Insight: Peak Baggers

Climbers flock to the Rockies to scale the state’s 54 peaks that are over 14,000ft (4,270 meters), and wilderness stewardship programs attempt to clean up after them.

The Colorado Rockies have 54 peaks over 14,000ft (4,270 meters), or “fourteeners,” as they are known by climbers. Among the most storied peaks are Longs Peak and Pikes Peak at either end of the Front Range, where the Rockies meet the Plains. Pikes Peak, looming over Colorado Springs, is accessible to climbers from the 13-mile (21km) trail above the highway and Pikes Peak Cog Railroad Depot, the highest railroad in the world. The Maroon Bells–Snowmass Wilderness in the Elk range is close to Aspen and a popular destination for high country lovers who enjoy its mirror lakes and wild flowers in summer. The Sangre de Cristo range creates a sheer, toothy skyline above the San Luis Valley. The range includes Colorado’s fourth highest peak,14,345ft (4,372 meter) Mount Blanca, sacred to the Navajo. Poncha Pass, a favorite fall color drive, separates the Sangres from the Collegiate Peaks in the Sawatch range. Of the 15 fourteeners, one peak, Mount Elbert, is the highest in the state at 14,433ft (4,399 meters), and several are named for Ivy League colleges such as Harvard and Yale, hence their nickname. The San Juan Mountains, headwaters of the Rio Grande, are increasingly popular as a ski, hiking, and four-wheeling destination. Yankee Boy Basin near Ouray is the main trailhead for Mount Snefells Wilderness, also popular with the Jeep crowd.

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Straddling the Continental Divide at the top of Hallett Peak in Rocky Mountain National Park. The peak can also be reached by hiking the Flattop Mountain Trail.

Nowitz Photography/Apa Publications

The mighty fourteeners

Every year, nearly 500,000 people visit the 54 fourteeners in Colorado. Concerned about increased visitors and impacts on fragile wilderness, in 1994 five outdoor organizations – Colorado Mountain Club, Outward Bound West, Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado, Rocky Mountain Field Institute, and Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics – joined with the US Forest Service to protect and preserve the state’s fourteeners through active stewardship and public education. Using an all-volunteer staff, the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative (CFI) has completed impact studies on all 54 fourteeners, identified the 35 most impacted peaks. Today, CFI is the nation’s leading high-altitude trail-building, terrain-restoration, and visitor-education organization. It has built 29 sustainably located, designed, and constructed summit routes on 26 peaks, with its work garnering honors and awards from Congress, the US Forest Service, the National Forest Foundation, and other organizations. If you’re interested in getting involved, volunteers are needed to carry out weekend field projects, become peak stewards and assist in other ways, including collecting wildflower seeds to revegetate trampled areas. For information, contact www.14ers.org.