Joshua Zaffos

Erik Weihenmayer and our climbing party top a ridge on Wilson Peak. (Photo: Ryan Ross/TPL)

In September 2007, I climbed Wilson Peak outside of Telluride with Erik Weihenmayer, the much renowned blind mountaineer who has summited Everest and the tallest point on every continent — not to mention Oprah’s couch. The Wilson Peak trip included several of Weihenmayer’s colleagues, a gaggle of other reporters, and staff with Trust for Public Land (TPL), which had recently brokered a deal to protect access to the iconic peak (If you’ve ever drank a Coors, you’ve seen it). Our hike to the summit marked the first, legal ascent in years.

My article, “Back on Top,” about the climb and the efforts to protect access to Colorado’s 14,000-foot peaks is in the Spring/Summer 2008 issue of Land & People, TPL’s biannual magazine.

I previously reported on the rush to climb fourteener peaks in Colorado and the related access issues (“Access Denied”) in the Colorado Springs Independent in May 2006.

In the April 10, 2008 issue of the Rocky Mountain Chronicle, I wrote a profile, “Blinded by the Height,” about Blindsight, a documentary film about Weihenmayer leading a group of blind Tibetan teenagers on a climbing expedition.