All images and scans were created with help from the AAC Library. Image by AAC member Foster Denney.
Library Spotlight written by Sierra McGivney
Originally published in Guidebook XVIII.
The need to leave our mark on the world is very human. It’s no surprise that when climbing mountains became popular, people started leaving fingerprints here and there in the form of summit registers. After 100 years of the practice, with untold pages of names, addresses, jokes, environmental activism, and weather and wildlife updates, summit registers have become a vibrant record of how humans interact with the mountains.
One historical register from Johnny Bull Mountain (12,026’) in the San Juans of Colorado is a small notebook. Flipping through, you’ll find two self-described “disgruntled employees” warning of the United States Forest Service plan to build a road and drill in the area. You’ll also see a kid named Will grow up, first signing his name at age three in 1988, and then again at ages six and seven. When the paper summit registers were full or nonexistent, hikers would take to writing on anything they had around. According to a Trail and Timberline article from 1989, people have used student IDs, driver’s licenses, a birth certificate, and a Monopoly “Get Out of Jail Free” card. In the James Peak (13,272’) summit register, you can find a Massachusetts car registration and a tuition receipt from Colorado State University, both from 1959.
It is believed that Mt. Powell (13,586’) had the first summit register in Colorado. This 13er is the highest peak in the Gore Range, known for steep terrain with class 2 climbing. On September 26, 1868, John Wesley Powell and Ned E. Farrell summited the mountain and placed a note inside a tin can at the summit. In 1913, during the third ascent of Mt. Powell, Percy Hagerman found the can with two previous ascents recorded, one from the Powell party. His party recorded their ascent on a chocolate bar wrapper and placed it in the tin can. In August 1935, a Colorado Mountain Club (CMC) outing group climbed Mt. Powell, recovered the tin summit register, and gave it to History Colorado, where it currently resides.
The CMC began placing summit registers on Colorado peaks during the 1910s and 1920s. These registers were later used to track usage and determine which mountains needed designated trails, especially after the formation of the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative in 1994. They would archive the registers and then allow people to conduct research or locate their signatures.
Today, the American Alpine Club Library collects, archives, and houses the CMC summit registers, the majority from Colorado—13ers and 14ers, of course, but also from mountains below 13,000’ that are rarely climbed. In addition, the AAC collects a handful of registers from mountains in Wyoming, and has the old Shiprock or “Tsé Bit’a’í” (Rock with Wings) register, from before climbing was banned there—the rock formation is sacred to the Navajo Nation. Once the AAC receives the registers from the CMC or others, they flatten them and sort them into the correct folder for the mountain. If you climbed a peak in Colorado and signed a summit register before 2015, there is a good chance the AAC Library has it.
Photo by AAC member Foster Denney.
Originally the summit register canisters were made of brass. Today, most register canisters are PVC pipes, but a few are glass jars, food cans or tins, or plastic bags. Spencer Swanger, the first person to climb all 100 of the highest peaks in Colorado, used a pneumatic bank tube. If the canister is closed correctly and undamaged, the register holds up well. Unfortunately, water damage and mold are common, making some registers hard to read.
Most summit registers have not been replaced since the 2010s. With stricter Leave No Trace protocols, it fell out of favor to keep registers on the tops of mountains, but legend has it that on lesser-climbed peaks in Colorado, there are still summit registers. You’ll have to climb them to find out.
Sometimes the summit registers go missing or turn up in unexpected places. The elements sometimes take the registers, and occasionally, curious hikers trying to make a little money do, too. A brass summit register was put up for sale in Grand Junction for $400 in 2020. Katie Sauter, the American Alpine Club Library Director, was notified by a volunteer that it was on eBay. She reached out to the seller, asking if he would donate it to the Library since it was technically CMC property and was needed for archival purposes. The brass summit registers were worth $20 to $25 in the 1920s, and, with inflation, they are worth about $400 in today’s money. Whether the seller knew that or not, he was aiming to get his money’s worth from the register. The seller donated the brass tube containing the register to the Library, and it turned out to be from Culebra Peak, which now has restricted access, making the summit register even more sought-after.
Photo by AAC staff Foster Denney.
That isn’t the strangest retrieval of a summit register Sauter has seen. Jim Detterline, also known as “Mr. Longs Peak,” logged 428 ascents of Longs Peak (14,259’) and was often the person who retrieved the summit registers. Detterline was a Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP) climbing ranger who started out his National Park Service career at Dinosaur National Monument in 1982. In 1984, he transferred to RMNP and was very determined to climb Longs Peak. By 1985, at 29, he had five failed attempts under his belt. Weather, specifically lightning, had been a problem for Detterline.
