Andrew Hamilton is a super-human mountaineer. And he’s got the record to prove it.
The 40-year-old dad of four early Thursday trotted down a rain-soaked Longs Peak, completing his inspiring quest for a speed record climbing all 58 points over 14,000 feet in Colorado at 2:21 a.m. — a total of nine days, 21 hours and 51 minutes. Hamilton had been racing up and down the state’s highest peaks, setting a blistering pace that eclipsed all who went before him in the rarefied world of speed mountain climbing.
The Denver-based climber caught snippets of sleep in the last 10-plus days, relentlessly jogging up and down peaks across the state. Amazingly, Hamilton adhered closely to a meticulously assembled plan that charted each trail, trailhead, ascent and road he would need to follow to make his record-setting time.
Monsoon rains and lingering snow conspired to thwart Hamilton, but his perseverance — plodding through oxygen-deprived sleeplessness on steep rocky trails — prevailed. After midnight on Wednesday morning, Hamilton was climbing Quandary Peak. By dawn he was running up and down Torreys and Grays peaks. He had summited Mount Bierstadt and Mount Evans by 2 p.m. Wednesday, when he jumped in a car driven by his loyal crew and raced to Rocky Mountain National Park, presumably sleeping the entire ride.
He rested for less than three hours at the Longs Peak trailhead before starting up the trail at 7:17 p.m., climbing through rain and fog toward the famed Keyhole Route. He encountered very wet conditions on the climb and appeared to slow to a crawl at one point as squalls surrounded him. He reached the summit at 11:27 p.m. Per the rules established by the athletes who compete for such speed climbing titles, Hamilton and his team had to race down 3,000 feet from the summit — to 11,259 feet — before stopping the clock he started before dawn on June 29 below. That came at 2:21 a.m.
A group of fans, friends and family had gathered on the trail at that point to celebrate their fourteener champion. On the 14ers.com forum, where hundreds watched Hamilton’s GPS updates and praised the resiliency of their newest MVP, there was talk of bringing slings so friends could carry their hero down to the car at the trailhead.
“The most incredible example of chasing a dream I have ever seen. The strength, stamina, humor, perseverance, planning, love and support. Truly an inspiration. Thank you Andrew,” wrote 14ers.com user Crojo.
Accomplished Vail mountaineer Jon Kedrowski caught up with Hamilton on the final peaks on Wednesday. He said Hamilton was setting a strong pace despite obvious fatigue.
“I’m going to go out on a limb and say this record is not going to be broken anytime soon,” Kedrowski said. “When he was up there on his last few peaks, it was an awesome sight to see so much energy still.”
To finish such a monumental quest, a climber needs two contradictory personality types, said Teddy Keizer, whose 2000 record of 10 days, 20 hours and 26 minutes stood intact until early Thursday.
“You have to have a certain amount of intensity to be able to keep going when things are really rough and it’s two in the morning and you are on some vertical cliff with 500 feet of exposure and there are 20 mile-per-hour winds and you are all by yourself and you are fatigued,” said Keizer, who celebrated his birthday Wednesday flying from his home in Portland, Ore., to rally with several dozen Hamilton fans on the Longs Peak trail later that night. “But you also need a certain calmness in your nature to pull through the rough spots and keep pushing. You need that intensity and that calmness of nature to be able to break through a record like this.”
Jason Blevins: jblevins@denverpost.com or twitter.com/jasonblevins
