief - 11169
Mount Garfield - 10916
Mount Manitou - 9439 - Completed (21 April 2023)
Mount Rosa - 11506 - Completed (6 May 2023)
Mount Vigil - 10023
North Tarryall Peak - 11902
Pikes Peak - 14110 - Completed (10 August 2024)
Rain Benchmark - 11310
Raspberry Mountain - 10581
Rocky Mountain - 9239 - Completed (21 April 2023)
Runs Down Fast Mountain - 11048
Sachett Mountain - 12580
Saint Peters Dome - 9656 - Completed (23 July 2023)
San Luis Peak - 10414
Sentinel Point - 12514
Sheep Mountain - 9804
Soldier Peak - 9180
South Tarryall Peak - 11211
Stove Mountain - 9791 - Completed (23 September 2023)
Sugarloaf Mountain - 9626
Tenney Crags - 10093
Thunder Butte - 9836
Topaz Mountain - 11762
Tuckaway Mountain - 10800
Vigil Peak - 10073
The Motivation
So why do this? Why do this seemingly crazy, rather arbitrarily defined thing? Is it not a better use of your time to prepare for actual races? And when are you going to do an actual race again? Its only been since 2020….
Races are great. They give you the opportunity to test yourself against competition, they are logistically taken care off (i.e. you don’t have to carry 24 hours worth of nutrition on your back, and there is medical assistance on course, always nice…), and you usually get something shiny upon completion (and typically also some cheap free beer and pizza). These are all great motivators to endure a sufferfest in the mountains. While I enjoy those motivators and will likely someday enter an actual race again (maybe, once I am in shape enough for Ouray 100), I am interested in the mental and physical process when these motivators are taken away.
Eventually you will encounter the overwhelming desire to quit. When those aforementioned motivators are not there, you have to manufacture more. Manufacturing this “more” is an important life skill that must be practiced from time to time, otherwise it will go stale. It provides me with recurring experience to overcome being overwhelmed, and to continue on towards a hard goal without constantly questioning the why and doubting myself. And as with any practice, doing it in a way that is appealing to you is important. Spending a day in the mountains definitely checks that box. At the end of the day, it all comes down to exploring my own strengths, weaknesses and limits, and taking that knowledge back to everyday life.
I think accomplished ultra-endurance athlete and Barkley Marathon finisher John Kelly said it best. There is no greater source of strength in a bad situation than having overcome a (past) situation that was as bad or worse. These challenges provide you the experience and an arsenal of comebacks from future low points, whether those low points come in physical activities or not.
Completed Peaks
Pikes Peak - 10 August 2024 [Peak 10/50]
Three years ago, while visiting Colorado for a house hunting trip, we first stood outside our future home. What caught my eye was the clear view of pikes peak summit from our front door. Only 4 months removed from knee surgery, I told myself that one day I would make my way from the front door to the summit and back on foot. This was the genesis of my 50 9000ft+ peaks from the front door and back project.
One of the thing I think that makes us human is the ability to create massive challenges and efforts from a single thought, and learn and grow along the way. Last month I completed that goal i set 3 years ago together with my good friend Kyle, summiting Pikes Peak from the front door and back via the section 16/intemann and barr trails.
People say covering long distances in the mountains builds character. I personally don’t think that is an accurate statement. Character is built way before that. In how one lives their everyday life. Covering long distances in the mountains does reveal true character. Kyle revealed his true character, managing his longest distance ever by more than 10 miles with only 2 days of altitude acclamation coming from sea level. His push up the second half of the mountain took a lot of grit and perseverance.
The most common question I get from people is why. Why do this effort when it’s not even part of a race where at least you get a shirt and a medal? Part of the answer is that as a new dad, these self organized efforts take the travel out of the equation as well as giving me a lot of flexibility in controlling the date and start time that best works for my family.
The other part of that answer is self discipline. Everytime you take on something like this you foster self discipline. You are normalizing hard work, and proving to yourself that you can make it through the most arduous of efforts completely voluntary. Self discipline is the discipline that survives when times get rough. It comes from you. It comes from when you make a decision to be better, to do more, and to be more. It adds momentum to your path. It Makes the resistance to get started lower, and the resistance to blow things off higher. This has countless benefits for your everyday life, as The way you do one thing is the way you do everything
Almagre Mountain - 30 June 2024 [Peak 9/50]
After 3 failed attempts last year I finally succeeded in summiting Almagre Mountain (12,367ft) from the house and back last weekend. In past attempts I had never even completed the mountain bike portion to the trailhead, falling victim to the 21mile unforgiving uphill climb in deep gravel that is Gold Camp Road. I have quit out of frustration, out of physical fatigue, and because I ran out of time.
What allowed me to get to the trailhead this time around, other than leaving earlier, is a skill that I have been trying to hone ever since my failed attempt at the Pikes Peak double summit last September, and that is to be patient in my weakness. Being able to move through your weakness instead of throwing in the towel is a hugely beneficial skill to practice for life in general.
Mountain biking is my weakness, but by getting off the bike every hour, taking in nutrition every 45minutes, and only seeing as far as the shine of my headlamp for the whole ride allowed me to compartmentalize the entire effort into smaller and more manageable chunks. This gave me a ton of confidence for future rides and proved to me that the best way to turn weakness into a strength is by being patient in it.
