Audio Excerpt

GUESS WHAT!!??  You guys are gonna love this, Kelly Clarkson just walked into the studio and agreed to help me introduce this question.. I’m SO excited.. Ok ok, here she is.  “Oh I can’t believe it’s happening to me, some people wait a lifetime for a moment like this…”. 

 

Alright so what moment is Kelly Clarkson talking about?  The moment to talk about Massif’s, Fourteeners and Peak Baggers of course! Yay! I’m SO excited!  Here we go! So what’s a Massif? Well in geology, it’s a section of the planet’s crust full of faults or flexures which retains its internal structure while being displaced as a whole.  Mount Evans, just 15 miles East of here, is the highest peak in a massif known as the Chicago Peaks. At 14,271 feet, Mount Evans can be seen from over 100 miles! The massive mountain is one of 96 Fourteeners in the United States, which is a term referring to any mountain over 14,000 feet.  The mountain is visited each year by peak baggers… who.. Uhhhhhhhhi’m not too sure… what do you think peak baggers are? Do they

 

1. Climb a group of mountain peaks,

2. Collect rocks from a group of mountain peaks, or,

3. Reach the peak but are too bagged to climb down and need a helicopter to pick them up?

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If you answered A, people who climb a group of mountains, you must have bagged your fair share of peaks! Peak bagging is also known as hill bagging, mountain bagging, Munro bagging or just bagging.  Not your thing? No worries, Mount Evans is also home to the highest paved road in the world at 14,258ft above sea level!