A Completely Objective List of Colorado’s Fourteeners Ranked from Worst to Best That Absolutely Nobody Could Ever Argue With

·43 min·2 clips

Pyramid Peak became a grudge because of a rescue, a back injury, and a highest-elevation helicopter record.

1. Of Mice and Mountaineers uses this episode to rank Colorado’s 58 named or ranked 14ers from worst to best. 2. Geo, the solo host, presents the list as a personal accounting of climbs in the Rocky Mountains and says the rankings reflect his own experiences. 3. The episode asks what a purely subjective 14er ranking looks like when the criteria are honesty, consistency, and repeated field experience. 4. Geo says he compared peaks mostly in dry summer conditions and based judgments on routes he actually took. 5. He notes that some mountains were graded by criteria he could not apply uniformly, because he wanted the list to stay internally consistent. 6. He also says route choice mattered, especially when he had done one line but only imagined another. 7. The ranking begins with Pyramid Peak at number 58, which Geo ties to a past incident and ongoing irritation. 8. South Maroon Peak at number 57 and Crestone Needle at number 56 continue the theme of long, steep, loose, and scrambly terrain. 9. Challenger Point, Crapital Peak, Little Bear, Wyndham Peak, and Sunlight Peak all appear in the bottom portion because of exposure, anxiety, or difficult ridge and gully climbing. 10. By the middle of the list, Geo starts separating peaks he dislikes from peaks he would at least consider revisiting. 11. North Maroon Peak, Mount Aeolus, Missouri, and Tabawash Peak show how he weighs looseness, access, and route quality against summit appeal. 12. Kit Carson Peak, Snowmass, Mount Columbia, and Mount Bross illustrate how what-if routes, ski value, and legal or logistical problems affect his placement. 13. Longs Peak, Mount Shavano, Culebra Peak, Wetterhorn Peak, and Wilson Peak stay in the lower half because of steep terrain, road access, or crowded trailhead conditions. 14. Geo gives Mount Bross particular attention because it took four attempts and remains illegal to summit. 15. The top half starts to favor more straightforward hikes, scenic basins, and peaks with trails he found easier to trust. 16. Mount Harvard, Mount Massive, Mount Princeton, and Mount Sherman rise because of scenery, trail quality, or repeatability. 17. Geo places Mount of the Holy Cross, Castle Peak, and Mount Belford in the top 12 after describing favorable approaches, snow conditions, or strong scenery. 18. The final stretch favors the Front Range and Mosquito Range peaks he calls easy, reliable, or good for altitude exercise, especially Mount Blue Sky, Mount Bierstadt, and San Luis Peak. 19. The tone is conversational, confessional, and heavily ranked-list driven, with Geo repeatedly quoting his own forum posts and objections. 20. Listeners who like Colorado 14ers and route-by-route opinions will get the most from it, while people who want a neutral guide to the peaks may skip it.

As heard by us

A funny, obsessive mountain ranking that feels earned rather than random.

The piece turns Colorado's 14ers into a personal ledger of joy, suffering, and hard-won preference. The premise is plainly absurd, but the joke lands because the ranking keeps returning to specific peaks, stubborn effort, and real irritation, from mountains that deserve to be…

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Why you'd press play

Press play for Geo's brutally opinionated ranking of Colorado's 14ers, pulled from his own climbs.

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