I like having lists of things to do. I am an avid pursuer of the "50 Classic Climbs", the Top Ten climbs of the Redgarden Wall, all the towers in Utah, all the peaks in RMNP, etc. So it was inevitable that I would pursue the 54 Colorado 14ers, mountains over 14,000 feet in elevation. Being a technical climber my summer months are usually occupied by more challenging routes than can usually be found on the 14ers. Longs Peak is an obvious exception and because of that I have climbed Longs Peak nine times, by eight different routes. Hence, I usually attack the 14ers in winter. To my knowledge (Lou Dawson's guidebooks are my reference) only one person has climbed all the Colorado 14ers in winter. While I have no desire to be the second person (this involves way too much effort), I am interested in winter ascents of the ones easily accessible from my house.

So far I have climbed Quandary, Bross, Lincoln, Democrat, Bierstadt, Longs, and Elbert (Colorado's highest peak.) Next up on my list was Mt. Sherman. I had climbed Mt. Sherman for the first time in the summer of 1997 with my 2 year old son and my pregnant wife. Clearly it wasn't much like Everest, but I found the summit ridge to be quite nice position. We had climbed it from the Leavick trailhead, near Fairplay, but according to Dawson the best way to approach the mountain in winter was from the Iowa Gulch near Leadville.

On January 10^th, Johnny Bo Bo, Trini Lopez, and I set out on skis from the snow closure at 11,250 feet. I was wearing plastic mountaineering boots and randonee skis, while my companions were both in telemark gear. The weather was cold, but not too windy. We skied up the road until we were supposed to cut right and head for the Sherman/Sheridan saddle. At this point I decided that the direct approach, straight up one of the west slope couloirs, looked like a shorter and more interesting ascent. After some discussion we decided to give it a try.