Colorado fourteeners see record decline in visitors

New report cites limits on parking, reservation systems

BY PARKER YAMASAKI THE COLORADO SUN

Foot tra c on Colorado’s highest peaks tumbled 33% in 2022 from the record 415,000 hiker days logged in 2020.

e annual Hiking Use Estimates report by the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative recorded an estimated 279,000 hiker use days during the 2022 season. at’s about 24,000 fewer hikers than in 2021, which saw 303,000 hiker days, and a dramatic drop from 2020’s record of 415,000 hiker days. ough some ebbs and ows are expected in hiker data due to drought or snowpack, Lloyd Athearn, executive director of the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative, worries that the last year’s decrease is in part an overreaction to the high-tra c pandemic year.

For instance, in 2021, Clear Creek County posted “No Parking” signs along the road that people traditionally parked along to access Grays and Torreys peaks. And in 2022 a reservation system was in e ect for the full season on Quandary, the fourteener that has consistently topped the hiker use charts since recording began.

“It’s sort of curious to me. Just as we’re getting close to having almost every fourteener with some kind of intentional route on it — something we’ve been working on for decades, and that the state has spent millions of dollars on — now the communities are saying, ‘we don’t want people here,’” Athearn said. “It’s like we built an interstate highway and all of a sudden the towns start saying they’d rather people run out the county roads.” ough almost all of the fourteeners experienced a decline in tra c, the numbers and impact are not evenly dispersed. Overall, the state experienced an 8% decrease in tra c. is, in itself, is not particularly alarming. e pandemic year, when people got bored of fearing for their lives inside, created a high watermark of tra c. Even the double-digit decrease from 2020 to 2021 was something to be expected. e Mosquito Range and the Elk e most drastic decrease was on Quandary Peak, just south of Breckenridge, which saw roughly 13,000 fewer hiker days in 2022 than in 2021. Athearn speculated that a season-long reservation system and the introduction of a shuttle fee in 2022 drove down that number. e next steepest losses came from the Sawatch Range, west of Buena Vista, which hosted 11,500 fewer hiker days, followed by the San Juans at 10,000 fewer hiker days. e Front Range peaks, including some of the most accessible fourteeners like Grays and Torreys, Mount Evans, and Mount Bierstadt, lost about 3,000 hiker days, while the Sangre de Cristos rounded out the losses with 1,500 fewer hiker days.

Mountains are the only groups that did not see decreases. e Elks near Aspen — which consist of Castle Peak, Maroon Peak, North Maroon, Capitol Peak, Snowmass Mountain, Conundrum Peak, and Pyramid Peak — showed roughly the same number of hikers as last year, at 7,000. e Mosquito Range, just east of Leadville, actually increased its hiker count to almost double — to 32,000 in 2022 from 17,000 in 2021 — because of a two-month closure of Mount Lincoln, Mount Democrat and Mount Bross in 2021.

Athearn isn’t unsympathetic to the concerns of local communities.

In rural mountain towns, residents face the consequences of high visitor numbers— acutely felt in labor and housing prices — and a loss of the serenity that many moved there for in the rst place. Last month, a report by Montana’s Headwaters Economics outlined the paradoxical challenges of living in a mountain town so plentiful with natural features that its allure brings in crushing numbers of visitors and second-home owners, thereby degrading the quality of life for locals. e report called this type of town an “amenity trap.” ose fears carry over to natural spaces. e dialogue about “overloved” natural resources is wellfounded in Colorado, and many heavily tra cked areas have implemented strict permit systems to try to do some damage control.

What Athearn is wary of is the kneejerk reaction by local communities who see more people and immediately want to regulate rather than invest in better infrastructure.

SEE PEAKS, P39

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