Chris Davenport’s path to the Hall of Fame

Days after moving from his home in New Hampshire to attend the University of Colorado, Chris Davenport went exploring in a mountaineering store and discovered Lou Dawson’s classic two-volume guide to Colorado’s fourteeners. Davenport was a racer who had a vague idea he wanted to make a career out of skiing, and Dawson’s book became a signpost.

Dawson was the first to ski all of Colorado’s 14,000-foot peaks, an odyssey that took him 13 years.

“I loved that book,” Davenport said. “Not only was it a guide to the fourteeners, it included skiing for all the peaks. It was something I’d never seen before, a guide to ski mountaineering. That book became my bible.”

In 2007, Davenport made his own contribution to Colorado ski history, becoming the first to ski all of the fourteeners in a year. For that and many other achievements the Aspen resident was inducted into the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame on Saturday in Steamboat Springs.

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