FourteenerWorld Interview with Walt Borneman      March 2006

Anyone who has been interested in Colorado’s fourteeners for many years knows the name Walter Borneman. Walt, along with Lyndon Lampert, was the author of A Climbing Guide to Colorado’s Fourteeners, the first fourteeners guide book of any consequence. Much of the credit (some would say blame) for today’s peak-bagging craze can be traced to Walt’s book, first published in 1978 and in print for an impressive 25 years. I have my own dog-earred copy that has served the dual purpose of leading me in the right direction on the trail, and feeding my mountain-climbing fantasies while waiting for winter to end. So many people who started climbing fourteeners, with or without the goal of climbing them all, did so with Walt’s guide tucked into a daypack. It was truly a groundbreaking book, penned by someone who spent his days at Gunnison’s Western State College gazing south toward Uncompahgre Peak and the entirety of the mighty San Juans. He was following in the footsteps of pioneer climbers like Carl Blaurock and Bill Ervin, the first to climb all the fourteeners. But in writing the guide, Walt helped open the mountains to those who had previously only viewed them from afar.

Walt is a prolific writer, having penned books on Alaska, the War of 1812, and pending books on the French and Indian War and other history topics. But it’s his legacy as Colorado’s pioneering fourteeners guidebook author for which he will be most remembered. It is also what inspired the publication last year of 14,000 Feet: A Celebration of Colorado’s Highest Mountains, a coffee table book combining Walt’s vast knowledge of the history and legacy of the fourteeners with my photographs. While I doubt it will ever achieve the sort of legacy that Walt’s climbing guide has, I can only hope 14,000 Feet stays in print for half as many years as A Climbing Guide… did!

- Todd Caudle

When did you climb your first 14er? Which one was it?
My first 14er was Mount Antero on August 14, 1968. We made a classic late afternoon start from Baldwin Gulch and got back to our roadside camp long after dark.

When did you decide to climb all the fourteeners? How long did it take you to finish them?
Sometime in college in the early 1970s, I decided to climb all of them. Omar Richardson and I climbed about twenty in the summer of 1972 and by then, we were determined to do them all. Of course, I have told the story many times that by the time I had only one to go in 1980—it was the South Maroon Bell—I held off climbing that last one for twenty-four years just so that I could say that I had one left.

Why was it significant for you to be able to say that you had one fourteener left?
I didn't give it much thought for many years, but then by the 1990s as I saw more and more people frantically clawing their way through the list and doing almost anything to get the last one, I just liked the idea of having one left. And, quite frankly, I think it meant more to me in 2004 with Marlene and Omar than if I had done the last one without them earlier.

At what point did you decide to write a guide book on the fourteeners?
I focused on doing a guide pretty early in my climbing. In those days, there was only Ormes and Ray Philips’s little guide done through the CMC with about one sentence per peak. My interest in local history made it a natural to combine history with more detailed climbing routes.

When was yours and Lyndon J. Lampert’s first edition of  “A Climbing Guide To Colorado’s Fourteeners” published? How popular was it?
The first edition of our guide came out in 1978 and it sold about 600 copies that first year. At the time, we had no idea that climbing 14ers would become so popular that the guide would go through three major editions, fifteen printings, and sell almost 100,000 copies over 25 years.

It appears that in 1978 when your book was first published that you had not yet finished the 14ers. Had Lyndon finished them yet, or did you rely on others for the route description/s?
That's true. When the guidebook was first published in 1978, I had not done two fourteeners: Little Bear and the South Maroon Bell. I relied on my good buddy, Jim Gehres, for those route descriptions.

Was it actually the first guide book dedicated only to Colorado 14ers?
I have always given due credit to Jerry Hart’s 1931 book and, of course, Ormes, but I think that it is safe to say that our guide was the first book to give detailed route descriptions to the 14ers, as well as their history.

What were the last 5 peaks that you had left to finish of the fourteeners? Why those?
South Maroon, Little Bear, Lindsey, Culebra, and Pikes. Why those? Not sure there was much of a reason except that they were left. (Culebra in those days—1977—didn’t have any access issues.)

Did you go on to climb the centennial peaks?
I have climbed about half of the centennials and am slowly climbing more, but I am really not much of a “list guy” and really just enjoy being out in different areas.

Which fourteeners do you think are the hardest?
We all get asked this question and I always preface my answer with the subjectives of weather, route, how one is feeling on a particular day, etc. That said, anyone’s top-ten list of the hardest probably includes Little Bear, the Crestones, Capitol, Pyramid, the Maroon Bells, Mount Wilson and El Diente, and…you pick your tenth.

Do you carry a rope for some of the harder 14ers? Which ones?
My friend, Jim Gehres, in climbing them all twelve times has always said that he never used a rope. In that old Philips guide, the harder peaks had the one-word “Rope” after the one-line descriptions to indicate that it would be a good idea to carry one. As twenty-year olds, that got our attention, but the only places I have ever used a rope on the 14ers are on the traverses between the Crestones (downclimbing Crestone Needle), the Bells in staying right on the ridge, and the Wilson-El Diente ridge (we’d brought along a rope and were determined to use it on at least one rappel!).

While climbing the fourteeners did you have any moments of doubt?
Sure. Any mountaineer who climbs for decades has plenty of them.

