California's Fourteeners
Hans Florine holds the record for the 14 "legal" California 14ers, 3d12h11m.
Jack McBroom has the record for all 15 California 14ers, 4d11h19m.
California has 15 peaks over 14,000 feet, the so-caller "14ers". Complicating
efforts to bag all the peaks is the fact that the second highest, Mount Williamson,
is closed much of the year to protect Bighorn Sheep. Williamson is closed from
July 16 through December 14 each year, and, due to snow, speed attempts will usually
be most effective during the closure period.
The www.summitpost.org page
on Williamson discusses the closure in detail. Climbing Williamson, which is close
to Tyndall, adds a few hours. Some record-seekers (Florine, McBride)
chose to respect the closure, and climb only the 14 "legal" 14ers, while others
(McBroom, Swartz) have ignored the rule, tagging all 15 peaks.
An additional difficulty for those aspiring to bag all the California 14ers is the
technical nature of the five peaks known as the Palisades. Because of this, all
successful records have been done by people capable of comfortably free-soloing mid-5th
class rock in a very remote, high alpine setting. The CA 14ers are not the domain of
pure ultrarunners!
Climbing the CA 14ers has largely not been complicated by the somewhat arbitary "rules"
set for the Colorado 14ers.
All the CA 14ers have clear trail heads well lower than the summits, and most are long
approaches.
In August 1998, Hans Florine, Russ McBride and Tony Ralph kicked off California 14ers mania
by climbing all 14 "legal" peaks in 9d10h50m, car-to-car. Their report
is here.
In August 2001, Josh Swartz crushed
the earlier record, climbing all 15 peaks in a 5d23h41m, car-to-car. Josh's trip was solo and self-supported,
particularly fine style.
A year later, in August 2002, ultrarunner and adventure
racer Jack McBroom lowered
the mark for all 15 peaks to 4d11h19m. Jack had support during the effort, including with
driving between the peaks, which is especially helpul on the long drive to Shasta.
McBride made a failed attempt on the 14ers
in August 2003 (Florine was supposed to participate in this trip, but became sick just prior and had to postpone).
On his own trip, a month later (September 2003), Hans Florine bagged 14 14ers in 3d12h11m.
Many more details of these trips are linked to Hans' site.
I know of only one speed attempt on the CA 14ers by a woman. In July 2006
Jacqueline Florine climbed
the legal 14ers in 9d12h17m.