Meet Your Neighbor - Alannah McTighe

Colorado is home to 637 mountains ranked at over 13,000 feet in elevation. Niwot resident Alannah McTighe has summited over half of them. An avid mountaineer since the early 1980s, she has spent much of her life ascending peaks.

McTighe moved to Greeley, Colorado after graduating from the University of California Berkeley, and was employed as a librarian at the University of Northern Colorado when she was introduced to mountain climbing.

Her co-worker invited her to a Colorado Mountain Club mountaineering course, and she quickly became passionate about the sport. While sport climbing piqued her interest initially, she realized that "peak-bagging" felt more rewarding.

Peak-bagging is the practice of pursuing specific numbers or heights of summits. For McTighe, the hobby only added to her appreciation of time outdoors.

She was so enthusiastic that she decided, not long after starting the sport, to attempt to climb every mountain over 14,000 feet tall, known as a "14er," in Colorado. Her first peak was Mount Yale in 1981. Despite facing a daunting start to the journey with thunderstorms and hail, she remained committed.

By September of 1986, McTighe had made it to the last 14er on her list-Snowmass Peak. She described feeling like the only person on the mountain, saying that her cheers of joy at the summit "carried off into the wind."

Shortly after this accomplishment, she became focused on a new challenge - summiting the "Highest 100," also known as the "Centennial Peaks." The Centennial Peaks are the 100 mountains in Colorado with the greatest elevation.

In 1988, she became one of the first seven women to record this feat. She completed the challenge with a climb on the same date as another woman. The times of the two women's achievements were never accurately documented and so McTighe is either the sixth or seventh woman in history to have summited Colorado's Highest 100.

Her list of remarkable feats does not stop in mountaineering. She also became a seasoned ultrarunner with zero prior experience. "I have no running ability whatsoever," McTighe chuckled. "However, I did have endurance."

"What I...liked about ultras was they took me to areas that I would not otherwise go to," she explained. Her race sites spanned across the US with McTighe's longest run at 100 miles.

Many of her experiences outdoors came with risk, whether from climate or wildlife. During her Snowmass Peak climb, marmots destroyed the straps of her backpack at her campsite, and she encountered a large, dog-like animal during a solo climb, which she now believes was a wolf.

McTighe described her ascent of Pigeon Peak as the most "alarming" of her memories. Dark clouds collected overhead as she and her partners climbed. "We obviously should have turned around," she reflected, "but we had worked so hard."

She said that as the group reached the peak, "All of a sudden there was an extremely loud explosion and just a completely brilliant flash of light...I can't describe it." The harrowing moment drove them to descend nervously through hail. McTighe became hypothermic, while her peers were struggling with pain they thought was caused by electric exposure.

Despite the frightening experiences she faced, McTighe has a long list of favorite peaks, including Capitol Peak, Crestone Needle, Tea Kettle Peak, and Belleview Mountain.

She soloed over one-third of her climbs, but she described mentorship as a foundational part of her mountaineering. She recalled an influential woman with whom she completed her 14ers attempt, and other climbers who excelled at planning and mapping, route finding, all-around climbing, and mountain photography.

Today, McTighe is retired from her recent work as a technical writer for the Advanced Technology Group, and from her rich but demanding outdoor pastimes.

McTighe phrased it simply: "It is just where I wanted to be. It is where I still want to be, and cannot. I can't say anything particularly profound." Her accomplishments and adventures speak for her.