For Chris Fisher, perhaps the hardest part about doing something really hard in Colorado’s mountains was not doing something else in Colorado’s mountains.

“Watching everyone else ski powder every day, that really bummed me out,” he said. “I was slogging through powder, not skiing.”

He was slogging his way to a stunning record.

Fastest Known Time, the clearinghouse for obscure achievements in the outdoors, recently recognized Fisher for tagging the state’s 54 highest summits in winter faster than anyone else before. Fisher, who has called Breckenridge home the past few years, reportedly took 72 days, 12 hours and 10 minutes to check off the 14,000-foot peaks in their most wicked elements. That surpassed Andrew Hamilton’s 84 days in 2018.

Known as the “King of the Fourteeners” for various other exploits, Hamilton said he knew of a list noting about 20 people who have claimed every summit over several winters. For those who have claimed trying in one winter, Hamilton counted on one hand. He and Fisher are the only two credited for success in a single season.

Hamilton sounded proud to concede the record time.

“I don’t know if people appreciate how much more difficult it is to climb these mountains in winter than it is in summer,” he said.

Of course, beyond those powder dreams, there were other hard times for Fisher, 27 — especially in a winter that saw near record snowpack for Colorado’s high country.

“I was like, Well, that’s kind of cool,” Fisher said of the unusually harsh conditions. “Honestly I didn’t think much of it.”

That’s not exactly true. He couldn’t help but think of it amid blizzards and bitter winds. The worst would be above treeline, where Fisher would sometimes smile for a selfie.

But consequences were never far from his mind, he said. He knew one wrong step could trigger an avalanche. Other wrong moves could lead to fatal falls — such as moves he made straddling Capitol Peak’s notorious “Knife Edge.”

He would be careful, taking his time on some ranges. The Maroon Bells, the “Deadly Bells,” required roughly 21 hours; the three peaks of Chicago Basin about the same. That trio he did alone, while he was glad to have Hamilton by his side for the Bells.

Hamilton also joined on the final day: a perilous pursuit of Pyramid Peak that seemed unlikely between fragile, wind-blown slabs. Fortunately, Hamilton knew of a safer “sneak” route.

He found this new kid on the block worthy. He watched Fisher’s tracker from afar, watched in awe across the jagged San Juans in particular.

“Stuff that was taking me all day, he was blazing through them,” Hamilton said. “And it’s because he’s such a good skier.”

A good skier who could’ve been blazing down far simpler slopes.

“Being such a big snow year, I could’ve spent it skiing powder,” Fisher said. “But this all turned out for the better, so I don’t regret it.”

He regretted his partner succumbing to frostbite early into the mission. After crushing 26 peaks together within 18 days, Erin Ton had to bow out so she could keep her thumb.

But she remained a steadfast partner. She sometimes drove to mountains when meteorologists personally advised weather windows, sometimes slept and froze with Fisher in the truck, always provided beta on the terrain she knew better than him.

A similarly avid record-chaser, Ton had climbed all of the fourteeners previously, unlike Fisher.

“He actually hadn’t climbed them all in the summer, I think about half of them,” Ton said. “Which is part of what I think makes this so amazing.”

She was amazed by what she called Fisher’s “passion and tenacity” through the mission that came a bit on a whim.

After a 24-hour, 66-mile, bushwhacking effort across Texas’ Guadalupe Mountains, the two were driving back when Fisher figured he had no job and no kids to keep him from the winter fourteeners record. The problem was he felt like he broke his foot in the Guadalupes. If X-rays showed otherwise, he’d go for the record back in Colorado.

However free-spirited, worry-immune Fisher may seem, Ton has seen another side.

“Once he sets his mind on something, he goes all in and takes it very seriously,” she said.

As he did when he was stranded in the Sangre de Cristos, stricken with some mean stomach bug. He could hardly walk, let alone climb. More days would be forfeited to travel home for a funeral. With word of his recent whereabouts, loved ones might’ve worried about another funeral.

But Fisher wasn’t about to quit. Those days off were met by storms that forced more days off.

“I was getting in my head,” Fisher said. “Like, am I really gonna be able to pull this off? I was starting to overthink stuff. But as soon as I’d get out and start climbing, all those thoughts went away.”

The mountains always granted that escape.

Growing up in Texas, Colorado ski vacations always granted that. Those were special moments between a “typical” upbringing, he said. Typical sports like football, track, cross-country running. Typical expectations like college and some job in a high-rise office.

“After two and a half years of college, I decided I’m done,” Fisher said. “That’s when I joined the Navy and the whole SEALs thing.”

The whole SEALs thing did not work out. Not long into Hell Week, Fisher said he quit.

Defeated and devoid of ideas for his future, he packed his truck and lived in it for a while as he explored the Colorado mountains of his childhood dreams. He worked for a while before turning his focus to becoming a sponsored athlete. He turned to long, technical, physically demanding routes; records last year included traverses of Colorado’s Mosquito and Tenmile ranges and Utah’s Wasatch Range.

It seems the SEALs defeat has lingered in some way.

“I just don’t want to be the guy who quits again,” Fisher said. “I always look back at that, and I don’t want to feel the same feeling I felt there.”

He’s chasing a feeling he can’t get anywhere else — certainly not through “typical” life.

He’s got a van now. He’s living life on the road. And recently he was on his way, finally, to ski some powder.

“I got no time to waste,” he said.