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30 years ago a friend and I started climbing a lot in the Indian Peaks. That summer (1993) we decided to climb all nine 13ers in the Wilderness Area, including the 2 illegal ones that are in the City of Boulder Watershed (which we did by full moon that October). We really got into snow climbing, and my father-in-law gave me his 1950s vintage wood shaft ax, which was my first ice ax and I still have. Since then I have gradually explored every corner of the IPW. Several years ago Mike Priddy and I cleaned up the remote NW corner in a dozen-peak, 2-day blitz (including Acoma, Twin, Roaring, Watanga, Hiamovi, Hiamovi Tower, Irving Hale, Cooper, Marten, Martenette, Blackfoot and Thunderbolt.). In 2012 I did the Mohling Traverse (Lone Eagle, Limbo, Iroquois, George, Apache), and several years later (2019) the next ridge west, which I called "Mohling 2" (adding Cherokee, Achonee & Hopi). I did all of the LA Freeway, though unfortunately not all at once. Etc.!
In recent years I didn't get many new IPW summits since the ones I've been missing are rather uninteresting. But this fall I started to feel like it's time to finish off this project. I hiked Bald, Woodland, Chittenden and Guinn. Lonesome has been eluding me because it's waaay over on the west side, and yet another uninspiring, tree-covered lump. But, with yet more fantastic weather I decided to just go do it. Since I live in Boulder I just drove up to 4th of July (oh that road!) and hiked over Caribou Pass then aaaall the way down nearly to Monarch Lake. And back. Oy!
I count 50 summits on Gerry Roach's list (the usual rule is to include every officially named summit, and every ranked summit as well), but he seems to have missed 2 ranked 11ers that are west of Neva but clearly on the IPW boundary (oddly, I don't see these in LoJ either). Adding in the illegal Watershed peaks brings it up to 55 (in truth I'm still missing Albion, which is a 12er in the Watershed).
Summit of Lonesome (see the cairn?) You simply can not find the true summit of these things without a GPS.
No, I'm not planning to go for an FKT for all the IPW summits. Too old! But someone should do it. I think maybe I no longer have any goals at all.
What a wonderful place to live!
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