Do you have other interests/hobbies a strong as mountaineering?
Well, suffice to say that I am a big history fan. Add railroads to that. As far as other outdoor pursuits, I like to ski, bike, raft, and canoe, but mountaineering would have to come first.

What guide books did you use to climb the fourteeners?
The only two then available: Ormes and the little Ray Philips guide.

If you were confined or restricted to only ONE mountain for the rest of your life, which mountain would it be?
Too tough of a question!

If you were confined or restricted to only ONE Colorado USGS quadrangle for the rest of your life, which one would it be?
Ok, this one is tough, too, but I will pick the Storm King quad in the San Juans.

If you could spend a day hiking/talking with any mountaineer past or present, who would you choose?
Carl Blaurock was a good friend of mine, but I would like to spend another afternoon with him. For those who I didn’t know, I would have to pick Dwight Lavender, just because of his pioneering climbs and writing and because his brother, David, became such a mentor to me as a writer.

What was your most delightful moment on a summit?
Celebrating my wife, Marlene’s, 54^th summit on Little Bear in 2005.

What was your most terrifying moment on a summit?
Probably the approaching thunderstorm on that first climb of Antero. We were too young to know better, but even then, it got our attention!

Have you had any memorable celebrations on mountain summits?
Marlene’s 54^th peak would be high on the list.

What is your favorite piece of mountaineering gear and why?
Ice axe without question. These days, there is so little snow in Colorado that by July you usually don’t need it, but we always climbed year-round and it is just a very safe, versatile, tool.

Carl Blaurock said, "I was born a hundred years too soon. We just had hemp rope, and we didn't even use that right." Do you ever wish your mountaineering career had occurred in a different time period?
History is all relative. I am pretty happy having experienced what we did in the sixties and seventies. That said, I would like to have been with Carl on some of his adventures fifty years before mine.

Do you have any plans for future Colorado mountain lists? What list might you currently be working on?
Like I mentioned, I am not much of a list guy. Even in climbing the 14ers, I delayed completing the list for 24 years, just for my own personal little sense of rebellion. (My wife and Todd Caudle kid me that I am really not much of a rebel!) But I have certainly enjoyed getting to new places. My wife is close to finishing all of the named peaks in Rocky. I’ll finish her list and be about halfway there on Rocky with my own. Someday, I might finish the centennials—because they are there—and Marlene and I have had a lot of fun working through the state highpoints—about halfway there—just because they make great special trips.

How do you balance climbing and a career?
Is this a trick question? Climb first, work second, of course!

Are you a member of the Colorado Mountain Club? If so how has the CMC influenced your climbing career?
I am a long-time CMC member and am currently on the board of the CMC Foundation and the chairman of the committee raising money to complete the museum at the American Mountaineering Center. The museum will really be the completion of the vision that so many people have worked so hard to achieve for the AMC.

How often do you climb peaks? How many 14ers do you climb in the average year?
I have been averaging about thirty summits a year over the last four to five years. If anything, that number has gone up and not down. That’s a good thing! Some might be little Estes Cone every December in my back yard, but others have included things such as Elk Tooth, the Mummy Range traverse, and Peak X in the Gores. Out of that number, there are probably four to five fourteeners in the list every year—mostly because of friends from out of town, etc.

Do you climb all year round?
Yes, I always have, although as the years add up, I must confess that I seem to be skiing more in the dead of winter rather than climbing anything too tough.

How many winter ascents have you made?
If this is “winter” between December 21 and March 21, I’d have to count. The funny thing is that I’ve been out on a lot of New Year’s Day climbs that seem like fall and then ended up on really winter excursions in April and even May.

Do you like climbing the same routes or do you try different routes?
I am usually a new route guy, but I have certainly done a lot of the fourteeners the same way multiple times, which is certainly the better minimum-impact approach these days on those peaks.

What 14ers books do you have on your library shelf?
I can’t think of any I don’t have. And Gerry Roach and Lou Dawson can rest assured that I have all of theirs, too, including all of their various editions.

Your 14er guide book is unique in that it includes the history of the peaks. Please tell us a little about your process of gathering these tidbits.
I was a neophyte historian long before I was a climber. I gathered most of the historical information from the pages of Trail and Timberline and some of the earlier books by Jerry Hart and Bill Bueler. I have always said that Bill Bueler’s Roof of the Rockies is a classic and I am delighted that the CMC Press has this bedrock title back in print.

Did you and Lyndon climb them together? Do you still climb with him?
Lyn and I climbed a lot together in the seventies while we were working on the guidebook. Most of his interest in later years has been in fly fishing. The last summit we did together was sort of a reunion hike up Uncompahgre about 1992.

Who were your climbing partners and climbing mentors?
My two best friends and climbing buddies are Omar Richardson and Gary Koontz. Been climbing with both since the early seventies. Omar and I have been together on 52 of the 54 fourteeners and Gary and I have probably done at least 200 other summits together, including most of the Tetons. I think we sort of mentored each other.

Who were the hot shot Colorado climbers in those days?
Now, you’ve made me feel old. Suffice to say that Pat Ament wasn’t shaving yet, and Gerry Roach didn’t have any gray hair!

What is the single most important piece of advice that you would give to someone just starting to consider climbing all the 14ers?
Don’t be afraid to turn around. The mountain will always wait for another day.


- The End

Here's a picture of the cover of Todd Caudle and Walt Borneman's new book--available everywhere!

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