Reviving Rural Regions of Colorado How one man’s mission to ski all of Colorado’s fourteeners revealed distress within small mountain towns BY JOSH JESPERSEN
The year 2020 has me lost and unsure of where I should go and what I should do. In March, I lost all of my jobs like so many others; and when I wanted to go to the mountains, the only place I truly felt at home, it became socially irresponsible. The mountains and the natural environment are the only book I can fully read and understand. I have been immersing myself in these austere environments for years, and have even found ways to define purpose in that immersion. During a time fraught with immeasurable uncertainty, where could I look for answers? The only place I could think was where the crowds were screaming not to go. If I couldn’t engage with the wild places to learn my next steps, I would have to examine what they have already taught me: to learn from my past experiences. BACK TO THE BEGINNING It was mid-May in 2017 when I finished snowboarding down the sentinel Capitol Peak in the Elk Range of Colorado. This mountain stands proud and venerable in its group of cohorts — Colorado’s 14,000-foot peaks — and is seen as the greatest barrier in any ambitious ski mountaineers quest of descending on snow from the summit of all 54 of these mighty peaks. After more than 600 miles and over 250,000 feet of vertical descent, I wrapped up my project to become the first person to accomplish this feat in a single ski season. It would take 138 days of in-depth avalanche and weather forecast examination, alpine starts, ice cream induced comas, immobile rest days and a bout of bronchitis to tackle this goal. Shortly after I finished this project, feeling like I achieved something, a friend of mine and a very accomplished mountaineer in their own right said to me, “Don’t let it be the greatest thing you ever do.” I let that ethos sink in. At that time, I was simultaneously reminiscing about my time traveling around my home state during my fourteeners project and was reminded of the amazing experiences I had been so lucky to have. I realized I had to come up with a way to tell unique stories about what makes our backyard so incredible. How could I persuade people to understand that traveling around the world to feel adventure isn’t necessary? This yearning to tell these stories came with a self-imposed hitch though — I had to help protect our valuable resources in this effort.
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A D V E N T U R E P R O . u s
