Nolan’s 14 2000
August 12-14th, 2000
60 hour time limit

Results:
Runner               #14'ers
Blake Wood           11
Matt Mahoney         10
Eric Robinson         9
Gordon Hardman        3
Joe Florio            1
Jim Nolan             1

Nolan's 14 is an 88+ mile adventure run through the Sawatch Range of Colorado. The course is defined by the summits of fourteen peaks of 14,000+' elevation (14’ers) and has 44,000+' of climb at an average elevation of about 11,800'. The actual distance depends on the runner’s choice of route and how many peaks they summit. Blake Wood climbed 37,500' in 90 miles this year on his way to summitting eleven of the 14’ers.

Nolan’s 14 is not intended to be a speed-summitting event. The goal is to summit all or as many 14’ers as possible in 60 hours. However, Blake did set three new speed-summitting records. In reviewing the splits after the run, I found that Blake had set records for the number of 14’ers summitted in 24 hours, 48 hours, and 60 hours moving completely on foot between summits with the time measured from peak to peak.

He established the new 24-hour level of seven 14’ers. He did this with not one, but four different groups of seven summits, and his fastest time for seven 14’ers was 21:54 for the La Plata Peak to Mt. Columbia group. Blake accomplished this at night with snow and rain icing the summit rocks after he had already summitted the two highest peaks in Colorado during the day.

For comparison, Blake was only about three hours slower from La Plata to Harvard than Steve Bremner and Jonathan Cavner who, on July 16th, attempted the seven-summit group of La Plata to Columbia in 24 hours. Although they were turned back 500’ vertical from their seventh summit by lightning, they were on a pace to summit seven 14’ers in about 19 hours. They did set a new elapsed time record for six 14’ers at 16:45. Jefferson Wagener, who in July 1993 traversed the more closely spaced six-summit Huron to Yale group in 19:30, held the previous 24-hour and six-summit elapsed time record.

Faster times are likely to be set for six and seven summits, and it is even likely that someone will summit the eight 14’ers from La Plata to Yale in 24 hours. However, it probably won’t be anyone who is running Nolan’s 14 because of the large climbs and distances at each end of the course. To complete Nolan’s 14, runners will need most of the 60 hour time limit.

Blake shared the previous 48-hour record of seven 14’ers with Gordon Hardman with whom he ran last year. This year, Blake had four groups of eight 14’ers, three groups of nine 14’ers, and one group of ten 14’ers in a 48-hour period. The new record of ten summits in 48 hours included all the 14’ers from Mt. Massive to Mt. Yale in 36:51, an astonishing time even if the weather had been good.

Although Blake slept for several hours at the Avalanche Gulch trailhead after Mt. Yale, he was able to raise the Nolan’s 14 record to eleven 14’ers by summitting Mt. Princeton on his third day. By definition, the Nolan’s 14 course record is a 60-hour record.

Matt Mahoney and Eric Robinson both smashed last year’s record of seven 14’ers. Their strategy of sleeping a little the first night at Winfield seemed to work as they closed in on Blake during the second night.

The weather was worse this year than last for those at the back of the pack. The leaders managed to stay on the edge of the developing weather and were only wet intermittently. The typical afternoon thundershower on the first day over Mt. Massive gradually developed to the south into a large cloud pattern that covered the 10 summits from Mt. Massive to Mt. Yale and dissipated only shortly before dawn on the second day. Jim Nolan and Joe Florio were in constant drizzle from 12:30 PM until 8:15 PM when, near the summit of their second 14’er (Mt. Elbert), they decided to retire from the course due to hypothermia.

Run Director Jon MacManus did an excellent job of keeping track of the widely scattered runners this year by use of two-way FRS radios, which were required for the runners. The radios far exceeded their stated two-mile range when the runners were on the summits. From the peaks, runners were able to talk to each other and to their crews and volunteers as far away as Buena Vista. Communication was clear between Mt. Harvard and Buena Vista, a distance of over ten miles.

There were minimal aid stations in difficult-to-reach backcountry areas. Some of the aid station volunteers backpacked in as much as eight miles to meet the runners at elevations up to 12,600’. There even were volunteers on the summits of Mt. Yale and Mt. Princeton, surely some of the highest aid in the US.

Fred Vance