{"id":2455666,"date":"2020-03-11T22:56:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-12T04:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/aspens-eric-sullivan-hopes-to-become-first-to-ski-notorious-nolans-14-route\/"},"modified":"2020-03-11T22:56:00","modified_gmt":"2020-03-12T04:56:00","slug":"aspens-eric-sullivan-hopes-to-become-first-to-ski-notorious-nolans-14-route","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/aspens-eric-sullivan-hopes-to-become-first-to-ski-notorious-nolans-14-route\/","title":{"rendered":"Aspen\u2019s Eric Sullivan hopes to become first to ski notorious Nolan\u2019s 14 route"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Aspen’s Eric Sullivan, a noted endurance athlete, will attempt the difficult Nolan’s 14 route beginning Friday, March 13, 2020. Should he complete the route, which includes 14 fourteeners in Colorado, it’s believed he’d be the first do have done it on skis. He hopes to finish within 100 hours. (Photo by Austin Colbert\/The Aspen Times)<\/strong>
Austin Colbert\/The Aspen Times<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Only a handful of people have ever completed the Nolan\u2019s 14 course during the summer, and as far as anyone knows it\u2019s never been done during the winter on skis. Aspen\u2019s Eric Sullivan hopes to become the first by the beginning of next week.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to have to go deep, but I can\u2019t go too deep where I can\u2019t recover,\u201d Sullivan said. \u201cI\u2019ve learned a lot on this thing and it\u2019s time to put it all together. But I feel confident in it. I\u2019m relaxed going into it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sullivan, who goes by \u201cSully\u201d and has likely delivered a Big Wrap order to most Aspen locals, is an accomplished endurance athlete and once held the world record for most vertical feet skied in a 24-hour period.<\/p>\n

Nolan\u2019s 14 will be a much different animal, as the idea is to climb and ski 14 of Colorado\u2019s 14,000-foot mountains in one go. The target time for the summer races is to finish within 60 hours; Sullivan is aiming to finish within 100 hours for his skiing attempt.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust finishing it is going to be good enough. Getting under 100 is the whipped cream on top,\u201d the 39-year-old Sullivan said. \u201cWith there being no previous FKT, or fastest known time in the endurance world, anything is going to be a record. But, like I said, I want to go quick.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nolan\u2019s 14 is named after famed Colorado climber Ken Nolan and came to be in the late 1990s. It\u2019s not a race, but an \u201cendurance test piece,\u201d as Sullivan puts it, an athlete vs. mountain affair that few have conquered. Among those to finish during the summer is Aspen\u2019s own Ted Mahon.<\/p>\n

The fourteeners to tackle are centered on the Sawatch Range, just over Independence Pass from Aspen. Sullivan, who plans to start Friday morning, will begin with Mount Shavano near Salida and ultimately finish with Mount Elbert \u2014 the highest peak in the Rockies \u2014 and Mount Massive, both near Leadville.<\/p>\n

Sullivan said the course is roughly 100 miles with 48,000 vertical feet of climbing. He\u2019s attempted the feat before, but did it later in the season with less snow and far less support. He\u2019s incredibly confident going into this weekend\u2019s attempt.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just so hard. It\u2019s probably the most physically demanding thing I\u2019ve ever tried,\u201d Sullivan said. \u201cIt\u2019s all just doing the math and keeping it simple and staying within yourself at all times.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sullivan\u2019s endeavor is being sponsored by Justin Douglas and Corvus Janitorial Systems, as well as The North Face. Aspen Custom Vans even set him up with a set of wheels to use along the way.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just about the feat, either, as Sullivan is trying to raise money for Seal Future Foundation, which supports Navy Seals after their service. Sullivan, who is from Kansas before moving to the Gunnison area and eventually Aspen, said he had always dreamed of being a Navy Seal but was denied that opportunity because of poor vision.<\/p>\n

After starting off with Shavano, Sullivan plans to then summit Tabeguache and Antero in succession. He\u2019ll be able to rendezvous with his support team after that before attempting to ski Princeton, Yale, Columbia, Harvard, Oxford, Belford, Missouri, Huron and La Plata before the Elbert-Massive finish.<\/p>\n

In one of his previous attempts, Sullivan skied nine of the fourteeners in 36 hours with only 40 minutes of sleep. He\u2019s going to prioritize more sleep on his first night but will \u201cgo for broke\u201d after that. He hopes to finish by Monday evening.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last five or six are going to be pretty hard and fast and trying to get it done,\u201d Sullivan said. \u201cPatience is going to be the key, and having a good time. All my friends are going to be out skiing with me. Last time I skied by myself the whole time. This time I\u2019ll probably ski 25 percent of it by myself. So it will be a lot safer and more fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sullivan will wear a tracking device linked to his Facebook page so friends and fans can follow along. His support team will post photos, videos and other updates on both his Facebook (eric.sullivan.549) and Instagram (aspensully) accounts.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m feeling good going into it,\u201d Sullivan said less than 48 hours from the start. \u201cIt\u2019s all about perspective, and my perspective on this is whatever it takes, as long as it takes. As long as I feel my effort was properly executed with no mistakes.\u201d<\/p>\n

acolbert@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aspen’s Eric Sullivan, a noted endurance athlete, will attempt the difficult Nolan’s 14 route beginning Friday, March 13, 2020. Should he complete the route, which includes 14 fourteeners in Colorado, it’s believed he’d be the first do have done it on skis. He hopes to finish within 100 hours. (Photo by Austin Colbert\/The Aspen Times)Austin […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2455666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-18 11:05:37","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2455666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455666\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2455666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2455666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2455666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}