Summit Statistics for Gary Swing
As of December, 2007, I have hiked all 637 ranked Colorado summits over 13,000 feet (plus five “aspiring thirteeners”) with very few fatal accidents, all 64 Colorado county highpoints, the 21 ranked Lost Creek Wilderness summits over 11,500 feet, six segments of the Colorado Trail, all legally accessible parts of the Highline Canal Trail, ten state highpoints, the lowest point in Louisiana, sections of the Appalachian Trail in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina, and the entire Georgia section of the Appalachian Trail. I update my summit statistics at http://www.listsofjohn.com/CompletionAll.php?M=GarySwing
Self-Propulsion Resume for Gary Swing
1967
- Embryonic state – no self-propulsion.
1968
- Born January 30, started crawling sometime that year (a useful skill for spelunking).
1969
- Learned how to walk, a talent that has since assisted me in reaching mountain summits.
1971
- Started riding a tricycle.
1973
- Started riding a bicycle.
1976
- Climbed Mount Sundae to get to the topping.
1979
- Burned out a pogo stick.
1981
- Last person to complete a century (100 mile) bicycle ride in New Jersey.
1982
- Elected ride coordinator of the South Jersey Wheelmen bicycle club, youngest person to hold a board position for the club.
1983
- Bicycled from Vineland, New Jersey to Killington, Vermont.
1984
-Backpacked from Killington, Vermont to Bennington, Vermont on the Appalachian Trail.
- Made my debut as a movie star, playing the protagonist role of “good bicyclist” in a bicycle safety film for the New Jersey Department of Transportation.
- Started hiking with the Outdoor Club of New Jersey.
1985
- Ran a marathon of my own design by myself; collapsed on hallway floor at home immediately thereafter.
- Stopped running.
- Walked 21 miles home alone from a party at night in thick fog. Told my parents I took a bus.
- Invented the sport of “basketcasing.” I was pulled over by police for going 30 miles per hour in a shopping cart. Technically this was not self-propulsion as I was holding on to the tailgate of a pickup truck at the time.
1986-1987
- Walked from New York City to Washington, DC twice for nuclear disarmament.
1987
- Solo bicycled 150 mile one day route from Washington, DC to Woodbury, New Jersey via Philadelphia.
- Solo bicycled a double century (200 mile) one day route of my own design around southern New Jersey. Ate a 16 inch diameter pizza and drank a two liter bottle of soda on the Wildwood Boardwalk.
1988
- Backpacked solo on Appalachian Trail for about 100 miles southbound from Front Royal, Virginia through Shenandoah National Park.
1989
- Backpacked a section of the Appalachian Trail in New Hampshire and Maine.
- Co-founded the Outdoor Club at American University in Washington, DC.
1990
- Moved to Boulder, Colorado on January 1 as a transfer student at the University of Colorado.
- Joined University of Colorado Hiking Club. Hiked first fourteener, Longs Peak.
- Backpacked and inner-tubed Death Hollow canyon in Utah.
1991
- Backpacked The Maze in Canyonlands National Park, Utah.
- Bought Borneman and Lampert’s fourteener guidebook. Started hiking fourteeners as a hobby.
1993
- Walked like an Egyptian.
1999
- Solo hiked my final fourteener, Capitol Peak.
2000
- Joined the Colorado Mountain Club. I later became a CMC trip leader.
- Carried a watermelon up a thirteener for the first time: Pettingell Peak, June 24.
2002
- Finished Colorado county highpoints on Summit Peak.
2004
- Hiked 68 thirteeners. Did my biggest single peakbagging trip thus far: “Weminuche Wilderness for Masochists.”
- Won the “Most Creative Gorilla Award” for my mountaineering gorilla costume at the first annual Denver Gorilla Run in October.
- I went rollerblading for the second time. I rollerbladed 24 miles that day -- even though I kept crashing into things -- to try to impress a woman who somehow failed to be favorably impressed.
2005
- Solo hiked 50 miles in one day on the “Plattetude Problem” hike, February 25.
- Hiked 200 thirteeners in three and a half months on my first “Homeless on the Range Expedition.”
- Completed Colorado’s top 100 summits solo on Jupiter Mountain.
- Straddled drainage pipe at Louisiana state low point in post-Katrina New Orleans.
2006
- Hiked 84 thirteeners on “Triskaidekeuphoria: Homeless on the Range 2 Expedition.”
2007
- Finished Colorado’s top 200 and 300 summits on Peak Fifteen, August 27.
- Finished top 400 and legal 500 on Peak Four, August 28.
- Finished all Colorado thirteeners on South River Peak, September 16.
- Backpacked southern 150 miles of Appalachian Trail starting at Springer Mountain, Georgia in November.
Future Wish List:
- Hike the Appalachian Trail from North Carolina to Cape Gaspe Peninsula, Quebec.
- Finish the Colorado Trail.
- Hike the length of New Zealand on the Te Araroa Trail.
- Hike across the Alps.
- Walk across Ireland on the Coast to Coast Route.
- Bicycle tour the Canadian Rockies.
- Free solo Olympus Mons.
- Obtain superhuman climbing abilities from the bite of a radioactive spider.
Personal Links and Stories
Home Page – Gary Swing: Thought Criminal
2005 14erworld Spotlight on Gary Swing
New Orleans Tourists Reach a New Low