About that time, a man vacationing from Tennessee stopped to chat. Dressed only in lightweight cotton clothes, with no snowshoes and carrying a very small pack, he was ill-prepared for a summer climb - let alone a spring climb. I warned him of the potential danger and suggested he turn back, but ignoring my warnings he headed up the trail. Many people are unfamiliar with the risks involved in climbing fourteeners and overestimate their abilities. Little did this man know that something as simple as a light rainfall and a sprained ankle could kill him.

In a scenario that gets played out far too often, a hiker dressed in lightweight cotton clothing sets out alone on a warm sunny day to climb a fourteener. Not acclimated to the high elevation, and having done too much exercising with 12-ouncers and quarter-pounders, he pushes beyond his abilities. Yes he - more often than not the victim is a male in his late teens or early twenties. A typical afternoon shower comes through and soaks the man's clothing. Cold wet and exhausted, and suffering from a splitting headache from the high altitude he slips on a rock. If he's lucky he might only injure an ankle or leg, but even with this relatively minor injury he can no longer hike back down the mountain. Attempting a call on his cell phone he learns the hard way that cellular access is spotty at best in the mountains. If he's lucky, another hiker finds him; if not, he succumbs to hypothermia during the cold night.

Almost every time I climb a fourteener I see inexperienced people that aren't properly equipped or conditioned, and this hypothetical scenario plays out far too frequently in the mountains of Colorado. Unfortunately, every year people needlessly die on the fourteeners. I never climb a fourteener unless I'm prepared to spend a night on the mountain. It doesn't take much. A down jacket and a lightweight bivy-bag can literally make the difference between life and death. Luckily, in the following days I didn't read about this ill-prepared Tennessee man in the local newspapers.