The Peak List for People Who Don’t Make Lists

I am not a lister. You know, one of those folks driven to complete a list. Birders are big listers and will go to the ends of the earth to spot the blue-footed booby or the Tibetan lammergeier or the lilac-breasted roller. (I’ve seen them, though I wasn’t birding.) The Seven Summits crew are hardcore listers, if not actual mountaineers, who will drop a quarter-million dollars to be guided up the highest peak on each continent. (I’ve climbed most of them myself but wasn’t chasing a list.) Fourteener aficionados are listers par excellence. (I’ve done half over the years, but doubt I’ll finish.)

Thus, with surprise I realized I’d unintentionally completed a list of my own: climbing the highest peaks in the fifteen western American states. So, in contradiction to my initial statement, please let me make a case for climbing the “fabulous fifteen.”

In terms of diversity—geography, geomorphology, flora, and fauna—this set of fifteen peaks rivals any