With some help from macros and using iterate
library, which allows you to extend its loop
-like macro, you could do something like the below:
(defun collatz (x)
(if (evenp x) (floor x 2) (1+ (* x 3))))
(defun collatz-path (x)
(1+ (iter:iter (iter:counting (setq x (collatz x))) (iter:until (= x 1)))))
(defmacro maximizing-for (maximized-expression into (cause result))
(assert (eq 'into into) (into) "~S must be a symbol" into)
`(progn
(iter:with ,result = 0)
(iter:reducing ,maximized-expression by
(lambda (so-far candidate)
(if (> candidate so-far)
(progn (setf ,result i) candidate) so-far)) into ,cause)))
(defun euler-14 ()
(iter:iter
(iter:for i from 1000000 downto 1)
(maximizing-for (collatz-path i) into (path result))
(iter:finally (return (values result path)))))
(Presented without claim of generality. :))