Stove Mountain - 23 September 2023 [Peak 8/50]
Performance for me is no longer how I rank in a race, but the prep that goes into an effort, any effort you undertake. All the little things that you did to get yourself to the point of being able to tackle a challenge, to get there the best you could. I had set out to summit Mt Almagre with a technical approach via the St Mary’s Fall connector trail off of Gold Camp Road. Due to the technicality of the trail which caused me to have to hike a bike most of it, I ended up falling short of reaching the Mt Almagre trail-head and was forced to turn around. On the way back however, I did manage to summit Stove mountain via the west spine. While I summitted and knocked off a peak off of my list, I did not reach my original goal but was able to learn a lot about my capabilities and limitations.
Mtn Kineo - 20 August 2023 [Peak 7/50]
Since I started this project people always ask me why I am running or biking to the trailhead and back. Don’t you know you can just drive there? Are you a glutton for punishment? Where I find my strength is in the struggle, its not all about the extra running or biking, it is about what those things do for your mentality. There is something about seeing a peak in the distance and knowing you conquered it all under your own power. It makes all the other hard things in your life just a little easier. I am a glutton for growth.
St Peters Dome & Horns - 23 July 2023 [Peak 5 & 6/50]
Taking on a challenge does not always need to start with you being motivated. My legs felt heavy from the start after a long week, I started late and the day was going to be hot, I didn't have any of my gear prepped. The excuses kept rolling in. You can overcome all this negativity with just a single step, and then another, and before you know it you are on your way to tackle one of the biggest efforts of the year. Was able to bag 2 more peaks door to door (#5 and 6 out of 50), St Peter's Dome (9580ft) and the iconic Horns (9200ft) after a lengthy approach by bike. Also had plenty opportunity to practice battling heat exhaustion through supplementary electrolyte and sodium intake, properly covering my skin, as well as soaking my clothes in running streams.
You take on these types of physical challenges because it allows you to build mental resilience. You choose to engage in this chosen suffering so that you can be more prepared for unchosen suffering in the future. There are other ways to do this, but it must include some form of struggle, and voluntarily taking on these types of sufferfests remains the most reliable and repeatable way to build mental fortitude. There is no perfect time to start other than right now. Build the mentality to show up every day of your life and learn to do your best work when you feel the least motivated.
Cameron Cone - 10 June 2023 [Peak 4/50]
The farther you go and the farther your push yourself, the more you are stretched out and the more you reveal about yourself. You are stripped raw and those experiences embed into your life and you learn a lot about who you are and how you respond to challenges and hardships. I like going to these places from time to time to learn more about myself, as these opportunities come few and far in-between in the modern world of digital convenience.
If you have done the incline and are ready for the next local challenge, this is it. Between the 4200ft of gain in the 3.5 mile ascent (the last 2000ft in the last mile), the never ending lose scree, and the constant class 3 scrambling, the descent is as hard earned as the ascent. A (not so) hidden gem, brutally constructive, making you work for every inch of forward progress.. this is one of the hardest mountains I have done in summer season and I am really glad it is in my backyard.
Mount Rosa - 6 May 2023 [Peak 3/50]
The mark of a good challenge is when it ends up giving you what you didn't know you needed, rather than what you knew you wanted.
Back in November I had put the May 6th Fort Collins Quadrock 50 miler on my calendar, my first ultra since the 100K in February 2020. I wanted to feel the motivation and drive of racing fellow competitors again, and hoped that this would help me get over my physical and mental blocks of running longer distances faster after the knee surgery.
Throughout training I started to realize that I would not be able to get my fitness to a point to be able to run fast enough and long enough in time for the race. That may or may not come back with time. Instead of worrying about that, I started to appreciate my time in the mountains for much more than just preparing for a race. I found motivation in something much more primitive, a need to go out and explore with nothing more to support me than the things I carried on my back, a need to push myself physically and mentally, and a desire to spend time away from all the noise and comforts of modern day life.
I started another chapter of self-discovery simply by stepping out of the front door and moving long distances under my own power. Instead of driving 300 miles round trip to run a race where I would inevitably gain motivation from stocked aid-stations, cheering spectators, and a shiny finisher medal, I just needed to step out of my front door and replace all those external factors with intrinsic drivers. In the process I knocked out another roundtrip +9000ft peak summit with the iconic Mt Rosa (11506ft).
This is the power of the backyard adventure. You can go as far or as fast as you want. You can go whenever you want. It renews your concept of success and failure. You are not concerned how other people evaluate your performance and you make your own judgements about success and failure. I have never run slower in the mountains but have never had more fun doing it.
Mount Manitou & Rocky Mountain - 21 April 2023 [Peaks 1-2/50]
One of the most important things in life is finding a passion and pursuing it, even if that passion is as obscure as movement in the mountains. It drives me to become stronger physically and mentally, to become a better problem solver in less than favorable conditions, and get humbled by mountains that always win.
Kicked off a passion project of mine to roundtrip summit all fifty 9000+ ft peaks in the Pikes Peak area from the front door. Mount Manitou (9429ft) and Rocky Mountain (9239ft) in the books, including a great time up the incline with co-workers and knocking off another milestone in the 2786 push-up incline challenge (complete as many pushups as there are stairs while ascending the incline) by clocking in 420 pushups.
