The 14ers Aren't Trails. The Sooner We Stop Thinking of them that way, the Sooner We can Save them

“It’s sort of a quality over quantity. some places, that’s how they market themselves.”

DENVER, CO — September 15, 2022

The 14ers — mountains over 14,000’ tall, if you didn’t know — are very crowded. The community has been quite divided over what methods should be used to help protect these alpine environments.

To get a better idea of what the best path forward may be, I spoke with Doctors Catherine Keske and John Loomis. Their research¹ on these peaks is the bedrock beneath a lot of conservation decisions that shape our recreation experience today.

They have fascinating perspectives that I’ve tried to boil down for you in this article. To start, I need you to at least entertain an idea that may sound ridiculous on its face:

The 14ers aren’t trails, at least not in the conventional sense.

The Rundown:

• Just because a trail can hold a certain number of hikers, doesn’t mean it should

• You already pay to hike 14ers. Paying a bit more could actually increase the total value you get out of the experience

• Are 14ers more like ski resorts than hikes?

• Mountain towns depend on recreation for tourism dollars, but many of these places now suffer from “over-tourism”

• Getting people to choose other peaks for hiking, is a fool’s errand

I showed you this graph a few weeks back, marking a huge drop-off in the number of people climbing Colorado 14ers:

In 2021, there were 112,000 fewer use-days on these popular peaks. Meteorologist Chris Tomer and I wrote a team-up article breaking down the data from the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative, or CFI, and made some predictions about what this means for next season.

Finding Where the 112,000 Missing Hikers Went

Sometimes though, hard data doesn’t tell the full story.

2021 saw a massive crackdown on illegal — and frankly dangerous — parking along Steven’s Gulch. As a result, way fewer hikers tackled Grays and Torreys Peaks that season. According to CFI: around 10,000 fewer visitors showed up. Problem solved, right?

Not so fast.