When she summited Capitol Peak on Jan. 24, Denver’s Natalie Moran joined an exclusive mountaineering club.

It’s known in certain circles as the Frozen Fourteeners Club — a small band of enthusiasts with the fitness, know-how and thick skin to ascend all of Colorado’s 14,000-foot peaks in their imposing, perilous winter conditions. Respected in those circles with more than a decade spent in the state’s alpine, Moran tallied Capitol as her final, 59th winter peak. She was logged as the 18th member of the Frozen Fourteeners Club, the third woman.

It was a mission 10 years in the making, dating to Moran’s first winter fourteener ascent of Pikes Peak in 2011. (Andrew Hamilton, the so-called “king of fourteeners,” is regarded as the only person to check off every mountain in a single winter, the relatively dry winter of 2017-18).

“Challenge, and the fact that so few people have finished them in winter,” Moran said as her frozen fourteeners reasoning. She added, chuckling at herself: “I just like lists. OCD. Nothing to be proud of.”

She had previously summited all of Colorado’s highest peaks in non-winter months. In 2015, she recorded climbing the 100 highest. She counts 477 out of 584 thirteeners complete. And she reports being close to finishing skiing all of the fourteeners.

Skiing is what drew her to Colorado in 2009. She moved from New York City, where she had lost her job in banking during the recession. She dreamed of the slopes that had captivated her on the other side of the country.

Moran garnered a fast reputation, summiting Grays and Torreys peaks in 2010 and summiting all other fourteeners in the span of just three summers.

Winter, she knew, would be different.

“A completely different beast,” she said.

Where roads to trailheads would be clear in summer, now several would be snow-packed, requiring sometimes many more miles on foot. Often times, Moran would break trail, requiring even more strength, energy and hours in the backcountry. Her pack would be heavy with camping and avalanche safety equipment. She’d occasionally camp out in the cold for multiple nights. Her name on 14ers.com and social media channels: Snow Alien, hinting at her odd comforts.

“I feel fine” winter camping, she said. “I’m one of those rare people that sleep way better in a tent than my own bed.”

Avalanche monitoring was paramount — a lesson Moran learned the hardest of ways.

It was 2014, on a mountain beside Grays and Torreys. After a step in snowshoes, Moran watched a cascade carry a partner away. The partner died.

Talking about it today, Moran is quiet. “Yeah, maybe the normal human reaction is to give up and just quit, and never hike another peak again. Or just learn to better understand the risks and accept them, and learn how to avoid the worst.”

She had Level 1 avalanche training at that point in 2014. The next year she took Level 2 classes. That winter, she checked off eight fourteeners, followed by nine in 2016 and seven in 2017.

“That’s what a list is like; the closer I get to the finish line, the more motivated I am,” Moran said. “When I start, it seems impossible. But I keep trying and get closer, and my motivation spikes.”

All the while, Moran obsessively studied avalanche forecasts and browsed for the latest on-ground reports. “I became way better with picking the better windows,” she said.

And she became more willing to turn around if she arrived to find conditions not right. She did so en route to Capitol Peak in the winter of 2019, and again in 2020.

On Jan. 24, finally, it was mission accomplished.

“I’m happy to be done,” Moran said. “Very happy. So I don’t have to worry about it anymore.”