It was a snowy, bitter-cold June day in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado when 20-year-old Amy Chen shook hands with death.

“It’s just a nightmare—just a nightmare. Go back to bed,” she kept telling herself. But she soon realized she wasn’t dreaming. Her battered body was pinned against the rocks on the side of a knife ridge, and there wasn’t a soul in sight who could save her.

Dangerous Attraction

In the summer of 2015, Chen was invited by her friends to bag her first set of fourteeners. In just three days, she added six of Colorado’s “easy” peaks to her collection. It wasn’t so much her friends persuading her to climb them as much as what people around her were doing.

“Everyone’s doing them. You get on social media, and the sorority girls are doing them and your 45-year-old aunts and uncles are doing them. It’s like, this can be easy,” Chen said.

While it’s true that even the most ill-equipped hiker can reach the summit of many of Colorado’s staggering peaks, experts warn hikers of the deadly repercussions their mistakes could have.

“It is a wonder we don’t have several calls a day,” said Charles Pitman, a mission coordinator with the Summit County Rescue Group, “All you have to do is stand in the parking lot and see how people are equipped. And when they start, it really is mind-numbing—sandals, a bottle of water, shorts and a cotton t-shirt, no pack, no rain gear, no headlamp, little food, no emergency heat source and rain clouds on the horizon.”

Most fourteeners in Colorado are peaks that hikers of most skill levels can ascend. About two-thirds of them are rated Class Two or easier, meaning hands-free hiking. This is alluring to people that live east of the Rockies because it’s a low-risk thrill that they don’t get to experience every day.

So for many, hiking fourteeners in Colorado can be considered a passage into the state. Ninety-six mountains in the United States rise 14,000 feet above sea level. All of them lie west of the Mississippi river, and of those 96, Colorado has claim to 54.

It’s not just the inexperienced who find these mountains attractive. Many “peak baggers,” those who attempt to summit prominent peaks, see Colorado’s fourteeners as a challenge to accomplish.

Gerry Roach, author of Colorado’s Fourteeners: From Hikes to Climbs, has climbed more than 2,000 mountains in Colorado, including all of the state’s fourteeners. He said 54 peaks is a nice number—one that mortals can finish. Climbers and hikers have many options to choose from, and that’s why they come back year after year.

“Imagine if Colorado had 1,054 fourteeners! Only a handful of crazies would complete that list. Imagine if Colorado only had six fourteeners. People would start to look elsewhere,” said Roach.

Most people plan a fourteener trip in Colorado for late July or early August to allow for the snow to melt and the weather to warm up. Normally, Chen would have done the same with her trip to Mount Harvard, the third-highest summit of the Rocky Mountains in North America. But her ambitious goal to climb 21 of Colorado’s fourteeners by her 21st birthday in June stood in the way of rational decision.

The Fall

It was just after 3 a.m. on June 10, 2017, when Chen put on her hiking shoes and began the seven-mile hike toward the summit of Harvard—alone. Following the footprints in the snow, she wondered why she was the only person hiking in what is commonly a hotbed for late spring hikers.