Monument man is new AdAmAn Club member, joining tradition of New Year’s Eve fireworks on Pikes Peak
Britt Jones faced a dilemma.
“My problem right now is twofold,” the Monument man said.
One: A surgery is scheduled for January to repair a meniscus he evidently retore hiking another 14,000-foot mountain, Quandary Peak.
As the new member of the AdAmAn Club — the annual selection is a tradition spanning 100 years — Jones, 63, has the time-honored duty to lead hikers up Pikes Peak for New Year’s Eve fireworks atop the 14,115-foot summit. But might he be compromised by the knee?
The second problem: “I’m pretty bullheaded,” he said. “If I start, I rarely turn around.”
And if Jones decides again to film the journey, as he has done with his professional equipment several times as an AdAmAn guest, then he might find himself again trudging through snow for the best angles — probably not best for the knee.
He’s thinking cortisone shots will help. And prayer. “I am praying in earnest,” he said.
The 105th member of the AdAmAn Club’s historic roster is a praying man. Along with husband and father, he calls himself a man of faith and a storyteller.
He has spent his life telling stories from behind a camera. That’s what brought him to the Pikes peak region in the 1980s, a TV news job.
“I would film news stories, so of course I knew of the AdAmAn Club way back then,” he said.
Of course, he never imagined joining the club.
Flash forward a few decades to when Jones started calling himself a mountaineer, avidly ascending peaks in Colorado and beyond.
“In my bedroom, I could see Pikes Peak with my head on my pillow, looking out my window and watching the fireworks at midnight,” he said, “and thinking, ‘Gosh, I would love to be up there at the summit when those fireworks are going off.’”
So he’s been since 2016, when his application to tag along as a guest was first granted. Jones took a familiar path to AdAmAn membership: Guests spend years waiting for their name to be called at an annual banquet, where the decision is announced after the club’s determination said to be based on character, volunteerism and mountaineering experience.
Jones’ videos from the climbs over the years have aimed to capture the essence: the start up Barr Trail on Dec. 30; the breaks for snacks and typical jokes and banter; the emotional stop at AdAmAn Point, the rock where some past members have had their ashes scattered; the dinner and games and overnight at Barr Camp; the often-treacherous trek above treeline to the Summit House the next day; and the wait for midnight, when colorful blasts light up the sky for all to see from many miles away, conditions allowing.
Jones has gotten to know the history. In 1922, five men to be known as the Frozen Five got the idea to give their town a New Year’s fireworks show like no other. A member would be added to the climb every year to keep the tradition alive.
“It’s a really cool story,” Jones said.
The kind of story he’s come to prefer: a feel-good one.
That’s the point of his business, Global Reality. For 20 years, Christian ministries and nonprofits have paid Jones to film their work playing out around the world.
Jones’ faith has been intertwined with his vocation, as it has with his passion for the outdoors. “I’ve often told people, ‘Yeah, I can go to church and sing songs … and yet that’s not the kind of pure, genuine worship I have done on many a summit,” he said.
It was as his friend, Steve Gladbach, once told him: “Mountaineering is the one sport that encompasses the physical, the mental and the spiritual.”
Jones thinks often about that friend. He thinks all too often about that summer day in 2013.
Gladbach, a respected climber from Pueblo, was leading Jones up Thunder Pyramid in the Elk Range. Jones was on a mission to finish the “centennial peaks” list, Colorado’s 100 highest summits.
Gladbach “knew the routes, and I didn’t,” Jones said. “He took a fall while he was trying to help me.”
Gladbach fell to his death. He was 52.
Jones spent the next weeks “just sobbing uncontrollably,” he said. He never knew himself to be so distraught, so removed from joy.
He’d find it again in the mountains. He’d get back out there to finish the centennials, just as he’d go on to check off the highest points in all 50 states, including Denali.
“I knew he wouldn’t want me to stop,” Jones said.
He knew Gladbach would want him to help other ambitious climbers. Jones continues to serve as a guide around the Pikes Peak region and as a trip leader and educator with Colorado Mountain Club.
He continues his storytelling, including those videos from the AdAmAn climbs.
Will the knee allow for one this year? He shrugged. “I will probably try to film something, Lord willing.”
He filmed something unexpected amid a blizzard in 2021.
Right around 12,000 feet, he and the AdAmAn crew came to a man who appeared to be a trail runner, “dressed in very skimpy clothing,” Jones recalled. Jones gave him his jacket and gloves; others provided food and water.
Jones observed the man was dehydrated and dazed, on the verge of hypothermia. Search and rescue was called.
“It was a successful rescue,” Jones said. “Saved a man’s life. That’s a pretty cool story to be a part of.”
If all goes accordingly, the AdAmAn Club will shoot New Year’s Eve fireworks atop Pikes Peak at 9 p.m. — a short show to commemorate the original Frozen Five — and at midnight.
Also look to the mountain between 10 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. Sunday. Per tradition, that’s around the time climbers at treeline flash mirrors to the city, hoping to receive flashes back.
Britt Jones hikes one of his go-to trails that leads to the summit of Mount Herman near Monumentt, Colo., this month. Jones is the newest member of the AdAmAn Club and will lead the group to the summit of Pikes Peak this year.
Britt Jones poses for a portrait on one of his go-to trails that leads to Mount Herman on Saturday, Dec. 16, 2023, in Monument, Colo. Jones has more than 230 summits of 14ers, with 26 of those summits being Pikes Peak.
The two newest additions to the AdAmAn Club, Britt Jones, left who was added this year, and Chris Mattingly, who was added last year, chat it up after running into each other on a trail on Saturday, Dec. 16, 2023, in Monument, Colo. (Parker Seibold, The Gazette)
Britt Jones hikes down a trail leading to Mount Herman on Saturday, Dec. 16, 2023, in Monument, Colo. (Parker Seibold, The Gazette)
Britt Jones rapelling down North Maroon Peak.
Britt Jones ascending Mount Denali. Photo by Thomas Beuerman