Andrew Hamilton breaks speed record climbing Colorado’s 14,000-foot peaks

The 40-year-old dad of four early Thursday, July 9, 2015 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 has raced 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 nine 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.

“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 a good friend and support staff. “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.”

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