In the foreword for Longs Peak: The Story of Colorado’s Favorite Fourteener by Dougald MacDonald (also the editor of the AAJ), Detterline describes his first attempt of the Diamond in July 1979: “As the clouds darkened and increased in mass, I started to feel like one very small microorganism clinging to one very large piece of the universe. Eventually the clouds split open, and 30 million-volt bolts of lightning poured down on us with the cold rain. We retreated.... Standing soaking wet, tired, and cold at the base of Longs Peak, however, I realized I had fallen in love with the rocky mistress.”
Longs Peak circa 2003. Photo from the Detterline Collection courtesy of the AAC Library.
POV of Jim Detterline atop Longs Peak with a summit register. Photo from the Detterline Collection courtesy of the AAC Library.
Each name logged in a summit register is a hint at a personal adventure. Ultimately, Detterline was right to be cautious of the lightning around Longs Peak. In 1985, he and Duane Kitzis set out to climb the Casual Route (5.10a) on the Diamond. Detterline was leading pitch six, 40 feet up, and was still unable to find his first piece of protection. Suddenly, thunder rang out, and a sheet of rain showered down. A basketball-sized ball of St. Elmo’s fire at the top of the crack system began sizzling toward him. According to his unpublished memoir, “The ball came quickly to my position, hovered in front of my face, and exploded with a loud ‘boom’ and a flash of bright light.”
Detterline held strong; however, he had been totally blinded by the lightning strike. Kitzis helped guide Detterline down to the ledge, talking him through each foot and hand move as he downclimbed. They waited about an hour until Detterline’s sight returned; by then it was late, and the rock was wet. With no choice but to bivy, they began climbing at first light the next morning. This was just the beginning of Detterline’s time on Longs Peak, and just one story folded into the pages of the summit registers archived in the AAC Library.
Sauter remembers one Saturday morning at the American Alpine Club Library in the dead of winter. When the door flung open and snow swirled in, Detterline appeared, clad in a snowsuit. He handed her the Longs Peak summit register and walked back out, taking the snow with him. At least, that’s what Sauter says it felt like. The AAC Library is located in the building’s basement, with the door usually propped open, but when Sauter looks back on that day, it feels like Detterline had stepped off Longs Peak’s blustery summit and into the Library.
Longs Peak isn’t the only mountain with intense weather. Mt. Bierstadt (14,066’) is one of the more forgiving 14ers and one of the most popular, given its location near Denver. The weather, especially the snow, is still just as intense. In a summit register entry from February 15, 1976, a hiker describes the weather as “snowing, windy, vis[iblility] 500 feet.” The next entry with an illegible date has the opposite problem: “Too F@%*ing bad there wasn’t snow to ski to the summit.”
The weather turns fast in the mountains, and the summer months don’t always bring warm weather. An August 10, 1976, entry for Bierstadt reads, “...despite the snow. F@%* Colorado weather!” Another entry from August 18, 1976: “Holy sh*t it’s cold.”
Mt. Blue Sky (14,268’), formerly Mt. Evans, is another 14er near Denver that is popular. The summit registers of Mt. Blue Sky don’t have many entries about the weather; instead, they focus on mountain goats. This doesn’t come as a surprise; the mountain is known for these troublesome, salt-licking creatures. Notes from the register from 2011 show considerable goat activity, with entries like: “Hi goats,” “Baby goats,” “Gorgeous Goats!” and “Goats = Awesome Views = wow.” Unfortunately, the abundant presence of mountain goats reflected in these historical summit registers is now precarious—in a 2025 population estimate by Colorado Parks and Wildlife, the goat population on Mt. Blue Sky was around 70, a far cry from the 2024 estimate of 125. An unknown disease has struck the goats, causing large fluctuations in population. It is suspected that human waste is the source. Hopefully the health of the mountain goat population can be addressed, or else these summit register logs will be strictly history, rather than a vibrant reference to a shared experience across time.
Digging through summit registers and archives in the American Alpine Club Library can transport you into the past, onto windblown summits, or next to shaggy-furred mountain goats. In the AAC Archives, history steps out of the books and into the room with you. The names scribbled onto worn paper on mountaintops miles away hold untold stories waiting to be discovered.
