Bucket List · Bucket list route
Nolan's 14
Fourteen Colorado fourteeners, from Mount Massive to Mount Shavano or the reverse, in sixty hours. There is no race, no entry, no marked route, and no one to tell you you're going the wrong way. Fewer people have completed Nolan's 14 than have finished Barkley loops.
- Peaks
- 14 fourteeners
- Distance
- ~100 miRoute-dependent
- Climbing
- ~44,000 ft
- Standard
- 60 hours
- Terrain
- Mostly off-trail
- Finishers
- A few dozen, ever
Nolan's 14 links the highest concentration of fourteeners in Colorado: Massive, Elbert, La Plata, Huron, Missouri, Belford, Oxford, Harvard, Columbia, Yale, Princeton, Antero, Tabeguache, and Shavano. Roughly 100 miles and 44,000 feet of climbing, most of it off-trail on talus, scree, and willow-choked drainages, at altitude, with a 60-hour standard.
There is no organisation. There is a community, a widely accepted set of conventions (you must summit all fourteen, you can pick your own lines between them, crew and pacers are allowed at road crossings), and a Google Sheet. That's it. It is the purest self-directed objective in American mountain running.
How to get in
- Self-supportedDecide to do it
There is no entry process. You announce your attempt to the community, arrange your own crew, verify with GPS tracking, and post your result. The 60-hour standard is the recognised benchmark, with sub-60 the goal and finishing at all a genuine achievement. Some people do supported attempts with crew at trailheads; others go unsupported, which is a much smaller club.
How people actually prepare
- Scout in sections, over years. The published route is a suggestion. Finishers know which gully to take off Huron and where the willows are impassable.
- Descents are the crux. Loose talus at 13,000 feet in the dark on hour 40 is the specific skill. Practise descending, not climbing.
- Sleep management. Sixty hours means one or two nights. Most finishers take short naps at road crossings.
- Afternoon storms. Fourteen exposed summits in the Sawatch during monsoon season means you will be making lightning decisions. Have a plan for waiting one out.
- Live at altitude or spend serious time there. This is not a sea-level project.
- Crew at road crossings. Winfield, Clear Creek, and the Chalk Creek area are the natural resupply points.
Questions runners actually ask
Is Nolan's 14 a race?
No. There is no organiser, entry, fee, or course. It is a self-directed objective with a community-recognised 60-hour standard and a tradition of GPS-verified reporting.
How many people have finished it?
A few dozen in total, which makes it one of the smallest clubs in American mountain running.
Do I need to be a climber?
Not technically, but the terrain is largely off-trail talus and scree at altitude, and route finding on descents in the dark is the defining skill.
Go to the source
Entry rules, dates, standards, fees, and odds change every single year, and the interesting races change them the most. Use this guide to build the plan; use the official site to confirm the details before you book anything.
If this is your kind of thing
Need the races in between? The hard part of a bucket list year is everything else on the calendar: the qualifier, the tune-up, the long run with a bib on.