Starting out, the plan was for someone to go along with Salem to carry his backpack and supplies. That fell through, though, so he did the entire trip by himself, hiking a ways and leaving his backpack as far as he could make it, turning around and then doing the trip up again, with his peanut.
"I don't feel sore or anything but I know I lost some weight, " Salem said. "My muscles are fine, it was just doing the back and forth that really took it out of me."
Salem said he ate peanuts, pop tarts, bananas, and crackers for fuel.
"...and I have an old can of survival food from 1964 and there are little carbohydrate candies, and I was eating those," he said.
The hardest part, he said, was dehydration.
As he finished the trek, a representative from the city of Manitou Springs gave Salem a jewelry box to house his final peanut. He also got two plaques commemorating his effort.
Salem says he's ready for shower and a nap.