AFTER THE ACCIDENT, my quest had taken on a different flavor. I found a new balance, and life was good. As I got closer to finishing, though, I reflected more and more about how the project had affected me. It had been my primary source of stress, fatigue, and sleep deprivation for so long that I wondered what life would be like without it. I knew it put my family under stress, too. My mom would take down my plans over the phone and then fret for days until I called to check in. But we both knew it was what I needed to do, and she supported me, as she always has.

Still, I wondered, had that stress and fear hardened me irreversibly? I'm sure I distanced myself from potential friends, both before and after the accident. And yet today, after all those years of not even wanting a girlfriend, I've met someone special. We travel and go on adventures together, and I've been able to open up and share a closeness with her that I haven't enjoyed for ten years. More than anything, though, I work hard to express my gratitude for the patience of my family and friends. I realize that, in many ways, my fourteener quest wasn't a solo project at all.

I also know that my life has found a greater purpose, and the ripples keep spreading. I continue to volunteer with at-risk kids, disabled servicemen and -women, and in search and rescue. I donate my time and money to conservation causes, to give back to the wilderness some measure of what it has given to me.

Even the mistakes were worth it. One thing the ongoing miracle of Blue John Canyon has provided is a sense of what a privilege it is simply to feel. The moment I came to from the anesthesia in the hospital, my whole world was pain. That's how I knew I was alive. And I carried that gratitude with me as I kept climbing fourteeners.

Between hut trips, fundraisers, concerts, a family vacation, and a January 2005 expedition up the highest peak in the Andes, 22,834-foot Aconcagua, I pounced on the next six peaks. In two short trips between avalanche cycles, I whittled my project down to the four peaks of the Chicago Basin of the San Juans: Windom, Sunlight, North Eolus, and Mount Eolus.

Because these mountains are the most remote of the entire list, Chicago Basin would require a five-night expedition. It would take two days just to skin the 15 miles up the Animas River and Needle Creek, an approach rife with avalanche hazard. But early March brought the rare combination of stable snow and stable weather, and sunny skies kept me company on my approach. I set up camp, climbed 14,082-foot Windom Peak, then skied the delectable powder off the west shoulder over to the slopes of 14,059-foot Sunlight Peak. A convoluted route on Sunlight brought me out of a rabbit hole just a few feet shy of the summit; after a dozen tries, I manteled onto the gabled summit rock, where I could look down more than a thousand feet off three sides. The next morning I easily made the top of 14,039-foot North Eolus.

And then there was one.

Now, at noon on the Catwalk on Mount Eolus, I cinch my ax leash on my left hand, check the grip of my prosthetic claw around my ski pole, and venture onto the sickeningly pitched east face. Despite my best efforts not to look down, I can feel that the face becomes vertical somewhere in the thousand feet of air below me—I am astonished that the snow is stuck onto the mountain at all. The powdery crystals squeak as my boots seem to tread in place. It's like I'm climbing a mountain of packing bubbles.

At exactly 1:30, I reach the top of Mount Eolus. To my amazement, I have become the first person to climb all 59 of these fourteeners, in winter, alone.

Strangely, I find myself not euphoric but relieved. I'm done. Finally. I look around and notice that, appropriately, the mountain doesn't care, the snow doesn't care, the sky doesn't care. The indifference is beautiful. People don't belong here, I marvel, and yet here I am. Here and alive. Without fanfare, I think back on the peace I found on my first fourteener. That light, clear feeling is still there, after all these years.

Dangling my ski boots over the edge, I smile and take a photo looking down between my knees into the brilliant white. For all the contentment that fills me, I look forward to a juicy steak dinner, a hot tub, and a tall margarita—a time of not doing. Done now, I descend to my skis, then swoosh and rip for thousands of feet.