Why the Continental Divide? I grew up in the Rocky Mountains and was first introduced to the Continental Divide as a seven-year-old in Yellowstone National Park where my dad was the chief park naturalist. During our first week in Yellowstone we crossed the Continental Divide, backpacked in to Heart Lake, and climbed Mt. Sheridan. From Mt. Sheridan we looked out onto the divide where it contours around Yellowstone Lake. My parents explained what the divide was and it was of course “cool” as was everything else in the sixties. Four years later we moved to Rocky Mountain National Park where the Continental Divide touches many of the trails and peaks that would become my playground until I left for college. I returned to work for many years along the divide as a climbing ranger at Rocky Mountain National Park. The Continental Divide shapes and defines our country as it shapes and defines me. I had to return to explore the entire Real Continental Divide, a combination of geography and personal history, much more than a line on the map to me.

 

I first tied into a rope when I was nine, fired by my father’s stories as a climber on the 1954 California Himalayan Expedition to climb Makalu. One of my first expeditions was homegrown when my brother Pete and I climbed all 54 of Colorado’s 14,000 foot peaks in 54 days pedaling bikes between them, crossing the Continental Divide eight times. Since then I have been on numerous first ascents in Alaska, Nepal, Patagonia and elsewhere. I have also participated in rafting first descents, extensive mountain treks, and backcountry science research in Alaska. Despite many successes abroad, walking and climbing along the Real Continental Divide, a feat no one has yet completed, will be one of my greatest challenges.