Halfway to Heaven: My White-knuckled--and Knuckleheaded--Quest for the Rocky Mountain High »

Mark Obmascik has been a journalist for two decades, most recently at the Denver Post, where he was lead writer for the newspaper's Pulitzer Prize in 2000 and winner of the 2003 National Press Club Award for environmental journalism. His freelance stories have been published in Outside and other magazines, and he has aired numerous political stories on public affairs and television news programs. An obsessed birder himself, he lives in Denver with his wife and sons.

The beloved author of The Big Year embarks on an outrageous midlife mountain-climbing adventure scaling Colorado's famous Fourteeners.

Publishers Weekly

In this hilarious midlife picaresque, journalist Obmascik (The Big Year) set himself the goal of climbing all 54 Colorado mountain peaks that are higher than 14,0000 feet because it was both hard, and not too hard-thousands have completed the technically undemanding circuit. He hit the gym, pared two pounds from his flabby frame and spent a summer plodding and wheezing up the "fourteeners," trying to keep up with the better-conditioned women and older men who cruised past toward the summits. Obmascik dodged lightning bolts, took a few hair-raising tumbles, admired the majestic scenery and experienced the exaltation of having truly earned his post-climb bacon double-cheeseburgers. Above all, he bonded with his "man-dates"-male climbing partners who head to the hills seeking refuge from woman troubles, fear of needles and numbing desk jobs. Their slightly feckless masculinity harmonizes with the shaggy-dog stories the author sprinkles in about the miners, cannibals and odious Texans who populate Colorado's mountain lore. Instead of the rarefied spirituality of typical mountaineering narratives, Obmascik's saga revels in off-color jokes and humiliating pratfalls; the result feels like a raucous bowling night, with moderate oxygen deprivation, on the brink of an abyss. (May 12)

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Introduction 1

1 Failure 5

Grays Peak

Torreys Peak

2 Religious Experience 11

Mount of the Holy Cross

3 The Mission Takes Shape 22

Huron Peak

Quandary Peak

La Plata Peak

Mount Sherman

Mount Yale

Mount Princeton

4 The Monkey 35

Creston Needle

Humboldt Peak

Mount Elbert

Grays Peak

Torreys Peak

5 Man-Date 59

Missouri Mountain

6 Panic 72

Mount Antero

7 Shock 81

Mount Massive

8 Bulldog 97

Mount Shavano

Tabeguace Peak

9 Punishment 107

Mount Columbia

10 Blown Away 111

Mount Evans

Mount Bierstadt

11 The Elephant 118

Mount Belford

Mount Oxford

12 One Benjamin Franklin 123

Culebra Peak

San Luis Peak

13 Gravity 137

Little Bear Peak

Blanca Peak

Ellingwood Point

14 Guts 148

Wetterborn Peak

Uncompahgre Peak

Redcloud Peak

Sunshine Peak

15 Scruples 175

Mount Democrat

Mount Lincoln

Mount Bross

16 Gnawed 182

Mount Lindsey

17 Day at the Office 188

Pyramid Peak

18 Limits 196

Maroon Peak

Castle Peak

19 Man Maker 207

Missouri Mountain

20 The Needles 212

Mount Eolus

Sunlight Peak

Windom Peak

21 The Bald Leading the Blind 228

Wilson Peak

22 Homestretch 236

Handies Peak

Mount Sneffels

Snowmass Mountain

Kit Carson Peak

Challenger Point

Mount Harvard

Capitol Peak

El Diente Peak

Mount Wilson

North Maroon Peak

Crestone Peak

23 Return 249

Longs Peak

24 Summit 260

Pikes Peak

Bibliography 267

Acknowledgments 271