Good morning, Colorado Sun friends, and happy hump day.

This weekend I accomplished a major goal I set last summer after my second knee replacement in three months: get back above 14,000 feet. The last time I was up that high was Aug. 14, 2018, and realized on the way down La Plata Peak my knees couldn’t do it again until something changed.

Boy, has it: Two bionic new knees … oh, and that stent the cardiologist installed three years ago after I eluded the widowmaker. On Aug. 14, 1997, my dad died after his third heart attack. He was 55. The next year I started hiking fourteeners on the 14th of August as a way to honor him, but my battered knees finally caught up with me.

Until Saturday. And though it wasn’t the 14th, I was back in the Colorado clouds hitting the Mount Shavano summit jus

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