Returning to Colorado in 1996 after spending 11 years in California, his passion for hiking and climbing took off a couple years later as he prepared to fulfill a desire he had as a teenager – to climb Longs Peak. He started small, first climbing 7,255-foot Horsetooth Rock west of Fort Collins in the spring, and gradually worked his way up to higher-elevation summits. By the end of fall 1998, he had climbed his first 11 fourteeners – Longs Peak among them – and was hooked.