Re. by Len Shipman, letters, July 27

I would like to thank you guys for including a recent article about my feat of becoming the first person to Camp on all the Colorado Fourteeners. I saw that the article came via the Denver post on July 23, and then was followed up with a letter by Len Shipman July 27.I am fine with Len being critical of me up there, but it is quite disrespectful to not take a look at a copy of our book or even take the time to read the recent news media properly, as I was the person up on Harvard and that I camped on all the peaks while Chris only came along for some of them. Also his comment about it being a "test of fate" is a pretty harsh statement ... if you get a chance to read our book you will see that we took calculated risks using a tremendous combination of skill, speed, endurance and technology to make decisions on safety throughout the project. In addition, Len's comment: "Ostensibly, he was unable to see the thunderstorm overhead and, thus, unable to use his meteorological skills" is ridiculous. Not only could I personally see the storm, from all my years in the mountains I knew to get off the summit very quickly, and from my training know that mountains create their own weather.Mr. Shipman says: "There's probably a safe way to sleep on a Fourteener - early spring or late fall with no thunderstorms around for hundreds of miles. In fact, I have friends who have slept on Fourteeners, but they did it as a one-off experience, not all of them over a limited time (95 days)."All you have to do is read our book to see that there were plenty of safe ways to sleep on Fourteeners, we talk about them during the entire book. We've slept on summits in the winters as well, it is great training for Everest for example, and this past March I slept on Elbert before I went to climb Everest.