Colorado Fourteeners Initiative has been studying hiking use on Colorado’s 14,000-foot peaks – the 14ers – using infrared trail counters since 2014. In 2016, CFI released its first-ever report on Fourteener hiking use and economic impact. This year, after four full seasons with 20+ thermal counters in the field, Colorado Fourteeners Initiative is releasing the fourth iteration of our report that estimates that Colorado’s 14ers experienced 288,000 hiker use days in 2019.
The number of people climbing a 14,000-foot peak in Colorado last year plunged by 18.4 percent due to the record snowpack in the spring of 2019. Lingering snowpack and avalanche debris-choked roads resulted in 65,000 fewer hiker days on Colorado’s 14ers last year as compared to the 2018 season (288,000 vs. 353,000).
This level of recreational use suggests a statewide economic impact of more than $78 million, based on past 14er-related expenditure studies performed by Colorado State University economists John Loomis and Catherine Keske. Their 2009 study found that climbers of Quandary Peak near Breckenridge spent an average of $271.17 per day for gasoline, food, lodging, equipment, and other retail purchases.
Snow-free trails in 2018 due to drought contrasted with lingering snowpack and avalanche debris in 2019. These factors contributed to a large swing in 14er use over the past two seasons. June hiking use last year was 55% below 2018 levels.
CFI’s most recent hiking use report culminates five seasons of data collection at up to 22 sites tracking use on up to 23 14er peaks across the state. (There were five counters in 2014, 10 counters in 2015, 20 counters in 2016-2017, and 22 counters in 2018-2019.) CFI’s hiking use projections are based on the combination of several data sources.
- CFI collected hour-by-hour data during the 2019 hiking season using TRAFx compact infrared trail counters that were placed at 19 locations adjacent to hiking trails servicing 20 Fourteener peaks.
- Hiking use projections for all other 14ers were based on crowdsourced “14er checklists” submitted to the 14ers.com website by more than 17,000 individual hikers. Estimates for peaks without trail counters were calculated using a trend line calculated by the relative frequency of reported hiking use on all peaks using data points as anchors for peaks that had counters in 2019.
- Trail counter used by the US Forest Service on Mount Bierstadt before it was stolen mid season.
In 2020, Matt Albritton, a Yale undergrad studying computer science and engineering, helped further refine CFI’s data modeling program that was originally developed in 2016. Matt cleaned and rewrote the program’s code and created an updated version using Python. The program helps fill in gaps in the data due to obscured counter sensors or periods in the early or late season when the counter is not in place. This model incorporates the week of the season, day of the week, holidays, and similar peaks with data to fill in missing data. See an example below of the predicted vs. measured data for one of the peaks.
CFI uses a multi-factor modeling program to predict hiking use levels when we do not have a counter on a given peak or when there are data gaps. The predicted 2019 use levels on Pikes Peak’s Barr Trail (red line) largely mirror what was observed by our counter (blue line). The primary exception was the Pikes Peak Ascent and Marathon held in August. These events would not have been anticipated by use on other Front Range trail counters that fed into the prediction.
CFI has long been interested in the amount of hiking use these popular peaks receive. Colorado’s 14ers are among the most sought-after mountain peaks in the country. They also possess some of the most fragile alpine landscapes. Hiking use is confined into a very short four-month climbing season when the mountains are largely free of snow.
Natural resource impacts in the fragile alpine tundra environment, stemming from the lack of properly designed and constructed summit trails on the 14ers, led to CFI’s founding back in 1994. Our “14er Report Card” released in 2015 showed the need for $24 million to build out and improve the summit trail network. Better understanding hiking use levels, dispersal over the climbing season, and changes over time are important factors in determining the link between hiking use and changing on-the-ground conditions of natural surface summit trails.
Special thanks goes out to CFI’s summer CLIMB interns Emily Barnes (2016), Nick Dahl (2018), and Matt Albritton (2020) who performed the analysis for these hiking use studies and assisted in placing and downloading trail counters.
Additional Links:
2018 14er Hiking Use Estimates